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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