Mittageisen (band)

Mittageisen
Mittageisen 1982, left to right: Bruno W, Daniel S, Markus S
Background information
Origin	Switzerland
Genres	Post-punk, dark wave, new wave
Years active	1981–1986
Labels	mital-U
Website	www.mital-u.ch/mittageisen
Past members	Bruno W (1981-1986) Daniel S (1981-1986) Markus Sch (1981-1983) Manuela H (1983-1986) Markus St (1983, 1985-1986) Ursula S (1982)

mittageisen is a Swiss dark wave band of the early 1980s.

The name refers to "Mittageisen", a single by Siouxsie and the Banshees that makes use of a John Heartfield photomontage on the cover. This picture was originally published on the frontpage of the "Arbeiter-Illustrierte-Zeitung / Workers Illustrated Journal", published on 19 December 1935. Heartfield (1891–1968) was an early member of the Club Dada, which started 1916 as Cabaret Voltaire in Zürich. The picture with the title 'Hurrah, die Butter ist Alle! / Hurray, the butter is finished!' shows a family who eats various pieces of metal. The trigger for it was the following sentence of a Göring-speech: "Iron made a nation always strong, butter and lard made only the people fat."

The group was initiated in 1981 by Bruno W (synthesizer, rhythm, voice/lyrics), after several Punk-activities (a.o. production of the first Swiss-Punk LP). The other initial members Daniel S (guitar) and Markus Sch (guitar, voice) played up to this time in local punk bands. A view months later Ursula S completed mittageisen as bass-player and the band recorded a demo-tape with six songs, which were partly published on the first album in 1983. Ursula S left the group shortly before the recording-sessions for their first album in the autumn 1982.

As a typical post-punk band mittageisen developed their own individual music style and became thereby

"one of the earliest Darkwave/electro Goth bands. These tracks were mostly recorded from '82 to '85 (seven of them in '82 when Depeche Mode still couldn't get enough), mixing the emerging Gothic sounds of the Banshees, Bauhaus and The Cure with the sparse electro of Kraftwerk. In general, it's slow, dark and morose with droning guitars and vocals, under-pinned by a sharp electro beat. In other ones, they are one of the archetypal darkwave bands who were releasing albums when the Sisters (of Mercy) were only working on their early EPs. There is, however, a very simple and obvious reason why this band do not occupy the same privileged position as the classic Goth bands - they didn't sing in English. Most of the tracks are in German, with one, 'persistance de la mémoire', in French. It's the kind of music you hear as the soundtrack for oppressive, dark German sci-fi films. The sound does not stay the same all the way through, 'automaten', which is here in two versions, is a fairly upbeat, electro piece. Others are more sound-scapey; droning pieces that evoke factory work. This CD is more than an historical oddity, it is a must for fans of early Sisters stuff, or the Cure's dark period which culminated in the oppressive 'Pornography'".