We have to save. This is a current mantra preached by Robert Habeck and the President of the Federal Network Agency, Klaus Müller. Also on the first joint album by Austrofred and Kurt Razelli “Life is laff“I can hear it. We have to save … tighten our belts. So tight that you’re not dying right now,” says “Spoan (To Be Alive)”. It’s about Austrofred’s parents’ obsession with saving, who didn’t allow him either a “Radl” or a “CD by Judas Priest”. Which shows: The singer living in Munich and Vienna and only legitimate Freddie Mercury successor is practiced in doing without. But before that he sang in the opener “Bottle” that he wanted “no eighth”, “no quarter”, but “the whole bottle”. How is that supposed to end with the “spoan” there?
But that’s probably too short-sighted for someone who is as timeless as the Austrofred, or if anything, more of a brainchild of the eighties. Just like Kurt Razelli, who, if you listen to his beats and cocky chords, probably also breathed a lot of eighties air. Razelli is known in Austria as a YouTube mashup artist. His specialty: messing up speeches by politicians and other personalities with cute beats and samples to combine. While we at least know that Austrofred also sings in the famous indie rock band Kreisky under the name Franz Adrian Wenzl, we know nothing at all about Razelli. To this day, he keeps his face hidden behind rubber masks (currently Arnold Schwarzenegger’s).
Even Austrofred doesn’t know Razelli’s appearance, and that’s why, according to the album liner notes, he planned: “At some point during the night, when he has to go to the toilet in the hotel, I ambush him, give him a Haxl and tear him, unintentionally ‘ down the larva.” That didn’t hurt the collaboration. Because the result isn’t lame, that is, not bland, but a simple story that supposedly came about through an e-mail request from Razelli. Fred was skeptical, but in the end he was enthusiastic about Razelli’s “people-oriented sound”. So much so that he wrote twelve texts that, in addition to the “Spoan” of disappointed love (“Bratislava Airport”), the supposed progress of mankind (“From the hand ax to the laser”), a “Taxi with a joke” or a “Tupper party girl ” act.
Playing tips: The melodramatic “Der Affe Waas-i-eh”, which the press release aptly describes as “Genesis-meets-Ludwig-Hirsch-Moritat”, and the “new Upper Austrian national anthem” “VÖEST”, in which Austrofred pathetically announces that later he wants to be scattered “over the VÖEST”, “on the Höss” or “over the Plus City” (there is also a nice video about that). Or “above the Traunsee” so that it can be reborn “as a Gmundner ceramic service”. Hopefully it will be a while before then, and unfortunately also until he performs with Kurt Razelli on January 12, 2023 in Munich’s Milla. If it gets boring, you can get it beforehand watch in Austria. On September 17th they will perform in Weyer and in October and November in Linz, Dornbirn, Innsbruck, Vienna and Graz.
Austrofred & Kurt Razelli: “Life is laff”, published by Living Room Records