surrounded by insanity
surrounded by insanity

after the carcrash
after the carcrash

the splendid mister pirx
the splendid mister pirx

the gifted senior reznicek
the gifted senior reznicek

::: neoangin 1998 :::

Along with his friends from the band Minitchev Neoangin hits the road for the first time in February of 1998. At the same time he releases a splitsingle with the songs monkeyboy, let us always be together and the almost prophetic motorway to nowhere:

After a few fun shows the tour comes to an end: a tire is busted, the van is lying in a ditch and all musicians have been taken to the hospital. Suffering from a couple of broken ribs Neoangin gets away relatively unharmed. But his keyboard is broken so much that it can never again go on tour. Neoangin decides to only tour via train from now on. Off he goes to buy his first minidisc player.  Fabian from Minitchev joins Neangin as guitarrist. Jim and Fabian never rehearse but rather do free improv during shows. As a result their music is respectively cacophonous. Consequently, Fabian is only a band-member on paper and stays far away from live gigs. However...Neoangin dedicated the song fabian’s schiurlaub (Fabian’s skiing trip) to him. 

June
Ever since music for children Neoangin’s music has evolved more and more. That’s why a new album is needed urgently. And it needs official recording in a real studio. Neoangin invites himself to Brighton to his old friend and bohemian PILOT PIRX, who has a small recording studio by the beach. The two of them fool around with the program acid. This program, a sensation at the time, allows them to put completely different sources of sound into tempo and harmony synchronicity. Piece by piece the by now classical Neoangin sound evolves from melodies that are pre-programmed on portable keyboard, annoying electronic noises and hacking drums. 
 
Computer game melodies and breakbeat thunderstorms take turns with ballads inspired by the 1960s as well as
hushed fragments. Neoangin labels his lyrics as neo-expressionist, he sings of dying nightclubs, the man who lost control and monkeyboy, latter of which is a song about a scumback concert manager from Berlin. He releases the album himself, packaged in simple cardboard cover he sells it for 10 Deutsch Mark, beating any competition. Neoangin manages to sell a quarter of the records at the release party, and triggers a debate about pricing and labels among his friends.

September:
Neoangin has a 10-minute guest performace at stereo total’s new soundtrack to a Godard film at the famous Volksbühne in Berlin. He misses his soundcheck and the soundguy levels his keyboard at a moderate pianosound; this has fatal consequences: Neoangin’s fragile compositions sound like a completely distorted audio mush. From that night on Neoangin is considered Berlin’s smallest noise band (zitty).

At the end of 1998 Jim meets the Swiss band Die Weltraumforscher, who introduce themselves as Günter Reznicek aka Nova Huta. Neoangin and Nova Huta hit it off instantly.

<1997>1999