CASPAR BRÖTZMANN MASSAKER – Koksofen
Southern Lord announces the next CASPAR BRÖTZMANN MASSAKER reissues in the ongoing series, continuing with Der Abend Der Schwarzen Folklore and Koksofen. The outfit will also be actively performing live this summer, including supporting Sunn O))) on tour in Europe.
CASPAR BRÖTZMANN is one of the most unique and innovative guitarists of the last forty years. With his Berlin-based trio MASSAKER, he evolved a whole new autonomous approach to writing rock songs, starting from sounds that were widely considered ornamental if not detrimental “sonic waste,” such as shrieking feedback and droning overtones. This plethora of sounds were arranged into tracks to sound like breaking concrete, grinding metal, or bursting glass, at once monumental and threatening, impenetrable, and hermetic, yet also archaically tender and loving.
Even today, as the art of noise has reached a level of sophistication that no one could have imagined thirty years ago, CASPAR BRÖTZMANN MASSAKER’s music is resoundingly singular. Ultra-heavy riffs and beats, ominous tribal chants, and a raw physical force is conjured up by these three sinister and proud minds of their era. Their unhinged, unified stream of energy is captured on these remastered reissues and the results are thrilling.
Both Der Abend Der Schwarzen Folklore and Koksofen will be reissued via Southern Lord on July 5th, with CD, LP, and digital formats made available.
Koksofen (which translates to “blast furnace”), originally released in 1993, has become one of MASSAKER’s most popular albums. Like its predecessor, Der Abend Der Schwarzen Folklore, the album took shape in MASSAKER’s rehearsal room below the Berlin subway station Schlesisches Tor, and was recorded at Conny Plank’s studio near Cologne, with Plank’s former associates Ingo Krauss and Bruno Gephard producing.
There’s a different kind of intensity to Koksofen. The features of MASSAKER’s sound are in full bloom. Mountainous noises tower up and crash down, and tormented sounds rise from ominously seething grounds, haunting the entire songscape. The feel of doom and dread hangs heavily over the five songs, and the title song rumbles, shrieks and wails, plagued by BRÖTZMANN’s guttural growls of war, suffering, and death.
Reflecting on the album to this day BRÖTZMANN remarks “Koksofen is still a mystery to me.” He continues, “I can still feel the troubled times in these songs.” The effects are certainly potent for the listener too. And the album undoubtedly affirms MASSAKER as the fiercely original and compellingly raw musicians that they are.