Christoph Anders, Chris Cutler, Heiner Goebbels with special guest: Shinoda Masami (alto sax). Ground-Zero features Otomo Yoshide
Cassiber were a groundbreaking, devastating rock band, making music which captured world reality at the end of this century. The group brought together the Frankfurt musicians Heiner Goebbels and Christophe Anders with UK drummer Chris Cutler, and they became the natural heirs to one of the great lines of European rock music. This started off in Canterbury with Soft Machine and Caravan, expanded to include Henry Cow and Faust, achieved mature modernism with This Heat, and culminated in the late 80's and early 90's with Cassiber's startlingly aggressive post modernism. Like This Heat, Cassiber was basically a trio, and this helped them develop an epic style which was also economical. The main principal was live improvisation, and their records have a bone crushing immediacy and spontaneity. Canterbury influences are put through a mangle with sampled mayhem, free jazz, industrial noise, declaimed vocals, newsreel clips, all reaching an extraordinary peak in the album "A Face We All Know", a portrayal of the collapse of East Germany.
Cassiber were:
Heiner Goebbels, now a respected composer in European new music. He underpinned the group with his keyboard playing, somehow combining the influences of Hans Eisler and Mike Ratledge.
Chris Cutler, one of the world's leading drummers famed for his work with Henry Cow, Slapp Happy and Pere Ubu. Cassiber provided improvisation freedom and his Robert Wyatt influenced playing reached new heights with this group. His lyrics also proved the perfect foil for the volative music.
Christophe Anders, whose extraordinary declaimed vocals, scatter-gun sample work and eccentric guitar playing provide the group's focus. His on stage dialogues with Adolph Hitler are a highlight.
Cassiber Live in Tokyo CD1 captures the group at their best, in a beautifully recorded concert on October 3rd, 1992. They were joined on stage by the talented Japanese saxophonist Shinoda Masami, who tragically died a month later at the age of 34. Tokyo was one of Cassiber's last concerts, as they disbanded shortly afterwards.
Cassiber Live in Tokyo CD2, the second part of this exciting project, is a remix of the concert by renowned avant sampling outfit Ground Zero, featuring Otomo Yoshide. This disc is a homage to Cassiber and Shinoda Masami, a show of respect that is also the final Ground-Zero recording project. The music is a new departure, with a powerful minimalist and ambient aesthetic which recalls Brian Eno's On Land and the electronic compositions of Todd Dockstader. This mood is broken by sudden surges of typical Ground-Zero aggression, culminating in a 15 minute blast of pure full group intensity, which ends the G-Z project with clouds of smoke, debris and a melted mixing console.
Live in Tokyo represents the end of an era; the last Ground Zero album, the last Cassiber concert, and the last performance of Shinoda Massami. It is a fitting memorial and a passionate album.
"Cassiber play as if they only have a minute left to live" Time Out
"Ottomo Yoshihide is the uncrowned king of noise" The Wire
source: RéR promotional onesheet