From amphetamine and various other substances to psychoanalysis and madness: the musician Brezel Göring’s first solo album, “Psychoanalyse (Volume 2)” contains buzzwords that worry fans in social networks. The cautious ask if he’s okay, and that he shouldn’t slip into an opiate addiction, the worried plead. Brezel Göring, whose real name is Hartmut Ziegler, described his current state of mind as “amused” in a telephone interview and gave the all-clear: “Personally, I’m not interested in drugs or medication.”
One reason why the dividing line between the artist and his texts is blurred for some listeners in this case: Françoise Cactus, who was Göring’s life and musical partner for more than 25 years, died last year. With her band stereo total the two made Dadaist, anarchistic, always playful punk music with frivolous to provocative lyrics. With her distinctive accent, the French singer Cactus sang lines like “I’m naked, completely naked, so what? […] He’ll survive the neighbor seeing my tits”. Perhaps the concern of the fans is also due to the fact that Göring’s new pieces are stylistically very different from Stereo Total: “Françoise had such a lightness, a charm, a whistle, I have that not out like that. It’s definitely unusual for people,” Göring suspects.
His partner’s influence can be heard implicitly and explicitly on the album
The piece “Sanfter Wahn” is an example of this. Goering sings: “It’s a shame you’re gone, I would have liked to have listened to you more often. The streets are still the same, but the rest is pretty battered.” It continues calmly and gently: “If you were still here, none of this would have happened”. With the death of Cactus, the band project Stereo Total is over. “Stereo Total was unique and I consider it complete,” says Goering, not sounding regretful. His partner’s influence is heard implicitly and explicitly on the album, and he’s happy to talk about it.
“Psychopathia Sexualis” is based on a book that Cactus recommended to him a long time ago, after her death he got hold of it again: “It really made me tingle. She underlined individual terms, I recognized her, what she said experienced and also how we were friends.” There is also a common song on the album: “Meine Medizin feat. Françoise Cactus” sounds like the soundtrack of a 1960s film played on a slightly battered VHS cassette. It begins with Cactus’ distinctive vocals, fades away, the guitars aren’t tuned to perfection, everything is slightly off track, and Göring’s sober vocals vibrate with a laconic melancholy as he sings “My medicine is called Heroin,” the material becoming more complex as the song progresses replaced by amphetamine and ketamine.
The anarcho duo was considered a cult band, it was presented on television, for example, on the German-French cultural channel Arte. Göring is astonished that Stereo Total sometimes serves as an example of Franco-German culture in French classes in schools and that the two have found their way into the history of relations between the two countries. “It was a private story for us,” he says. The story of two young punks who get to know each other in Berlin after reunification, in the decade in which so much seems possible. Stereo Total wanted to be different, with a lot of fun with the taboo: “We were always happy when we got away with something.” Musical perfection was not desirable, and for Göring it still isn’t to this day. Just as he doesn’t design his sounds according to textbooks, he also happily quotes “something like that with Adorno” and uses the old term “West Germany” when he talks about the Federal Republic.
He is now touring through them with his new record. At first he was irritated and didn’t feel like it – “It’s the first time I’ve been on tour without Françoise”. Now the joy outweighs: “I have a lot of people with me, it’s not a sad group.”
Brezel Göring, Friday, Oct. 14, Orange House, Hansastr. 39-41, 8.30 p.m., information at www.feierwerk.de