“Heinz & Franz was a home recording project by Heinz Havemeister and Frank Bretschneider. The recordings took place in 1987 and 1988 in the DIY studio Sonnenklang in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now Chemnitz), always at night. The mixing desk was self-built. 50 copies of the tape were released on Bretschneider’s label klangFarBe. Heinz Havemeister was a guitarist with the Bolschewistische Kurkapelle Schwarz-Rot and co-editor of the art samizdat LIANE. Frank Bretschneider is considered an electronic pioneer of the GDR underground scene. He worked in a range of projects, including with the legendary band AG Geige. In 1995, Bretschneider co-founded the Raster music label, which cooperated with musician Carsten Nicolai’s NOTON label. Both labels merged in 1999 to form Raster-Noton, an influential label for experimental music in Germany. Bretschneider’s work has appeared on labels such as Mille Plateaux, Quatermass or Staalplaat. Heinz & Franz – Alle Aufnahmen, orginally released in an edition of 50 in 1988, is now available again, remastered by Friedemann Kootz (Black Flag Mastering) on C-30 in a limited and hand numbered edition of 100 copies.” (Henryk Gericke)
tapetopia is a series of releases based on cassettes from East Germany’s 80s underground, particularly from the East Berlin Mauerstadt music scene, featuring original layouts and track lists. For over 30 years after their initial “release” the music on these tapes was neither available on vinyl nor CD, but they were important statements in the canon of the GDR subculture. Despite the miniscule number of original cassettes in circulation at the time many of the bands were popular in countercultural circles, a factor that made them highly suspect among the government’s own inner circles. tapetopia is run from Berlin by Henryk Gericke.