Floh De Cologne – Geyer-Symphonie

4/5
A fantastic melody in "anti-tribute" of the businessman Friedrich Flick, who died in 1972, around the time the music was made and had an empire of factories employing people by means of slave-labor. One of the tracks, the last track in the Album, "Serenade Des Vautors" starts off with a saxophone melody followed by some sampled speeches from the mourners of Flick's Funeral, which occurs often in the songs included, It then starts off with a almost-bassless piece of music, the voices evoke old businessmen. It then follows with a long speech with sound-effects in the background of Adolf Hitler's speeches, dive-bombers, sirens and the sort you would hear in the war. I shall not go into the details of this, the longest piece of music in this album, but I personally loved the ending with the radio-effect saxophones descending into a sort of argument with three of Flick's mourners.

Another track, "Danse Macabre" is by far my favorite, with the escalating piano at the very end, it is a must to listen. All three songs in this album share parts with each other. In Danse Macabre, for example, a part of the intro from "La Grande Tristesse" and so on and so forth. "La Grande Tristesse" is the one I do not warm to. The intro is very promising, with a buildup of instruments playing a melody which is almost like the musical version of seeing a storm approaching. I did not warm to this track because of the ending, I do believe, if I am not mistaken, that there is a sound effect of a crematorium machine at the very end, which is understandable but freaked me out when I first listened to it. There are some parts of the song where, I assume by the angry voices, people are rattling off the atrociousness that Flick had committed in his factories.

The music is in full German. I am not a fluent speaker of this language myself but, due to the fantastic composition of things, I could gather an idea on what the music was about. The only part in English in this song is when one of the musicians, playing a comical melody, the sort that would play over a "Laurel and Hardy" film, counts down to the start of the song.
This is a must for anybody who likes something out of the normal, but is just that little bit familiar for you to get stuck into.
Fantastic compositions that even a non-German speaker can find amusing and very interesting.
Floh de Cologne themselves are highly dexterous in terms of variations of their style. This LP compared to, say, FliessbandBaby's Beat Show is more traditional and less evocative of the outside world.
Very funny and quite amazing for it's time.

the cd spalax is the only good edition!

the edition CD OHR 1999 is from VINYL!

Floh De Cologne are one of the most bizarre and diverse groups to have come out of Germany. They are so uncompromising in their approach that very few people over here like them. The Flohs are basically a theatrical rock group who base their albums around political happenings.This album is about Frederick Flicke and his life story. It is the most unusual album we have yet heard by them. Between the montages of voices the music ranges from rock to skiffle.If you really want something different, try 'em.
by Alan & Steve Freeman, first published in Face Out ca. 1978-79