ABWÄRTS - Der Westen Ist Einsam 1982

An album that I haven't heard for a long time and thanks to iNgo, I dug up this nugget and realize how great this stuff is, the second Abwärts album. It sounds somber and darker than anything that previously appeared from the four, and can certainly be viewed in the context of the emerging Gothic culture. Critics put it in line with releases by British post-punk bands such as Theatre Of Hate and Killing Joke. Band boss Frank Ziegert confessed in an interview with Diedrich Diederichsen in 1988 that Abwärts had to a certain extent been forced by the punk audience at the beginning of the 1980s not to present any sophisticated compositions: “[…] we were literally afraid to make music. Everything always had to be hard, that was the word: hard. We increased ourselves into a senseless aggressiveness that had nothing to do with us at all, I wasn't really tough all the time and neither were the others." Unsatisfied with the care of their previous independent label ZickZack Platten, the group wanted to work more professionally and offer their next album to a major label. Work on it began in the autumn of 1981 at Hafenklang Studio Hamburg. A whole month of self-financed and self-produced studio recordings was followed by a week of mixing at The Town House in London by producer Nick Launay. At the end of 1981 the album was finished, which was then offered to various record companies for publication. For an advance payment of allegedly 50.000 DM, the band finally signed with the German major label Phonogram which released first the Beirut, Holiday Inn 12" with four tracks. "Der Westen Ist Einsam" is the first band release without Margita Haberland, who left the group in 1981.

The album was released in April 1982. For publication, they went from May 11th to June 13th 1982 on an extensive tour with side trips to Switzerland and Amsterdam. The group made a spectacular appearance at the Münchner-Rocktage-Festival, at which FM Einheit destroyed parts of the stage structure. At some concerts, the newly founded Toten Hosen played the supporting act. Down, in turn, was hired as the opening act for The Cure tour. On the title "Beim Ersten Mal Tut's Immer Weh", Muscha and Trini Trimpop produced a video clip and the group even published a homestory in the youth magazine Bravo. Despite all of this, the album did not achieve the sales figures we had hoped for. As a result, FM Einheit and Marc Chung left the band for good to concentrate on the Einstürzende Neubauten, of which they had already joined as full members in 1981. In addition, drug problems also led the band to bury themselves for the first time. - And now: Bundesliga ⚽

here