Siegmar Fricke – Commercial Breakdown EP [CMF003]

From home recorded tapes in the 90s to a newly released vinyl record in 2024, The Comfort presents their third release, Siegmar Fricke’s Commercial Breakdown. Back in the year 1990, the working method of Siegmar Fricke and his contemporaries was one best described as a DIY recording process. With spare tapes, glue, scissors, and sheer determination, Siegmar sought to share his music with an audience hungry for adventurous electronic music. In an era of limited access to labels and platforms, those not conforming to commercial trends had little choice. Thus, tapes like this one, dubbed simply as “home-recordings,” circulated among DJs and friends, embodying the playful experimentation of musicians exploring unconventional sounds and even dabbling with mainstream pop sounds.

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Siegmar Fricke – Commercial Breakdown EP [CMF003]

Siegmar Fricke – Time Compression EP [ILG005]

FRICKE, Siegmar - Time Compression EP

Siegmar Fricke has made a name for himself in the tape culture since 1981 – with a mixture of Musique-Concrète and Post-Industrial. As a former label owner of “Bestattungsinstitut” he released numerous works that went beyond EBM, Electro, Techno and Ambient. In the heyday of the netlabels he focused mainly on his own productions, which he then made available as free downloads. Since 2002 Siegmar has been active with clinical sound experiments under the pseudonym “Pharmakustik”. In 2005 he started his collaboration with Maurizio Bianchi from Milan, who has dedicated himself to “industrial decomposition” since 1979. For his Time Compression EP on Infoline, Siegmar Fricke has unearthed compositions from the period 1992-1994 and curated them anew. A phase in which he listened to the radio day and night and connected his sampler to the stereo to record material around the clock. He listened to many radio shows from England or Holland, which often broadcasted techno, trance and acid. At that time those sounds were new territory for him. He recorded inspiring sequences at first go, edited them and then let them flow into his own productions. The result was “future-pop collages mixed with sequencer-controlled trance and sampled voices”, to put it in the words of Siegmar Fricke.

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Siegmar Fricke – Time Compression EP [ILG005]

Siegmar Fricke – Kassettenjahre 1988-1993 LP [MM005]

Siegmar Fricke describes his music as ‘dynamic dancable collage-pop with a 90s technoid tendency’. The music on this release is made by Yamaha sampling- keyboards, Yamaha multieffects, synthesizers and 60s magnetic tape recorder, recorded on a four-track Tascam tape-machine. From 1987 – 1993 he produced twenty four cassette releases, some on his former label ‘Bestattungsinstitut’ and some on other tape-labels all around the globe. This vinyl is a fine selection of various tapes from 1988 – 1993 slightly edited for club use and remastered by Berlin’s masterchef Kitaro from Schnittstelle. Heavy underground dancematerial for the first time on vinyl. Comes with a strong extended dancefloor remix by Manfredas.

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Siegmar Fricke – Kassettenjahre 1988-1993 LP [MM005]