Programmusic 1

[1985]

GRAF+ZYX are known, at the latest, since their synthetically weird Humanic commercials. Their first LP «Trust No Woman» (released in 1981 by Musica)is still to be counted among the best and most intelligent, which the Austro-Pop-scene has produced. In the context of their «Museum of Private Arts» GRAF+ZYX now released an LP, which documents the uncompromising development of the last years: «Programmmusik 1». (Programme Music 1). These videotic pieces of music force the comparison with Erik Satie. Like this Dadaistic composer of the early 20th century, who described himself as a «Phonometrograph» because he liked it better to «measure notes instead of listening to them» when he played the piano, GRAF+ZYX assemble - with a bee in their bonnet - musical illusions in front of their computers and synthesizers, only to destroy them. While Satie gave his compositions names such as «Unappetitliche Choräle (Unsavoury Chorals)», or «Ausgetrocknete Embryos (Desiccated Embryos)», the pieces of GRAF+ZYX such as «Compact Disc» or «Grey Spacetransmitter» recall the early Frank Zappa and his «Mothers of Invention». Both are ruled by an avant-garde humour. Modernity is the trump card and like Satie GRAF+ZYX scoff at their musical education and at the seriousness and profoundness that made «Trust No Woman» a Science Fiction masterpiece.

Gottfried Distl (ÖH EXPRESS Tempo | Wien) [translated by Simone von der Geest]