Emotional Rescue and DJ, collector and radio host, Gary The Tall team up for another immersion in to the cavernous world of leftfield post punk dubs, electronics and oddities. After the unearthing of Stockholm’s Ståålfågel, now it’s the turn of Die Radierer and their infinitely catchy pop-reggae jam, Batman.
Die Radierer (The Erasers) was founded by school friends Christian Bondestein and Jürgen Beuth, growing up in the small town of Limburg, in the then West Germany. Merging a love of 60s Garage bands and 70s German electronic music before progressing on to punk comics strips, Kraftwerk, Wire, Pere Ubu, Talking Heads and Devo.
Growing out of the punk explosion they released a series of singles and albums on Hamburg’s ground-breaking Zick Zack label that instantly showed their idiosyncratic, individual, and slightly irreverent take on the emerging post punk sound.
Alongside label cohorts Palais Schaumburg, Plus Instruments (ERC024) and Tom Dokoupil they forged their own path in the Neue Deutsche Welle (“New German Wave”), making a new music that was devoid of rules and that could be approached for the sheer enjoyment of the creative process, with no limits on expectations.
Centered around the duo, with other members coming and going through the years, the song Batman appeared on 1983’s In Hollywood, a now highly sought after album of conceptual songs often revolving around the topic of movies, with heavy beats, almost rudimentary melodies, piercing guitar chops and Dada influenced lyrics – all being a blueprint of their sound.
Presented here on 7”, it’s an imagining of being “The Batman”, with all the adventures, gadgets, and a fondness for Batgirl. Recorded at their home studio on a Tascam 4-track cassette recorder, this fun song highlights their love of light, left-of-center ideas and an admiration for reggae that was so widespread in that moment.
Alongside, again Gary The Tall goes in the studio to create a reversion for today with an experimental dub excursion on the flip. Teaming up with Aaron Coyles (Peaking Lights) under his new alias of Exotic Gardens, for some studio dub trickery, their version loops the bass, drum and guitar incessantly before sparsely dropping some vocal coughs, woops and chorus, all drenched heavy doses of space echo and reverb-for-days effects that keep the hook coming and let the riddim ride.
On their 10th record, the Glasgow-based group serves up more wonderfully menacing, gothy synthpop, perfect for dungeon dancing. Bandcamp New & Notable Aug 19, 2023