The previously unreleased studio album from 1987 known as the “Silver Tape”. * 8 unknown songs! * Cover-in-cover * CD digipack * 3 art booklets (12 pages each) * black/white/copper.All original song arrangements, incl. the first versions from “Reincarnation”, “Love me to the End” and “Days gone by”. All original master tapes have been extensively re-mastered.
Ernst Horn, from Munich, who holds an academic degree as a drummer, pianist and conductor, and Berlin-based singer Alexander Veljanov, founded Deine Lakaien in 1984. Two years later, they released a small edition of the first album on their own.
Still without a record deal, DEINE LAKAIEN recorded another album. This album, which the band copied onto MCs with a silver cover for demo purposes (hence the name of the working title back then, “Silver Tape”), was never released, and the musicians concentrated on new music projects.
In 1990, Deine Lakaien sent song material, including their first album and this demo tape, to Gymnastic ClassX (known today as Chrom Records) and were promptly signed. Musicians and label decided to combine individual tracks from the Silver Tape with new songs to create a new album, called “Dark Star”, which was released in 1991. Two of the songs from this album, “Reincarnation” and “Love me to the End”, which – along with another song from the Silver Tape called “Days gone by” – became the band’s biggest hits, proving the artistic significance of this tape material.
There were never any plans to release the old “Silver Tape” since the band was more interested in working on new material, and the tape landed in the label archives. Throughout the years, a few copies of this old demo tape were still in circulation, and they started a life of their own. They were copied and passed on, and even made it as far as the USA. Fans kept copying the tape until it was hardly recognizable anymore, and some even “spiced it up” by adding their own musical ideas. Thanks to the internet, this horribly distorted material returned to Germany, but in very poor quality.
“1987” is a document of DEINE LAKAIEN’S fascinating early stage of awakening, now available in perfect mastering quality and containing the original compilation of songs. On this album, the young band of past expressed their impressions of the scene, trends and market without any obligations or expectations – a pure art project, bold and daring, full of ambition to experiment, testing the possibilities and limits of the times. Full of contrast, full of breaks, riskily experimental, contradictory:
There’s no commercialization here, just a consequential project of great artistic value.
This album contains the roots of later DEINE LAKAIEN projects. Many of the thoughts sketchily expressed on 1987 served as basic theme and genre for later projects after being modified and developed (e.g. the “Reincarnation” theme).
A persiflage of pompous theatrical music and politically motivated themes in exchange with lightfooted songs of self-irony and melancholic tunes about the perpetual themes of love, loss, disassociation and death, all combined into one opulent piece, held together by Veljanov’s unmistakable voice.
The original master tapes of all songs from these late first releases have been extensively re-mastered. Due to the artistically free style of the album, the cover artwork was done by Hamburg artist Tim Becker. “1987” is packaged in an extensive design:
cover-in-cover, CD digipack, 2 art booklets (12 pages each) in black/white/copper.
The artwork stands alone as a free and independent interpretation of the album genre and creates new contexts and associations with the fields of paraphysics, state of mind, and near-death abstractions
tracklist
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Queue up for redemption,
Battle of the ghosts,
Days gone by,
Reincarnation,
Flowers of love,
Mama, there’s a ghost,
Love me to the end,
The pope,
Death-Raft,
The executioner,
On the way to narmada
http://www.chrom.de