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As an exemplar of the uniquely lo-fi S/T sound, Zwölf Lieder Für Katrin shows just how engaging a live act Joachim Gaertner and Martin Brauner are. Recorded in their eponymous friend Katrin's living room on the occasion of her birthday, the album comes packaged with loving attention to detail and clever design by the duo themselves which radiates quality. The sound itself is somewhat murky and lo-res, but curiously doesn't suffer as a result - S/T's music sounds as if it being coaxed from the ether itself sometimes, distilling four decades of what might loosely be termed psychedelic and New Wave music into a heady brew which is still best experienced live.

S/T wear their influences proudly and well, their repertoire reconfiguring the likes of Can's "Yoo Doo Right" in finely wasted uptempo style, Hendrix's Third Stone From The Sun as an electronic trip, or Shot By Both Sides by The Buzzcocks emerging as a highly lysergic slab of Punky drum machine energy. Even Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, and old Hawkwind warhorse Silver Machine appears in distinctively different form of versioning style done as Casio-injected, phased-up Space Rock. While they may be covers, each song is taken into the S/T melding machines and returned to the listener filtered by these two vinyl junkies (who of course also perform a searing little number called just that - more of which later), frequently remodelled to the point of recognition without reference to the track listing only coming from a moment of sudden realisation that Martin is singing "One pill makes you tall...". Without in any way sounding like them, S/T's approach to the history of Rock music is somewhere tangentially akin to Laibach's, though perhaps without the politics and with a vastly more loving touch - it is obvious that their reverence for this music is unbounded, but not at the expense of working within the tradition to make for something descended from rather than merely derivative, and nowhere is this more apparent that on the mini-epic All Is Well In Our World/Apocalypse which combines their own immersive brand of frizzled Kosmische Musik with some borrowed words from Faust.

While it is easy to select the covers first, it is an important point that S/T are accomplished composers of orignal material in their own right, and the insouciant Zen of What Happens, Happens is one of those songs which can easily become lodged in the mind for days upon first hearing thanks to some tender drones and furiously uplifting chords in the chorus which propel it into pogo territory with ease. Simple drum loops and a barrage of guitar effects are held in sway by Joachim's frazzled keyboards and FX, demonstrating their ability to construct an alternate universe onstage from simple elements, while Martin's curious vocal style sounds like he is channelling the spirit of Rock'n' Roll in its broadest sense through various lighter than air elements. It's Hot is another classic tune redolent of ennui and speed comedowns, wobbling furiously on a looped chug and surrounding water sounds while the guitar soars for all the world like a mosquito about a ceiling fan. There are quieter pieces of synth ambience on Das Noch Unvollendete, but the previously-mentioned Vinyl Junkie is another effevescent stab at the feet and heartstrings at the same time, riffing up an electical storm in praise to their inspiration and musical love, complete with self-deprecating lyrics like "I would sell my mother for a copy of that single".*

Zwölf Lieder Für Katrin is a fantastic representation of the live sound of one of the undiscovered legends of the European underground - and it's another one of their stunningly-designed limited editions, so snap it up while the price is still somewhat less than one parent.

Richard Fontenoy, FREQ Online, 2003-08-01

link: FREQ Magazine