Date: Mon, 14 Aug 1995 18:01:11 -0700 From: Brant Dewdrops (nelson@EGGNEB.ASTRO.UCLA.EDU) Subject: more 4ad rumors nailed down > I recall sometime ago, a cd by an act known as 'Rossberger Report' was to be > released on 4AD. I was led to believe later that it was a reformed Xmal > Deutschland. Any reasons why this never came to be? More bad news, I'm afraid. This goes way back to the beginning of 1993 when we, umm, interviewed Ivo. He said he was originally really impressed with their live performance he saw in Germany. Lots of guitarists on stage all playing at once. Probably something like Tone or Glenn Branca. One (or more?) of their members was an Xmal D. graduate. Plans were made for a release on Guernica. Then Ivo received a studio(?) recording of theirs, wasn't overly impressed, and changed his mind. Date: Thu, 21 Sep 1995 00:15:07 -0500 From: Kagin Lee (klee1@tiger1.ocs.lsu.edu) Subject: Re: xmal deutschland help On Wed, 20 Sep 1995, soul whirling somewhere wrote: > i recently picked up xmal deutschland's _tocsin_, which i thoroughly enjoy. i > was wondering if the material on this cd is fairly indicative of the kind of > stuff on their other releases and how this one stacks up against them. in my opinion... Fetisch lp and Qual 12": more adventurous than the stuff on Tocsin, which seemed like it took some ideas from Fetisch and made 'em more digestible Fetisch is harder to take in, and sometimes reminds me of cocteau twins' 'garlands" lp. Sequenz ep and peel sessions: Even more "rock" than tocsin. The peel sessions has the same songs as sequenz i believe, with one more song. I like the versions on sequenz better, even though the peel sessions cd glows in the dark. Viva lp and Sickle Moon 12": Still similar to tocsin and sequenz with more variety, but still the pop feeling rather than the more experimental fetisch lp. To me, tocsin sounds kinda homogeneous sometimes, but that doesn't happen with this album. The 12" has one nice doomy song that's not on the album. Devils lp: Really slimy sounding glam stuff, as if they were making a conscious effort to reach dance clubs. All the songs are in english i believe. I can hardly stand listening to it. kagin Date: Tue, 31 Oct 1995 16:01:25 -0500 From: Andrew Massey (andie@AMASS.DEMON.CO.UK) Subject: Re. Xmal Deutschland (from a newbie) I can't say I ever got round to purchasing Tocsin, but about 4 years ago I stumbled upon a copy of Viva on CD in Glasgow. Mike mentioning it reminded me that I haven't listened to it for well over 18 months - it has it's moments, but nothing really special on it. The cover has a lot of silver ink on it and has an image including that same knife Vaughan has used on his first book (and somewhere else I think) cutting through some water. Nigel Grierson took the shot, but none other than Anton Corbijn took the bands' photograph. The booklet includes most of the lyrics in both English and German - the singing is a mixture, some English, some German. There are 12 tracks. Will have to listen to it again... What I did also find somewhere was cool though. An Xmal 12" from Exile (spelt Xile on Viva) called Sequenz with three tracks: "Jahr um Jahr II", "Autumn" and "Polarlicht" (different version from Viva). Autumn just has to be the best track they've ever done (so sayeth me anyway) and Jahr... in't half bad either. The cover is a bad 23 envelope rip off - it says it's by "Estragon for 23 Envelope" (wonder why they're not a regular v23 contributor?)!