Named after Charles Baudelaire’s controversial volume of poetry (first published in 1857), this 1999 CD is an intoxicating dub/remix album. Half of the remixes were done by members of HIP themselves and the other half by like-minded friends of Column One, Mimetic (Jerôme Soudan) and Dieter Zobel. These guys are on a serious trip. Rex Joswig’s dark, existentialist lyrics are mixed and remixed to danceable beats and blown into deep space by trippy dub effects. Remixes of HIP’s ‘La Dolce Vita’ form the core of this album. ‘Das süße Leben ist vorbei’, Joswig tells us in his deep voice. And yes surely, this sweet life is over, but what an exciting way to leave it behind. The album was beautifully designed by Column One’s Robert Schalinski and released on Moloko Plus in 1999.
Herbst In Peking, named after Boris Vian’s novel, was formed by Rex Joswig in East Berlin in 1987. The anti-authoritarian stance and fierce criticism of the GDR regime of this punk band led to an official ban in 1989. While Rex Joswig ran his Grenzpunkt Null radio show from East Berlin after the GDR had collapsed, his band steadily assimilated influences from Dub, Industrial and Electronic Music. HIP’s line-up has changed over the years with Joswig as a constant member and their collaboration with Moloko Plus productive to this day.