stephan eicher spielt noise boys: s/t

This is one of the most essential minimal synth wave projects, originally issued in 1980. After that, Stephan Eicher would form the band Grauzone. As a child, particularly with his little brother Martin, Stephan used a multi-track ("made in Eicher"  by connecting several cassette machines together) to record little audio theater pieces. He would later organize Dada happenings and concerts, together with a small group of friends who called themselves the Noise Boys. In addition to Stephan on guitar and his girlfriend Sacha on vocals, the band included one of his art professors on bass, and Veit Stauffer on drums (later to found Recommended Records). One of their first performances featured a remote-controlled mouse covered with (dulled)  razor blades, which they launched into the audience, creating panic and chaos. Continuing in the same aggressive, violent posture, they put on concerts. To maximize the cacophony, they listened to Tristan And Isolde on headphones while trying to play other music, with the objective of literally driving away the audience. Their songs, if the word can be applied, are in the same spirit: "Hungriges Afrika" is played exclusively with electric drills, with some drum feedback added. Stephan found two synthesizer keyboards (Roland Promars and Korg MS20), and a sublime Roland CR78 beat box that he put through a Big Muff distortion pedal to get a wonderfully dirty sound. With this equipment, he tried reproducing some Noise Boys songs, according to his frenzied imagination, and recorded them on a dictaphone. He gave the cassette of that improvised session the ironic title of Stephan Eicher Spielt Noise Boys. That cassette contains 7 songs, which are reissued on this record.