De Kift – Krankenhaus (SOLD OUT)(025)

“De Kift’s second album, Krankenhaus, originally a 1993 compact disc, is released for the first time ever on vinyl. The music on the album is difficult to describe, there simply aren’t the reference points to make it easily classifiable. Thematically, Krankenhaus is a guided tour through the terror and tedium of war and its effects. Musically, it does have guitar, bass, and drums, but there is also a brass section, scrappy and heartfelt, making plenty of appearances throughout, and some woodwinds, an accordion, piano, violin, and hand clapping show up here and there. Imagine a scene from a Berlin cabaret of the ’30s as written by the New Deal’s Federal Theater Project. But, in, well, Dutch. And using World War authors and poets as lyricists, but seen through the lens of the Dutch squatters movement that De Kift and The Ex came up through. If Hanns Eisler had been a collaborator with The Ex, you’d be close, but still not quite there. De Kift sets their music to the stories and poems of authors Jan Arends, Erich M. Remarque and Wolfgang Borchert and comes up with an album that brings a new beauty to the words and a remarkably original amalgamation. This release comes in a tip-on sleeve with original artwork and is accompanied by a 16-page booklet with lyrics in Dutch, English and German.”

(THIS ALBUM IS SOLD OUT)