The move to Berlin is over. Even the Swiss Institution ALBOTH! made their way over the Elbe, recruiting new musicians to develop a new disquiet. WESTZEIT wanted to know how things worked out with "Ecco La Fiera" and spoke with the singer Lieder per telephone. W: You have moved to Berlin, why would one make the shift from Switzerland to Berlin in this time? L: I just wanted to. But Tito is from Berlin and now is in ALBOTH!. Kim Kaveller who sings on "Kirkpinar" is originally from Istanbul is also now living in Berlin. W: What drives you to make music? L: Our lives. W: You have always gotten praise from your critics, in ways that your public never could quite relate to. Do you think this will change with your new record? Some are finding it a bit too pop... L: The decision to make this music was in the works for some time, but as things go one finds that the mainstream lies somewhere else. Some people think that ALBOTH! is now preparing for a larger public, so in this case there is a lot of reaction to our new live program. W: For myself, "Fleischhauer" is a key recording. The "Electrospielerei" that comes in for the last 3 minutes seems to say that you have mastered this field and that it too has interesting elements... but the sudden stop makes the statement : okay we have shown you that we can do this, now let's get back to our symphonic noise. L: While we were working on the mastering we came to the idea that this particular piece lacked something flat in it's sound. We found a recording of a heartbeat from the 20's and gave it to Loop-O who then mixed it down to 3 minutes in a nights work. W: But there really is no space where one can sit back or catch his breath. Even at this point as well as for the whole 36 min. of the CD, total concentration is involved. This brief part is very pleasant, as if your honing down on what's important for you to say in this half hour recording, without it becoming excessive. L: Right, naturally one could always extend the music. W: Sometimes one can find listeners sitting down to a 70 min. recording and they have to constantly concentrate. L: Could also be the case with film, theater, or football when it lasts 90 minutes. W: You're the singer, does one have to comprehend the text? It's sometimes difficult to understand, it's probably private, or a kind of fantasy lyric. L: It's primarily sound information in wide open word forms. Goethe said, music only exists to illustrate the text, where Mozart expressed that "poetry should be the caring daughter of music". There was and is always this duality, and I think in our case we have found a playful balance. W: Even the song titles are referring to actual names of people.. What stories lay behind them? L: They are all based on friends, acquaintances, and objects of hatred. The titles like the text are to be projected on. W: The drummer Wertmueller wanted to study with Dieter Schnebel. Is modern classic still an influence for you? L: There is this suggestion. Modern classical music is unfortunately distant from the physical or the idea of "pop" in all shapes and forms. But Werter is now writing a composition for Donaueschingen. We are all looking forward to the performance this fall. W: How can I imagine the concerts now with the sound now being a bit more breakable and finely structured? Will they be loud? L: Normally there is euphoria after our concerts. The public feels good when they share the experience of our kind of rock and roll in it's most progressive form. The volume depends usually on the space we play in. Our sound man Loop-O understands our situation and the volume is not the elementary focus for this music. Very loud is interesting when the next moment can be very quiet. W: An old question: Do you reproduce your CD onto the stage our do you play more freely? L: The music recordings are a way to have the public experience a recognition of our music live. Despite all of this we keep all our possibilities open when we're playing out. Playing! westzeit D 4/2000