Nueva Germania
Pure Vaginal Music for Masses L.P.

Nueva Germania is a German community founded in Paraguay in 1888 by anti-Semitic activist Bernhard Förster and his wife Elisabeth Nietzsche (sister of Friedrich Nietzsche): a community based on the German language and traditions; a sort of rural paradise where German culture was supposed to develop strong and pure in a remote and unspoiled place; the culmination of a utopian idea that, suggested by a writing of Richard Wagner, was meant to preserve the purity of the Aryan race.

A project naturally doomed from the start by the intrinsic idiocy of the idea that inspires it, and thus destined for inevitable failure (Förster would shoot himself in a hotel room, while Nietzsche would return sadly to the old Germany).

 Nueva Germania is also the name Klaus Jochmann chose for his project: a choice dictated precisely by the alienation and unease that the idea of the existence of a "parallel dimension" (the fake Germany in Paraguay) evokes, but also for the call to the "purity" of early industrial (note the musician's aversion to "supposed" and renowned industrial realities like Nine Inch Nails and Ministry).

 Born at the end of the nineties, and directly reconnecting to the exploits of the pioneers of the genre (Throbbing Gristle, NoN, and Nurse with Wound primarily), Nueva Germania immediately established themselves as a breakaway phenomenon from the apocalyptic industrial scene, and particularly in contrast to everyone (Der Blutharsch at the forefront) "who talk about politics and adopt an aesthetic linked to politics to appear more interesting."

Having taken due distance from neo-Nazi movements, therefore, the NuevaGermaniaTanzBande (and with them DDR and Stalingrad) prefers to restore the ancient spirit of industrial, the one from the seventies, the one that truly knew how to disturb, shock, provoke: that merciless receptacle of all the atrocities that the West has been able to generate in what seems to be the terminal phase of its existence (from factory alienation, the evils of technology, to concentration camps, wars, nuclear holocaust, passing through Crowley's satanism).

The world of Nueva Germania is thus a world of chaos and sonic agony, and not by chance, works like "Falk im Juni" and "Tanze Bande 1937" (probably the best hits by Jochmann's creature) reproduce the confusion, pain, physical, psychic and emotional distress provoked by war. "Music that," explains Jochmann himself, "is the opposite of our desire to live an immortal life, full of love and friendship."

Noise without compromise, therefore, incredible walls of sound that nevertheless conceal a human and spiritual soul. And not by chance, Jochmann thus describes himself and his companions: "Mechanic machines with a natural nihilist approach".

 "Pure Vaginal Music for Masses L.P." is a real rarity and belongs to the first artistic phase of Nueva Germania (I think it follows the debut closely): reissued in 2003, it was actually conceived in an ultra-limited edition (only 102 copies) and personally distributed by the band during the first tours. It's a shame you can't appreciate the artwork (severely censored for obvious reasons), which depicts a male member penetrating a vagina, all in extreme close-up.

Despite such effervescence, however, "Pure Vaginal Music for Masses L.P." fails in content to live up to the expectations that title and cover induce. It's an industrial style in the vein of Nurse with Wound, nothing more, but much less.

For the record:

 Track 1: "An Original Experiment to Recreate Fertile Music at Maximum Volume with no Con-dom Protection" (23:54) 
 Track 2: "Favourite the Performance with Expensive Hypnotic Drugs Enjoy that and Try Try Try Again"  (21:37)

 That is, 45 minutes and 33 seconds of noise collages that sound to us like a pale imitation of Mr. Steven Stapleton's unreachable talent.

In this album, the martial component is scarcely present, giving way to the clamor of the steel mills and all sorts of musical contamination.

A humorous vein, a sense of daring contrast, and the typical freedom of those who put no limit on expressing their art partially absolve the band from their electronic mishaps: Nueva Germania, in fact, probably feeling like the most destabilizing band in this world, diligently set out to pile up every kind of sonic mess without caring to follow a meager thread that could hold the whole together.

But the whole, I must say, happens in a rather elementary and disjointed manner: following a sparse sequentiality, the settings follow one another as in a sort of nonsensical radio Blob. Very little, in truth, is built; few and simple are the overlaps and sound intertwining; childish the manipulation of sounds.

And so, regardless of our intentions, "Pure Vaginal Music for Masses L.P." does not appear at all extreme, and the only discomfort comes instead from the banality of the individual passages and the prolixity of the whole.

In fact, it hardly ever ventures into pure cacophony, and if the debaser-reader needs a point of reference, thinking (naturally in a much wilder version) of the Beatles' "Revolution 9" (the experimental piece from the "White Album", which I mention only because it's known to many, and not for artistic merit, since, as we know, even in that case, the four from Liverpool didn't invent anything).

 Relentless rhythms, industrial loops, electronic ejaculations, sampled voices: gradually some good solutions emerge (especially in moments when floods of dark ambient dull and overwhelm the noise ferment of Our guys, generating sonic stasis of genuine tension), but these are indeed drops in a sea of banality.

Particularly annoying, in my opinion, is the mincing and random placement of sonic details vivisected from others' pieces: punk/grind residues, thrash/death metal assaults, rock’n’roll, techno beats, classical music, jazz, and even Depeche Mode's pop (the 3 seconds of "World in my Eyes" are, as far as I'm concerned, the most exciting moment of the entire work!).

Necessary, indeed essential, to appreciate the product, those expensive drugs recommended in the title of the second track.

 Suitable only for those who find themselves being a CEO but have always dreamed of working on the assembly line.