Friday, September 14, 2007  9:00 am 

Charisma is between 8 and 17, phew - i’m an Elf.

Quite how Chrisma (later Krisma, erm why??) came across their 80s German sound is anyone’s guess but it seems likely they jumped every band wagon, and tried every scene in musical history at one time or another. Most of it you would rather listen to a George W speech than, but for some very very odd and unexplainable reason 20jfg got the big love for a few of these time traveling lycanthropes tracks.

From supporting the Beatles as part of the Italian beat movement to becoming a cut down Bucks Fizz/Dollar doesn’t seem a good starting point for any act –and lets set it straight – Chrisma is an act, not a band.

Whether it was working with Vangelis and his brother Nico that gave them the over-serious edge of just copious amounts of cocaine and bad taste, we love them for it.

In the late 70s they managed to produce the blatantly ridiculous cliche full b side ‘Black Silk Stockings’ which defies all common sense to be amazing. The shockingly bad a-side and minor hit Lola still gets played on Radio 2 for your Dad to sing along, but it’s the b-side that’s worthy of inserting myringotomy tubes.

Black Silk Stockings seem to capture the spirit of Suicide, and a guitar like straight from the Helios Creed school of sounds.

Christina Moser sings with the deadpan of a barely conscious Nico and the swagger of Amanda Lear, combining in a sexy punk rock version of The Normal.

Chrisma - Black silk stockings

This is back before manufactured pop, predating even Trevor Horn’s dalliances or Trio’s VL-tone masterpiece.

At the time of moving to London from Maurizio Arcieri’s dress sense in this video they must have had an interest in what was going on their with punk, and did many dodgy things including cutting his finger off on stage, oh those Italians.

The proto New Wave of Gott Gott Electron shows them shifting genre again as soon as punk lost its selling power.

The 1979 euro-art erotic video for Aurora B, with its depiction of sex on the underground and suicide should clearly have been a hit on late night MTV only a few years later, but instead you got the 10cc/Godley and Cream directed sub-page 3 style titillation Nite version of Girls on Film.

By the time of the 1980 hit Many Kisses it was more like bad Silicon Teens with Hazel Dean, which as anyone knows who’s been forced to watch Breaking Glass is a legitimate reason for euthanasia.

Let’s not end on the bad points though.

Here is the almost motorik ambience of their perhaps most unexpected classic C-Rock, full of a left over feel when Maurizio worked with Brian Eno who probably lent him some Neu! Or Harmonia.

Chrisma - C-rock

Talking of Kosmische types, Cluster have done a remix of Alexis Georgopoulos’s new moniker, Arp.

Alexis has already won a place in our, and many an XXJFG readers hearts with wonderdrums band Tussle, still one of our favorite live shows we have ever seen. The Arp project sees him take off in a very different direction from Tussle, but don’t be scared! The direction is somewhere near 1970s experimental German music.

Fireflies on the water merges dissonant detuned analogue, rubbing against each other to produce a warm glow in the listener, and also seems to involve a kettle boiling.

Arp - Fireflies On The Water

Arp seems super busy at the moment working on mixes for Charlotte Gainsbourg, Touring with Sunbured Hand of Man and having just produced a our pick of the mix of Lindstrom’s Breakfast in Heaven which you can hear of the Feedelity Myspace.

The Arp debut album In Light is released on label of the week it would seem Smalltown Supersound and is a promising start that shows a great deal of potential. Delicate and beautiful repetition is the order of the day across the album of alien landscape soundscapes the BBC Radiophonic Workshop would have been proud of.

Have a good weekend everyone, and if your in town on Saturday Night :

20jfg
At the Freebutt

Shoreham Airshow on Sunday too! tally ho, and chocks away….

labels >> 20jfg, kosmiche, krisma