A few years ago, Peter Frohmader received a phone call from Japan. It was said that they wanted to exhibit him there as a wax figure together with other German Krautrock musicians. The man from Munich thought that was a bit crazy, but above all he thought it was premature. Because he still felt too alive to turn into wax. In any case, what this anecdote shows is that the “Godfather of Gothic”, as Fohmader was called, is more revered in Japan than in his homeland. The musician also had fans in England and America. In Germany and Munich he was almost only known to musicians, gothic and krautrock fans. The musical greatness that he was lost here in small niches.
Peter Frohmader died unexpectedly and apparently of a heart attack on May 2nd. So far, however, there have only been a small number of obituaries on special websites, mostly operated by music fans. Frohmade, who was born in Munich on May 9, 1958 and died shortly before his 64th birthday, set important impulses in Kraut and Gothic Rock as well as in electronic music. bands like Sisters of Mercy, Throbbing Gristle, your lackeys and Lacrimosa have referred to him. And in addition to the already mentioned “Godfather of Gothic”, this has brought him further titles such as “Lord of the gloomy tones” or the creator of “German Angst Music”.
He loved the nightmarish and the fantastic
His first band Alpha Centauri Fohmader founded at the age of 13. After that followed electronic delusion, Canaan and the project that continued until the end necropolis. “Musik aus dem Schattenreich” was the name of his debut album in 1979. Night-dark synthesizer chords meet infernal thunder, and the pieces of music have titles like “Purgatory” or “Infinite Torment”. Frohmade had role models for this in bands like Black Sabbath or Tangerine Dream, but also found in Carl Orff. Some of the music was played on self-made instruments. And as Carl-Ludwig Reichert from Sparifancal Came to Necropolis in the early 1980s, saw blades, metal tubes, circular saws and a planing machine feed were part of the tool kit.
This was characterized by a fondness for the nightmarish and the fantastic. And it was fitting that Frohmader, who had studied art, had been friends with the Swiss painter and creator of the “Alien” monster HR Giger since 1982. The chapter with the “fear music” was over for Fohmader a few years ago. He left his synthesizer behind, wore his Rickenbacker bass and met up with friends like Chris Void, Udo Gerhards or Gerhard Lallinger for jam sessions in the basement or on small stages like the Kafe Kult.
Coming from punk, Chris Void found these sessions very liberating. “A completely different world” opened up, as he says, which he would never have experienced without Frohmader. They hadn’t seen each other for two years because of Corona. He “still can’t quite believe” his death. On May 11th, the “Godfather of Gothic” was buried with great sympathy in the cemetery at Perlacher Forst. Music from Necropolis was played (probably for the very first time) in the funeral parlor.