Dopplereffekt
Gesamtkunstwerk

Once upon a time in DETROIT...
- TECHNO! - my young readers will immediately say.
No, kids, you’re wrong. Once upon a time, there were the extremely German Kraftwerk.
It wasn’t luxury electronics but simple and wonderful pieces from the anthology, the kind you put in pods and on the radio in winter to ignite nostalgia and warm our ears. I don’t know how it went, but it so happened that one fine day these German sounds ended up in the studio of an old US DJ, whose name was Gerald Donald, but everyone called him master Dopplereffekt, due to his brain emitting waves at different frequencies depending on the listener’s distance like the classic Doppler effect...

But let’s get serious now. The anthological collection “Gesamtkunstwerk” (1999), composed of tracks published on “singles” or “EPs” before 2000, deserves respect not so much for the proto-classical-electronics of late ‘70s German origin clearly derived from Kraftwerk (with obvious escapes and accelerations towards old Detroit techno) or for the clear references to the stylized robotic and de-humanized aesthetics of albums like “Die Mensch-Maschine” or “Computerwelt,” but especially for the extremely high quality of the album which, already in the title, gesamt-kunst-werk/total-work-of-art, aims to combine the ideal representation of various artistic elements (dance, visual arts, music, poetry) for the most universal projection possible. And so what if, in the few pieces sung by humanoids, the poetry is hardcore pornography or the science of human sterilization or mass communication technology.

And what is the sickle and hammer doing on the cover? How can it well represent an album entirely made by machines where the heart seems forgotten in the attic? Where has humanity gone? What fate will we meet? We were in 1999, now it’s 2017. The time of robots is now at the door, an indestructible and tireless army will overwhelm us. Who will benefit? Who will be the subdued? How to defend oneself? In the first edition of the album, Gerald Donald wrote: biological socialism will lead us to victory. Cryptic and somewhat ambiguous. Perhaps our human nature will preserve us from artificial destruction? Perhaps something alive beneath our technological armor will still manage to pulse? I don’t know and I’m almost afraid to think about it. I only know that I struggle every day not to meet the fate of Collodi's old puppet on Mangiafuoco’s stage. I have too many strings attached to my back or in my ears or on the tips of my fingers. It would be nice to break them all, aware of the risk of falling or not being able to remain standing.

This is the beauty of electronic music. "Reason & Sentiment" seems like an outdated concept. Only reason, only pure rational thought.