Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Daughter Produkt - Zarathustra

There is at last some music on the Daughter Produkt MySpace, thanks to one of my readers for noticing. The site for this project has been up since November 2007 which makes it almost a year of expectation until this beginning of fulfilment, (which never comes). Surprisingly it had already clocked up almost 5000 views without any music so it hasn‘t gone unnoticed. But to back track a little, at the time Douglas McCarthy, possibly he of Nitzer Ebb fame, was listed as being a member but now no more. The members currently listed are Moreno Paradox and Heinrich Mueller. The country of origin is now listed as Spain and Germany. A female, surprise, speaks throughout the sole track which you will now find there. So I guess she is Moreno Paradox and is Spanish. She speaks English but with an accent. There is no other new additional information to my knowledge on the page, they don't go in for top friends or their comments either, it's a very minimal layout, but they do have a clock!
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This is new text, I had forgotten that ages ago someone left a comment that Moreno Paradox was the Spanish producer Annie Hall. Someone else just emailed me the same information and yes it does appear to be the case alright. She is something of a powerhouse and has two MySpace profiles and a new 12" just released by old friends of mine, D1, and is incidentally playing their DEAF festival in Dublin later tonight. The world just got that little bit smaller!
http://www.myspace.com/analogica
http://www.myspace.com/halldomain
http://www.d1.ie
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The track itself is called 'Zarathustra', which of course refers to the epic book by the German philosopher Friedrich Neitzsche, 'Thus Spake Zarathustra', from 1883. In my opinion the music is recognisably Muellerish, although the opening section reminds me at times of some of the sounds you find in the soundtrack to ‘Apocalypse Now’. It’s just the synth sound he is using that does it. The second section is pure atmospheric Mueller. As I said there are also female spoken vocals which go, "Christianity is really a misunderstanding. In reality there has been only one Christian and he died on the cross." This is repeated a number of times over the first section and then the line, "And if you gaze long into an abyss the abyss will gaze back unto you.", which repeats to the end.
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These are both quotes from Neitzsche, the former is from his book ‘The Anti Christ‘(1888). The latter is from ‘Beyond Good and Evil’(1886). The more usual version of this quote puts it in a slightly easier to appreciate context I think, "He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you.” I read TSZ probably 10 years ago by now and continue to read and lend it to others to this day. I’m therefore excited to see this project take this turn. Neitzsche himself said of this his most famous book, "With [Thus Spoke Zarathustra] I have given mankind the greatest present that has ever been made to it so far. This book, with a voice bridging centuries, is not only the highest book there is, the book that is truly characterized by the air of the heights—the whole fact of man lies beneath it at a tremendous distance—it is also the deepest, born out of the innermost wealth of truth, an inexhaustible well to which no pail descends without coming up again filled with gold and goodness.” I would recommend you reading it and finding this gold and goodness for yourselves or at least checking out some of the links I have listed below.
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By the way, moreno is Spanish for a tanned, dark or brown-skinned person according to Wikipedia. But what paradox is being referred to here, outside of the literal one, I am not sure.
I wasn’t expecting anything so blasphemous from this or any of his projects but we must be careful not to judge it in such a surface way. I’ll keep you posted on any new developments but will reserve my final assessment till when I catch up to this latest and increasingly intriguing project. I’m sure the race is on between fans to put a video up to go with this track on YouTube but maybe they will do one themselves?
http://myspace.com/daughterprodukt
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nietsche
http://dailynietzsche.blogspot.com/
Great full length documentary which I weirdly found and watched just a few weeks back myself.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-184240591461103528&ei=o2H2SJbQHI2siALr3OziDg&q=nietzsche&hl=en

Just to show how easy these collaborations can come about, although this appears to have been just a social call to his Dutch mates at the net label Auxar, check out this pic which was brought to my attention by one of you. Check it at http://www.auxar.com/pictures

9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You're so special, Gerald. Whats your secret?

4:48 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

In Spain, Moreno is also a last name. Maybe in this case relates to that.

Regards from Spain!

8:27 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

general disappointment last night : the paris gig had to be cancelled because of a problem on one of the synthesizers, "as reported". it is supposed to be re-scheduled for december or january...

5:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

the background .jpg on the myspace is called ChernekovemissionsinU-237

11:17 PM  
Blogger Claire said...

Okay - probably a bit of a stretch here but I was thinking about the name - 'Daughter Produkt'.

Assuming that there was originally a link with Nitzer Ebb then this would explain the 'Produkt' part as Nitzer Ebb frequently refer to all their releases (including merchandise) as 'nitzerebbprodukt'.

I also think a link with Nitzer Ebb makes some sense as their lyrics alone could be seen as having somewhat Nietzschen sentiments?

So what about the 'daughter' part ?

From what I can see Nietzsche never had any children (?) But he was was extremely close to his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche.

Elisabeth had strong links to the Nazi party and believed in the Aryan philosophy, going as far as to spearhead a failed attempt to create a "pure" Aryan settlement in the New World with her husband.

As you you're aware both Nitzer Ebb and Donald's Dopplereffekt projects have also been known to to draw inspiration from Nazi and Fascist imagery/beliefs both in image and song titles (e.g. Superior Race, Fascist state).

I should add that I have no doubt either camp in any way harbor any Nazi sympathies, but I do admire they're audacity in mining a creative vein and part of human history that continues to be a no go area for many.

(Remember what happened to Bryan Ferry when he voiced admiration for the Nazi's sense of image and theater etc)!

Thanks again and keep up the excellent work !

2:34 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

well, nazis do not deserve ANY admiration or those nearly-sympathies. EBM - the music of nitzer ebb refers to - only uses provocation and much much cynism. such cynism goes back to kraftwerk or DAF - maybe some people don't get it. The music of DAF in the 80s was highly discussed in germany, EBM is still discussed.

btw: the name "Heinrich Müller" is the most cynical thing I've ever heard in art or music.


@colin - the newest blog tells you, that McCarthy is not named in the project anymore.

the name daughter produkt is maybe a more scientific name. in german it is meant "tochterprodukt" or short "tochter", products of radioactive decay. engineering often refers to "male" or "females" to make clear, what fits or belongs together. "daughter"="tochter", maybe in english-speaking science it is used in same terms.

U-238 -> Radium-226 + Radon 222

Radon is the daughter!

4:51 PM  
Blogger Stephen said...

Dopplereffekt had to cancel show in Paris but it is back on now on 25th October just one week later.
Thanks for that Daughter Produkt info as well, it will be used.
all best
stephen

7:08 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

in mr mueller's "new style", there are often sounds that remind me of a 'trautonium' which is a electronic instrument that was played and co-developed by oskar sala

9:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

interesting that you bring up sala. to quote from an old paper of mine (never mind the context...)

"To exemplify the connection between sexual difference and electronic sounds we will look at Oskar Sala’s Mixturtrautonium, an electronic instrument best known for its production of the bird sounds in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Previously, it had been employed in the 1957 German production Anders als du und ich, a moral drama about an adolescent flirting with homosexuality directed by the notorious Veit Harlan. It is a notable fact that after the original Trautonium had first been presented to Goebbels in 1935, he supported its development and called for its use in radio broadcasts. Under the headline “The Music of the Spheres – What is a Trautonium?“ Oskar Sala lectured at the Palais d'Orsay during the occupation in 1943, courtesy of the NSDAP [Fred Prieberg EM, 106]."

veit harlan was the director of the infamous nazi propaganda film "jud süß"

12:19 PM  

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