Swiss Wave

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Swiss Wave is the name for the Swiss variant of New Wave , which developed from 1976 onwards as part of the punk and post-punk / new wave movement. Swiss Wave reached its artistic peak in the early 1980s. Individual bands, such as B. Kleenex / Liliput , Grauzone , Yello or The Young Gods , received great international attention.

history

Concept emergence

The term "Swiss Wave" can be traced back to the success of the first Kleenex single in Great Britain in 1978. In a roundabout way, the EP got to John Peel in London , who played the songs in his radio show and called the idiosyncratic music style, based on New Wave , Swiss Wave. The term thus became a synonym for bands and music that emerged as part of the Swiss punk and new wave movement. In 1980, the Zurich Off Course label released a vinyl sampler called Swiss Wave - the album.

Swiss Wave 1976 to 1985

With the emergence of the punk and new wave movement in New York and London in the mid-1970s, an independent scene developed in Switzerland from 1976. At that time there was not a big distinction between punk and new wave. The division into different sub-scenes took place in the early 1980s in parallel with developments in Great Britain. While individual Swiss punk bands like Nasal Boys are more musically committed to the fast, aggressive rock of Sex Pistols & Co, other bands have developed their own style of music that can best be assigned to the New Wave. Early representatives of the Swiss Wave were Kleenex, Troppo, Yello and Taxi.

Troppo made their debut in December 1976 in the Rote Fabrik in Zurich with an avant-garde dandy rock based on models such as Roxy Music and Pere Ubu . Troppo mutated into Maloo in 1979 and Double in 1983 , which landed a world hit in 1985 with The Captain of Her Heart .

The Zurich group Taxi was founded especially for recordings in March / April 1977. The album that was made at that time went unnoticed for years until the song Campari Soda caught on in the 1980s , initially as an insider tip, later as a real radio hit - and in 2006 as a soundtrack for a commercial. The two members Dominique Grandjean and Martin Walder then founded the Hertz group in the summer of 1977. Diedrich Diederichsen wrote about this in Sounds about their first LP in 1982: Hertz is an independent, consistent Swiss pop band. They are neither slavishly devoted to Anglo-American role models, nor are they gnawed by any obtrusive pubescent lifestyle. ... Hertz are a sign for me that a development is emerging in Switzerland to replace the omnipresent New Music pathos with good melodies and cautious cartographic texts, without coming even remotely close to the new German silliness.

Kleenex , alongside the English bands Slits and Raincoats, one of the first three women's bands of the punk era, released a single / EP with four songs in November 1978. The original mix of art school, glamor and punk noise managed to inspire John Peel and other music critics and it became the first Swiss Wave export hit. As a result, Kleenex landed a record deal with Rough Trade and the re-release of the EP hit the UK charts.

In the same year 1979 the artist Dieter Meier released a single called cry for fame, whereby the fame with the band Yello formed in the same year should set a few years later. With the second Maxi Bostich , released in 1981 on the residents label Ralph Records, Yello celebrated their first international club and radio hit.

Swiss Wave was not a homogeneous style of music, but was very diverse. Accordingly, different styles emerged, analogous to developments in other countries. The sampler Swiss Wave - The Album , published in 1980 by the Off Course Records label, contains, along with six other bands and their songs, the track Eisbär by the Bernese band Grauzone . With this NDW hit, the group made it into the Austrian and German charts.

Developed in the early 1980s, mostly as a result of the musical development of individual bands or bands. Musicians, other groups belonging to the Swiss Wave resp. New Wave can be assigned. So z. B.

  • Blue China, a band around the singer, guitarist and songwriter Rudolph Dietrich (1976 founding member of the Nasal Boys). In November 1981 the Zurich band's first single Visitors Never Come Alone was released. A piece that openly expressed sadness, sounded solemn and had a slow rhythm.
  • mittageisen , a group from Lucerne, developed their own, rather gloomy style of music from 1981, which - due to the not yet existing term dark wave - was referred to in a German fanzine as depro-punk . In January 1985 Mittageisen released the maxi single automaten , with an electro sound that was new for the time. The single found its way into the legendary John Peel Show on BBC Radio 1 and became an indie disco hit.
  • The Vyllies , consisting of three women from Lausanne, recorded their first five pieces in December 1983 and released them as a mini-album. The piece Whispers in the Shadow in particular achieved greater awareness. The Vyllies were u. a. as opening act for Minimal Compact , Anne Clark , Sex Gang Children and The Gun Club resp. Listen.
  • The Young Gods were created in 1985 and with their then revolutionary sampler sound became pioneers of industrial rock . The cover version of Gary Glitter's Did You Miss Me was released in May 1987 on the English Mute label . The debut album combines heavy heavy metal guitar samples with melodies in French chanson style. The English music press was enthusiastic and Melody Maker named the record "Album of the Year".

An important part of Swiss Wave at this time was its connection to the visual arts. Klaudia Schifferle (Kleenex) and Dieter Meier (Yello) were / are active as artists themselves. In addition, artists were active in the new wave scene in various forms. So designed z. For example, the now well-known artist duo Fischli / Weiss created the covers of the first Kleenex single and the first Hertz LP.

The individual bands were style-defining and still influence the various styles of current music to this day. Many of the musicians of the time ended their careers, only a few music projects survived.

Bands and musicians

Discography (scrapbooks)

  • 2001: 2CD Definitiv 1 - Zurich 1976–1986, RecRec Medien
  • 2001: CD Swiss Kult-Hits Vol. 2, CSR Records
  • 1999: CD Swiss Kult-Hits Vol. 1, CSR Records
  • 1986: 2LP Definitiv - Zurich 1976 to 1986, RecRec
  • 1980: LP Swiss Wave - the album, Off Course

literature

  • Paul Ott, Hollow Skai (ed.): We were HELDEN for a day - from German-language fanzines 1977–1981 . Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, Reinbek near Hamburg 1983, ISBN 3-499-17682-3 .
  • Marlene Marder : Kleenex, Liliput . Neighbor of the World Verlag, Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-907500-05-9 .
  • Lurker Grand (Ed.): Hot Love - Swiss Punk & Wave 1976–1980 . Edition Patrick Frey, Zurich 2006, ISBN 3-905509-62-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Diedrich Diederichsen: 2000 records 1979–1999. Höfen, Hannibal Verlag 2000, ISBN 3-85445-175-X , approx. 300 pages