Artist: Hermann Bohlen
Label: 90% Wasser, Germany
Year: 2003
12″ vinyl in offset printed sleeve plus postcard
Design: Robert Schalinski
Edition of 500
German artist Hermann Bohlen (1963) has authored and produced audio plays since he studied sinology in Hamburg, Berlin and Shanghai in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Speech sounds of various languages, onomatopoeia and found home recordings have featured in his plays, which often consist of improvised sound collages and sometimes follow Bohlen’s scripts. Since 1995 Bohlen has worked independently while in 2000 he conceived the annual Plopp! competition for radio play authors at the Art Academy of Berlin, to which he was appointed a teacher in 2009. Bohlen’s radio play Lebensabend in Übersee was broadcast by WDR in 2014 and won him nominations for several awards.
Bohlen’s 50-minute play Das Luxurieren der Bastarde oder Sag doch auch mal was was produced in 1998 and consists of found home recordings. The play – described as live recordings from 1960s living rooms – was broadcast by Deutschland Radio, Berlin in June 1998 and was released on vinyl by 90% Wasser in 2003. The beautiful, intriguing and at times hilarious LP comes with a sleeve and a postcard by master designer Robert Schalinski.