''Japandorf'' is a 2013 album by
Klaus Dinger
Klaus Dinger (24 March 1946 – 21 March 2008) was a German musician and songwriter most famous for his contributions to the seminal krautrock band Neu!. He was also the guitarist and chief songwriter of new wave group La Düsseldorf and brief ...
and several other musicians, released under the name "''Klaus Dinger + Japandorf''" by
Grönland Records
Grönland Records is a British–German independent record label founded in London, England, which relocated to Berlin in 2009. "Grönland" (German for Greenland) refers both to the country, the label's founder, Herbert Grönemeyer and the epo ...
. It was recorded in the year before Dinger's death on
Good Friday
Good Friday is a Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary. It is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum. It is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Great and Holy Friday (also Hol ...
2008 and is the only one of three albums made since 1998 to have been released. It was originally intended to be released as a
La Düsseldorf
La Düsseldorf was a German band, consisting of onetime Kraftwerk drummer and Neu! multi-instrumentalist Klaus Dinger and occasional Neu! collaborators Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe. La Düsseldorf was formed after Neu! disbanded following the rel ...
album, but this was blocked at the last minute by Hans Lampe, the band's original drummer.
Background and recording
In July 1998 Dinger disbanded
La! Neu? La! Neu? (stylized as ''la!'' NÊU?) were a German band founded by Klaus Dinger. After around 1985, Dinger had difficulty getting records released and distributed in Germany, but the Japanese record label Captain Trip Records signed him in 1994, set ...
after a
final concert in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...
. After the concert he was approached by a Japanese artist named Masaki Nakao, who had moved to Düsseldorf from
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
in 1989. Over the next ten years Nakao and Dinger became close friends, and in 1999 Nakao introduced Dinger to a group of Japanese musicians living in Düsseldorf. Dinger organised a "festival" at his
Zeeland
, nl, Ik worstel en kom boven("I struggle and emerge")
, anthem = "Zeeuws volkslied"("Zeelandic Anthem")
, image_map = Zeeland in the Netherlands.svg
, map_alt =
, m ...
studios for midsummer 1999, to which many of these Japanese musicians were invited (as well as a selection of Dinger's collaborators from 1966 onwards). Dinger was later to say that "Nakao opened the door to Japandorf".
Dinger's first acquaintance was Kazuyuki Onouchi, who had studied traditional Japanese painting at
Tama Art University
or is a private art university located in Tokyo, Japan. It is known as one of the top art schools in Japan.
History
The forerunner of Tamabi was Tama Imperial Art School (多摩帝国美術学校, Tama Teikoku Bijutsu Gakkō) founded in 1935 ...
. Onouchi was advised by his lecturer Noi Sawaragi to come to Düsseldorf if he wanted to pursue a career in music, which he subsequently did. Kazu's friend Miki Yui was also present at the Zeeland Festival. She was born in Tokyo, having moved to Düsseldorf in 1994 to pursue a career in
installation art
Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...
, particularly involving
ambient
Ambient or Ambiance or Ambience may refer to:
Music and sound
* Ambience (sound recording), also known as atmospheres or backgrounds
* Ambient music, a genre of music that puts an emphasis on tone and atmosphere
* ''Ambient'' (album), by Moby
* ...
sound recordings.
Dinger, Nakao, Yui and Onouchi worked together with Victoria Wehrmeister, Andreas Reihse (both of
La! Neu? La! Neu? (stylized as ''la!'' NÊU?) were a German band founded by Klaus Dinger. After around 1985, Dinger had difficulty getting records released and distributed in Germany, but the Japanese record label Captain Trip Records signed him in 1994, set ...
), Maki Umehara and Thea Djordjadze the following year on an album named as "''Pre-Japandorf''" and as yet unreleased. Recorded in tandem with this was a second album named "''Viva Remix''" (a remix of the
La Düsseldorf
La Düsseldorf was a German band, consisting of onetime Kraftwerk drummer and Neu! multi-instrumentalist Klaus Dinger and occasional Neu! collaborators Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe. La Düsseldorf was formed after Neu! disbanded following the rel ...
album
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...
) to which Dinger, Yui, Nakao and Onouchi contributed along with
Herbert Grönemeyer
Herbert Arthur Wiglev Clamor Grönemeyer (born 12 April 1956) is a German singer, musician, producer, composer and actor, popular in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Grönemeyer starred as war correspondent Lieutenant Werner in Wolfgang Pete ...
and Renate Dinger. Some time after the year 2000, Dinger and Miki Yui were married.
In 2001 Satoshi Okamoto - a keyboard player from
Kobe
Kobe ( , ; officially , ) is the capital city of Hyōgo Prefecture Japan. With a population around 1.5 million, Kobe is Japan's seventh-largest city and the third-largest port city after Tokyo and Yokohama. It is located in Kansai region, whic ...
who had previously worked with
J-Pop
J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1 ...
acts - came to Zeeland to join sessions for ''Viva Remix''. In the same year, Kazu helped Klaus to master the final
La! Neu? La! Neu? (stylized as ''la!'' NÊU?) were a German band founded by Klaus Dinger. After around 1985, Dinger had difficulty getting records released and distributed in Germany, but the Japanese record label Captain Trip Records signed him in 1994, set ...
album "''
Live at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf
''Live at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf'' is a double-disc live album by German band La! Neu? released in 2001, after the band had split up. It consists of a recording of their final concert, held at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf on 19 July 1998. Immediately a ...
''". ''Viva Remix'' was completed in 2003 and presented to various record labels without avail. The group returned to the studio to improve the album, but Dinger found it difficult to finance these sessions, having to sell much of his studio equipment. In the meantime, Onouchi and Okamoto began working together independently of the rest of the group, forming themselves into a band they named "sub-tle."
yphen and full-stop part of band name.
In the summer of 2007 the band travelled to Zeeland to work on a third album named "''Japandorf''". "Immermannstraße", "Udon" and "Spacemelo" (all songs which had developed over the previous eight years) were fully recorded during this period. Sessions continued in the spring of 2008, in which time "Cha Cha 2008", "Sketch No. 4", "Sketch No. 1_b" and finally "Karnival" were recorded. On 21 March 2008 (
Good Friday
Good Friday is a Christian holiday commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary. It is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum. It is also known as Holy Friday, Great Friday, Great and Holy Friday (also Hol ...
) Dinger died in his sleep after a sudden heart attack, having almost completed the album. His will left his estate to Miki Yui, and she set about completing the album, writing and recording her vocals to "Spacemelo" amongst other things.
In late 2008 Onouchi and Okamoto released their debut album as sub-tle. - "''pre_mary''" - on the Düsseldorf "Onpa)))))" label. Over the next three years Kazu and Miki mastered all three of the albums recorded since 1998, and Miki began to digitalise Dinger's video archive (also creating a new website: http://www.klausdinger.com/). In 2010 she collaborated with Michael Rother in the re-release of
Neu! 4
''Neu! 4'' is the fourth and final studio album by krautrock band Neu!, released in October 1995. It was revised and re-released as ''Neu '86'' in 2010.
Recording
''Neu! 4'' was recorded and mixed between October 1985 and April 1986 at ...
and the
Neu! Vinyl Box
''Neu! Vinyl Box'' is a compilation box set by the German band Neu!, formed by Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother. Released in 2010 on vinyl, digital download and promotional CD; it consists of the group's three 1970s studio albums (''Neu!'', ''Neu! 2 ...
. In 2012, a photo-book covering Dinger's life was published by Slowboy, , and an associated exhibition held in Düsseldorf. On 25 March 2013 ''Japandorf'' was released by Grönland Records. Initial press shots of the album artwork show the
La Düsseldorf
La Düsseldorf was a German band, consisting of onetime Kraftwerk drummer and Neu! multi-instrumentalist Klaus Dinger and occasional Neu! collaborators Thomas Dinger and Hans Lampe. La Düsseldorf was formed after Neu! disbanded following the rel ...
logo in place of the "Klaus Dinger + Japandorf" sticker, but this was blocked by Hans Lampe, the only surviving member of the original La Düsseldorf.
Content
"Immermannstraße" is named for a street in Düsseldorf's Japanese town which Dinger was introduced to by Kazu and Miki soon after meeting them. The vocals on the song are by Masaki Nakao - it was released as the first YouTube 'single' in advance of the album. "Domou Arigatou" (Japanese for "thank-you very much") was recorded by Miki Yui in a Japanese bookshop on Immermannstraße. "Sketch 1_b" is a jam between Kazu and Klaus recorded in 2008, an early version of which was included on the 2009 compilation/Grönland sampler "''Brand NEU!''" under the name "Sketch 1_08". Onouchi's synthesizer is noticeably less prominent in the ''Brand NEU!'' version than the ''Japandorf'' version.
"Udon" is named after a
Japanese noodle soup, which Nakao cooked when he joined sessions in Zeeland for "Viva Remix" in 2000. After eating the meal and drinking tequila around the outside campfire, the band returned to the studio where Klaus picked up a guitar and began playing a riff, announcing into the microphone "now Nakao will tell us how to cook udon".
Nakao sung the lyrics to "Udon" without any prior preparation, and with a few alterations this is how the song appears on the album. "Kittelback Symphony" is named after
Kittelbach, a small river in
Unterrath where Dinger grew up.
"Cha Cha 2008" is a cover version of La Düsseldorf's song "
Cha Cha 2000", which emerged spontaneously from a jamming session between Kazu and Klaus in 2008, later being overdubbed with vocals and synthesizer. It was the last time Dinger would ever perform the song. "Ai" is a spoken word description of the Japanese word for love, whilst "Sketch No. 4" is another jam between Onouchi and Dinger.
"Spacemelo" originated in a melody Miki Yui wrote for a track of the same on her album "''Magina''" (released 2010). Dinger played it "upside down (kind of backwards)"
on guitar, and built a song around it. Miki Yui wrote and recorded the vocal part after Dinger's death; the song functions as an homage to Dinger. "Karnival" was recorded in February 2008 at the time of the
Düsseldorf carnival, to which it refers. "Osenbe" was recorded outside at Zeeland near the campfire, with Nakao and Yui providing vocals over Dinger's acoustic guitar before collapsing into laughter. The final track - "Andreaskirche" - is a recording of church bells at a church in Düsseldorf.
Reception
The album was positively received by most, with Phil Newall of ''Louder than War'' calling it "a fitting tribute to Klaus Dinger and a suitable closure for the entire La Dusseldorf project".
A review on
Julian Cope
Julian David Cope (born 21 October 1957) is an English musician and author. He was the singer and songwriter in Liverpool post-punk band the Teardrop Explodes and has followed a solo career since 1983 in addition to working on musical side proj ...
's Head Heritage website describes "Sketch No. 4" as follows—
The album was the best selling record on Grönland for several weeks after its release.
Track listing
# "Immermannstraße" - 2:35
(Klaus Dinger, Masaki Nakao, Satoshi Okamoto, Kazuyuki Onouchi, Miki Yui)
# "Doumo Arigatou" - 0:36
(Yui)
# "Sketch No. 1_b" - 4:46
(Dinger, Onouchi)
# "Udon" - 5:10
(Dinger, Nakao, Okamoto, Onouchi)
# "Kittelbach Symphony" - 5:26
(Dinger, Okamoto, Onouchi)
# "CHA CHA 2008" - 12:36
(Dinger)
# "Ai" - 0:12
(Dinger)
# "Sketch No. 4" - 10:10
(Dinger, Onouchi)
# "Spacemelo" - 5:36
(Dinger, Okamoto, Onouchi, Yui)
# "Karnival" - 4:11
(Dinger, Onouchi)
# "Osenbe" - 3:00
(Dinger)
# "Andreaskirche" - 0:32
(Yui)
Personnel
Japandorf
* Klaus Dinger - bass, (tr. 1, 4, 5, 9 & 10), guitar (tr. 1, 3-6 & 8-11), vocals (tr. 6, 7 & 10)
* Masaki Nakao - percussion (tr. 5), vocals (tr. 1, 4 & 11)
* Satoshi Okamoto - keyboard (tr. 1 & 9), piano (tr. 4 & 5)
* Kazuyuki Onouchi - bass (tr. 8), drums (tr. 1, 3-6 & 8-10), engineering, mixing, synthesizer (tr. 3 & 6)
* Miki Yui - artwork, percussion (tr. 5), recording (tr. 2 & 12), synthesizer (tr. 6), vocals (tr. 1, 4, 6, 9 & 11)
Non-musicians
* Kai Blankenberg - mastering
* Walter Schönauer - artwork
Filmography
* 2019: ''
Romantic Warriors IV: Krautrock'' (DVD)
References
{{Authority control
2013 albums
Klaus Dinger albums
Albums published posthumously