Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Rarely Heard: Laughing Hands - Seven



I had heard the Laughing Hands for the very first time on the Bavarian radio show 'Zündfunk' in 1981. It was a fascinating and weird piece of electronica, I'd say it was like the Residents playimg a Kraftwerk song, and the listener was informed it was by an obscure Autralian band named Laughing Hands. That's 30 years ago, and I've been searching for that band ever since. In those days it was really not easy to get the music you were searching for. There was no internet, you lived in a provincial Bavarian town with record stores who hardly sold truly independent music, even in Munich the specialty stores didn't sell 'everything', the same goes for mail order companies. I never came across that Laughing Hands album. Stupidly I did come across a cd by a band of the same name and bought it, I guess it was the mid 90s, but unfortunately that was a nice, but otherwise not particularly world music combo from Denver, Colorado (who are still active, it seems). Over the years I was tremendously successful: I found out that there is a Japanese cd compiling both albums of the original Laughing Hands and I ordered it. And even better: that one title that has been lingering in my head since 1981 was on Youtube - but has been deleted since! More information was to be found as well: Laughing Hands were the first band of the Australian electronic composer Paul Schütze, a legend ever since, who has produced quite a few remarkable music ever since. So this is another artist I'll be looking into more in the near future.

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