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5CD BOX
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TR 405CD
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The 39 Clocks are one of the most magnificent bands ever to have emerged from Germany; Diedrich Diederichsen, German pop boffin, considers them to be the nation's best band of the 1980s. The legendary duo from Hanover broke every rule in the music business, without exception. And -- above all -- with attitude. They are elusive, incapable of being categorized, unless the category is a little bit weird. Their real names have been eradicated ("never had one" -- Clocks), replaced by cryptic initials (CH-39, JG-39), less than randomly reminiscent of molecular chains like LSD-25. The weirdness is reflected in their music: sizzling irradiated, repetitive. The outrageous rumors surrounding the duo are the stuff of legend: strung-out live performances with vacuum cleaners instead of guitars, frequently facing a throng of concertgoers with a tendency to boo, flee the venue or threaten them with physical violence. The Clocks project really began to take shape in 1979 when they turned away from punk and created "psycho beat", positioning themselves as the antithesis of the emerging NDW/German New Wave movement. Their music is a futuristic, definitively urban, evolution of American garage punk from the 1960s. Their stylistic modus operandi: expressionless voice, English lyrics with an intentionally heavy German accent, dirty sound, cool monochrome image. Those lacking in imagination might identify touches of the Velvet Underground and stop right there, but many other influences were also at work: from Salvador Dali via the Troggs, Suicide, Peter Handke's Offending The Audience (1966), Antoine to Tiny Tim, Kurt Schwitters, Can, and NEU! The Clocks themselves spoke of "at least 123" sources of inspiration. In early 1980s Germany, the 39 Clocks were, at one and the same time, a panoply of discernible influences and a singular phenomenon with a clear, inimitable sonic identity. Time and again, the 39 Clocks succeeded in pushing back the borders of experimentation a little further: barely tolerable, protracted live improvisations, atonal passages, background noises, extreme lo-fi and a tinny beatbox test the listener's receptivity to the limit. And their sonic experiments popped up in various film soundtracks and on television series, like Halt and Catch Fire in the US. The Next Dimension Transfer box set, authorized by the band, provides the ultimate overview of the Clocks' output -- a phantom of the German music underground, enshrouded in myth.
Available as a five-CD box set or a five-LP box set. Includes two regular studio albums: Pain It Dark (1981) and Subnarcotic (1982); two collections of outtakes, leftovers, and rarities (one of them renamed, edited, and updated by The 39 Clocks exclusively for this box set), plus, a previously unreleased live LP from 1981. Also includes comprehensive deluxe booklet (titled "Revelations") featuring mind-blowing new trivia and secrets; Booklet included with five-CD box set is 44-pages.
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5LP BOX
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TR 405LP
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Five-LP box set version. Includes 28-page booklet. The 39 Clocks are one of the most magnificent bands ever to have emerged from Germany; Diedrich Diederichsen, German pop boffin, considers them to be the nation's best band of the 1980s. The legendary duo from Hanover broke every rule in the music business, without exception. And -- above all -- with attitude. They are elusive, incapable of being categorized, unless the category is a little bit weird. Their real names have been eradicated ("never had one" -- Clocks), replaced by cryptic initials (CH-39, JG-39), less than randomly reminiscent of molecular chains like LSD-25. The weirdness is reflected in their music: sizzling irradiated, repetitive. The outrageous rumors surrounding the duo are the stuff of legend: strung-out live performances with vacuum cleaners instead of guitars, frequently facing a throng of concertgoers with a tendency to boo, flee the venue or threaten them with physical violence. The Clocks project really began to take shape in 1979 when they turned away from punk and created "psycho beat", positioning themselves as the antithesis of the emerging NDW/German New Wave movement. Their music is a futuristic, definitively urban, evolution of American garage punk from the 1960s. Their stylistic modus operandi: expressionless voice, English lyrics with an intentionally heavy German accent, dirty sound, cool monochrome image. Those lacking in imagination might identify touches of the Velvet Underground and stop right there, but many other influences were also at work: from Salvador Dali via the Troggs, Suicide, Peter Handke's Offending The Audience (1966), Antoine to Tiny Tim, Kurt Schwitters, Can, and NEU! The Clocks themselves spoke of "at least 123" sources of inspiration. In early 1980s Germany, the 39 Clocks were, at one and the same time, a panoply of discernible influences and a singular phenomenon with a clear, inimitable sonic identity. Time and again, the 39 Clocks succeeded in pushing back the borders of experimentation a little further: barely tolerable, protracted live improvisations, atonal passages, background noises, extreme lo-fi and a tinny beatbox test the listener's receptivity to the limit. And their sonic experiments popped up in various film soundtracks and on television series, like Halt and Catch Fire in the US. The Next Dimension Transfer box set, authorized by the band, provides the ultimate overview of the Clocks' output -- a phantom of the German music underground, enshrouded in myth.
Available as a five-CD box set or a five-LP box set. Includes two regular studio albums: Pain It Dark (1981) and Subnarcotic (1982); two collections of outtakes, leftovers, and rarities (one of them renamed, edited, and updated by The 39 Clocks exclusively for this box set), plus, a previously unreleased live LP from 1981. Also includes comprehensive deluxe booklet (titled "Revelations") featuring mind-blowing new trivia and secrets.
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CD
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BB 095CD
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Retrospectively, one could impute Hanover of the late 1970s and early 1980s with the glamorous tristesse normally associated with places like Manchester. But it was probably just dull and nothing more. It was here that the band 39 Clocks came into existence, earning the greatest compliment one could possibly pay them: they were a foreign body. Everything about this band must have unnerved their contemporaries: The 39 Clocks did not sing in German. This, at a moment when, for the first time since the end of the Second World War, it was possible to hang a "cool" tag on the German language. Think Neue Deutsche Welle (German New Wave). Commercial suicide. And the Clocks looked like no one else: grainy black and white photographs reveal two thin men dressed in factory issue black. Wearing sunglasses, they are only dimly recognizable. Elusive and impossible to categorize: a little bit weird. Fittingly, they discarded their names and classified themselves as machines: J.G.39 and C.H.39. A sense of the unreal pervaded their music: sizzling, trippy, repetitive. Allusions to late 1960s psychedelia, to Can, are on the money. Subnarcotic is the second 39 Clocks album. It still has the capacity to unsettle, it still sounds strange. The conscious (or perhaps unconscious) refusal to flex their muscles, to feel the groove, would be echoed by many lo-fi bands a decade later, but few would match their radical modus operandi. The 39 Clocks brought together what did not belong together: noise and fragility, '60s garage punk and synthesizers. Manic, chaotic and yet: pop music. In England they would have been welcomed with open arms by the likes of Rough Trade or Factory. In Germany, however, reactions were extremely different. Mastered from the original tapes; better sound quality than the original. Includes a previously-unreleased bonus track.
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CD
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BB 025CD
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The Bureau B label reissues the first album by Hannover, Germany duo 39 Clocks, originally released in 1981 by No Fun Records. Many a wild tale has enriched the history of 39 Clocks. For example, the time they went on stage with vacuum cleaners and circular saws instead of guitars, the LSD inside their heads having erased all memory of how to play their songs. Or the time when they were expelled from the Documenta, because Joseph Beuys was aggravated by their music. Then there was the angry member of the audience who attacked one of the band members with a knife on stage. Not forgetting the concert in a cavernous aircraft hangar where the amps were turned up so loud that by the end of the show, not a single spectator was left. Sounds music magazine duly confirmed it the "Concert of the Month." The great thing is that every one of these stories is true. Christian Henjes (aka C.H. 39) and Jürgen Gleue (aka J.G. 39) as 39 Clocks were one of the most provocative bands Germany has ever produced; pop scholar Diedrich Diederichsen described them as the best German band of the '80s. The Clocks took shape in 1979, turning their backs on punk and inventing "Psycho Beat," the self-styled counterpoint to the burgeoning German new wave scene, the NDW. Their music can be seen as a futuristic, definitively urban, German form of U.S. '60s garage punk, with a referential nod to New York's Suicide and The Velvet Underground -- sparse and gritty garage chord progressions, hypnotic rhythms (invariably emanating from the beatbox) and deadpan English lyrics delivered with the heaviest of German accents. The 39 Clocks pushed back the borders of experimentation with their barely-tolerable live improvisation and atonal meanderings, lower than lo-fi, with a tinny beatbox that tested the resilience of their listeners to the full. Despite some shaky success, geographical and mental shifts brought about their eventual split in 1983. This CD reissue contains a previously-unreleased bonus track and a 12-page booklet illustrated with a wealth of rare photos featuring liner notes by ZickZack record label founder Alfred Hilsberg.
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