Mindy Kumbalek

Mindy Kumbalek (* in Oshkosh , Wisconsin ), real name : Melinda Mary Kumbalek , is a former musician of American origin. She became known as the keyboard player and saxophonist in the band Goethes Erben , which she joined in 1991 and which she supported compositionally until she left in 2007.

Life

Kumbalek was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. There she grew up with her three siblings and went to Oshkosh North High School. At the age of 9 she discovered her passion for music and soon gained her first experience with different instruments (saxophone, drums, guitar). In 1989 she finished school.

At the age of 17 she moved to Germany and initially lived in Kitzingen in northern Bavaria , where her mother had worked for several years on a US military base. As a regular at the scene club Etage , Kumbalek met Oswald Henke and later moved to the vicinity of Bayreuth , where both shared a flat-share.

In February 1991, Kumbalek became, alongside Oswald Henke, an equal member of the formation of Goethes Erben after his former colleague Peter Seipt had left the band. She taught herself to play the keyboard by herself, had also acquired knowledge of playing the saxophone and tried herself as a percussionist . From then on, Henke and Kumbalek formed the basic cast of the project, the artistic concept of which they each described as “music theater” (live) or “radio play” (on sound carrier).

On the no man's land tour with Goethe's heirs in March 1993, Kumbalek made the decision to realize his own ideas under the name Still Silent . Initially planned as a purely occasional project, a first piece - Shadow - appeared on the compilation Zwei Welten in 1994 . Rose Bihler-Shah ( Sarband ) acted as the singer . In the same year, TV God was followed by another song on the compilation Paranoise Volume 1 . It is a collaboration with guest singer Eric Burton (Catastrophe Ballet). The recordings for the first album soon began, at times under the working title Nightmares .

As a result, Kumbalek released two albums, Sick World (1996) and Sweet Hallucinations of a Distant World (1998), for which she collaborated with numerous guest musicians, u. a. with Peter Spilles ( Project Pitchfork ), Eric Burton and Wolfram Nestroy (Catastrophe Ballet), Christian Komorowski ( Deine Lakaien ), Rodney Orpheus ( The Cassandra Complex ), Volker Zacharias ( Girls Under Glass ) and Christian Wolz and repeatedly with Rose Bihler-Shah (Sarband, Vox).

The greatest success of their project was the song Shockwaved , which found its way on numerous compilations. Peter Spilles and Wolfram 'Troy' Nestroy developed the musical basis for this. Shockwaved - originally in English - was set to music by Goethe's heirs in 2001 under the title Nothing remains as it was .

In addition, Kumbalek was involved in various projects in the alternative scene, cooperated with Christian Dörge ( Heldentor ) and wrote several lyrics, including a. for Wolfsheim ( Spectators ) and Girls Under Glass ( Minddiver ). She was also involved in the Schiller feat. Heppner ( Dream of You ) took part and wrote the English liner notes for the Helium-Vola debut.

Another artist project under the name Mad Musical Memories , which was scheduled for 1997 and for which poems by the poet Stephen Crane had been translated into German, has remained unpublished to this day.

Kumbalek left Goethe's heirs after the work in between . The split was announced in December 2007. She now lives in Berlin (where she moved to 1998) and Ísafjörður , Iceland , and has been working as a translator since the late 1990s. She is also the managing director of Media Lingua Translations GmbH , a translation agency based in Berlin.

Discography

With Goethe's heirs

• 1992: Dying is aesthetically colorful (CD)
• 1992: The Dream of Memory (CD)
• 1993: The Brut (EP)
• 1993: Life in No Man's Land (live recording from June 10, 1993 in the incident , Bochum) (CD)
• 1994: Dead Eyes See Life (CD)
• 1994: A moment of calm (on the compilation Zwischenfall - From the 80's to the 90’s ) (DCD)
• 1995: That, that, that (EP)
• 1995: Die Form (R-Remix) (on the compilation Spark in the Dark ) (DCD)
• 1995: Goethes Erben ("Das Blaue Album", sometimes just titled "Blau") (CD)
• 1997: Chess is not life (CD)
• 1997: Seat of Grace (MCD)
• 1998: Marionettes (MCD)
• 1999: entitled to violence? (Re-release of "The Brut" and "Seat of Grace") (CD)
• 1999: Condition: Power! - The musical work (CD)
• 2001: Glasgarten ( feat.Peter Heppner ) (MCD)
• 2001: Nothing stays as it was (CD)
• 2001: The Ice Storm (MCD)
• 2003: Physical (DVD + CD)
• 2005: Nightmare Studio (CDS)
• 2005: In between (CD)
• 2006: Days of Water (EP)

With Still Silent

• 1994: Shadow [on the compilation Zwei Welten ] (CD)
• 1994: TV God [exclusive version of the piece on the compilation Paranoise Volume 1 ] (CD)
• 1996: Sick World (CD)
• 1998: Sweet Hallucinations of a Distant World (CD)

Translations (selection)

• Ralph Tegtmeier (Frater UD): High Magic. Theory & Practice , Llewellyn's, St. Paul, Minnesota 2005, ISBN 978-0-7387-0471-5
• Ralph Tegtmeier (Frater UD): High Magic II: Expanded Theory and Practice , Llewellyn's, St. Paul, Minnesota 2008, ISBN 978-0-7387-1063-1
• Ralph Tegtmeier (Frater UD): Where Do Demons Live? Everything You Want to Know About Magic , Llewellyn's, St. Paul, Minnesota 2010, ISBN 978-0-7387-1479-0
• Ralph Tegtmeier (Frater UD): Money Magic: Mastering Prosperity in Its True Element , Llewellyn's, St. Paul, Minnesota 2011, ISBN 978-0-7387-2127-9
• Hagen von Tulien, Felix Wolf: Listening to the Voice of Silence. A Contemporary Perspective on the Fraternitas Saturni , 2015

Web links

• Mindy Kumbalek at Discogs (English)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Robert Rosowski, Michaela Böttcher: Interview with Still Silent. In: Entry Musimagazin , June / July 1996 issue, p. 21.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Thomas Manegold : 10 years of Goethe's heirs. In: Orkus Musikmagazin , issue 12/98, December 1998, p. 111.
3. ↑ https://de.findagrave.com/memorial/186438855/marilyn-kay-kumbalek
4. ↑ ^{a b} Olli Faul: Goethe's heirs. In: Paraneuja , issue 4, spring 1993; Article on the Goethes Erben website .
5. ↑ Svenjoy: Interview with Goethe's heirs. In: Zillo Musikmagazin , issue 4/92, April 1992, p. 38.
6. ↑ Diethard Tauschel, Sandra Teschke, Oliver Köble: A mirror of souls - Interview with Goethe's heirs. In: Glasnost Wave magazine. Issue 31, January / February 1992, p. 22.
7. ↑ Olli Faul: Still Silent. Daydreams, romance, and audible feelings. In: Paraneuja , Edition 8, 1994, p. 33.
8. ^ Robert Rosowski, Michaela Böttcher: Interview with Still Silent. In: Entry Musimagazin , June / July 1996 issue, p. 22.
9. ^ Rüdiger Freund: Interview with Still Silent. In: Zillo Musikmagazin , issue 3/97, March 1997, p. 48.
10. ↑ Peter Matzke, Tobias Seeliger: Still Silent. In: The Gothic and Dark Wave Lexicon , Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-89602-522-8 , p. 521.
11. ↑ Thomas Manegold: Still Silent. Mindy Kumbalek between art and pure pop music. In: Orkus Musikmagazin , issue 12/96, December 1996, p. 21.
12. ↑ Tadeusz: Interview with Still Silent , In: Bodystyler Musikmagazin , Issue 27, January / February 1999, p. 34.
13. ^ Goethes-Erben-Homepage: News of January 9th, 2008 ( Memento of April 15th, 2008 in the Internet Archive )