Two new tapetopia tapetopia cassettes:
A.F. Moebius – Eine Auswahl and Nontoxic – Intoxication
Frank Bretschneider (1956) was active in the subcultural scene of the GDR’s Karl-Marx-Stadt (nowadays Chemnitz). The Karl-Marx-Stadt area was a nucleus of non-conformist activities in the GDR. Away from a prescribed socialist realism, a countercultural approach unfolded here as openly as was possible within a closed-off society. Inspired by mathematician and astronomer August Ferdinand Möbius, Bretschneider adopted the alias A.F. Moebius. The Möbius strip quintessentially epitomized his tinkering with tape loops and machines; the infinite loops thus created also echoed the self-referentiality of musical structures…
The East Berlin dark wave band Nontoxic was initially known as Mildernde Umstände. In 1988 the state-run artists’ agency issued an ultimatum: Name change, or no more gigs! The band continued as Nontoxic, in a squatted practice room right by the Berlin Mitte police station, which some goths had also been “introduced” to. Nontoxic gigged a lot, sharing the stage with bands such as Zorn, Herbst In Peking or the Fellini Prostitutes… In 1989, Nontoxic played at the East Berlin HdjT. Intoxication is based on a recording of this show…’
(from the tapetopia liner notes)