NEW LP
Neat Neat Neat Records
Abwärts may not be a name you recognize, but it's a name that holds with it a certain musical integrity that only comes around when creative tread has been worn this down after decades. Abwärts, which translates to "Downwards" in German, is the name of a West German post-punk band that formed in 1979, just as the post-punk movement was gaining ground. They began as a scrappy punk rock outfit started by Mark Chung and FM Einheit, and made their presence known with the infectious single "Computerstaat". The single was ranked number one by the German independent charts for nearly a year. The band went into the studio to create their debut, and seminal LP, the post-punk masterpiece Amok Koma (1981).
Amok Koma was the sound of post-WWII Germany. It was the Cold War fears, Berlin Wall-isolationism, and fear-mongering being torn down and crushed with a frantic backbeat and experimental glee. The band got little to no help in the promotion department and it was nearly impossible to get a record deal, so Abwärts went full DIY and handled the recording, production, cover, distribution and concert booking. Quite successfully, one might add.
Less than a year later, in 1982, the band released their sophomore record Der Westen ist Einsam (The West Is Lonely) on Phonogram Records (a subsidiary of Mercury Records.) The band scored an opening gig for The Cure and things were looking up. Then Mark Chung and FM Einheit left Abwärts for full-time gigs in the experimental Einstürzende Neubauten, a band they would be in until the mid-90s. Abwärts broke up for a time, but then reformed and went on to release several albums over the last 30 years, the most recent being 2018s Smart Bomb.
Even though the band continued and continues to this day, the fact that an album like Amok Koma isn't regarded as an absolute classic in the post-punk canon is a crime. "Maschinenland" is a manic shot of late-60s jangle, mid-70s lower east side art rock, and the thriving German avante garde scene that began a decade earlier with bands like Faust, Kraftwerk, and Popol Vuh. "Karo 1/4 08/15 Hoch 2" is a sonic blast of aggression and punk that's in and out in less than a minute. "Monday On My Mind" has the swagger of classic Wire with a twist of West German Utilitarianism.
Abwärts' line up of Mark Chung, Axel Dill, Frank Z, and FM Einheit churned out a future classic with little to no help and it seemed to fall on deaf ears. Tracks like the brazen "Bel Ami" or the full-throttle "Softly Softly" wouldn't get the credit they so deserved. Songs like the frantic jangle that is "Mehr", or the wonky art rock of "Neon Kind" would go unnoticed it seems, at least in the interim. Amok Koma would never get a release in the US, or outside of Germany for that matter, leaving ears stateside without the dose of Abwärts they so desperately needed.