The secret cosmic music from the East German Olympic Program 1972 - 83

[Zeuhlmate]

Kosmischer Läufer



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KOSMISCHER LÄUFER - VOLUME TWO - OUT 17th MARCH 2014

The Secret Cosmic Music Of The East German Olympic Program 1972-83.

This is Flucht aus dem Tal der Ahnungslosen (1981) Track 3 from Kosmischer Läufer Volume Two. It is the second half of a 20 minute 172BPM run.

This second visit to the Martin Zeichnete archive takes a broader look at his work for the East German Olympic Program. Across three disciplines we have another running programme, this time at 172 BPM, and take our first look at the music Zeichnete composed for gymnastic floor programmes and figure skating routines which he hoped would reveal his music to a wider audience. The selection also covers a greater time period from the mid 70's to one of his final compositions from 1983.

[Zeuhlmate]

Kosmischer Läufer - Jenseits des Horizonts (1977)



Kosmischer Läufer - Die Libellen (1975)

[Zeuhlmate]

Its great music - but it looks like a hoax - very well executed.

[at least 100 dead]

Kosmischer Läufer

This is Flucht aus dem Tal der Ahnungslosen (1981) Track 3 from Kosmischer Läufer Volume Two. It is the second half of a 20 minute 172BPM run.

Hoax or not (the production of the '81 track sounds suspiciously contemporary to me), this is pretty cool. At 172 BPM you’ll be racing, not running though.

EDIT: I vaguely remember this project being featured on German TV a few years ago (probably by “Tracks”, a music/culture/art show on the French/German TV channel). The possibility of a hoax may have been briefly mentioned...

PS: “Tal der Ahnungslosen” literally means “valley of the clueless”. Certain areas of the former DDR couldn’t receive West German TV, thus their denizen were mocked for being out of the loop.

[Trane]

Its great music - but it looks like a hoax - very well executed.

You mean linking the music with the images??

Because I'm kind of not surprised at the films of 77 and 81 (though it's the first time I see them, though they might have exported their show to the Kremlon), but it's more Chinese or North Korean type of stuff...


as for the TD-like music, it's not like they would've asked degenerate West-Germans musos for their approval...

But yeah, the 77 images with the girls using their cube as drums, it doesn't fit the music.

[Zeuhlmate]

No - I suspect that the music was not made in DDR, but fairly recent, and its a mediastunt like... Thick as a Brick.
But I dont know.

Nevertheless, the music is good and the videos are interesting. Fans of Kraut, Gong, Tangerine Dream, etc. should definetely hear this.

[Scrotum Scissor]

I'm kind of not surprised at the films of 77 and 81 (though it's the first time I see them, though they might have exported their show to the Kremlon), but it's more Chinese or North Korean type of stuff.

The so-called Spartakiads originated in Czechoslowakia but by the early/mid-60s were staged in all Warszaw Pact countries. They were basically propaganda showcases in the form of sports rallies, intended to signal strength through discipline and coordinated order as demonstrations of the will of the new, collective "socialist man" who'd thrown off the yoke of fascism and imperialism. These events reached bizarre proportions in Romania (as you said, additionally influenced by the grotesque exhibitions witnessed by Ceausescu on his visit to Kim Il Sung's North Korea), but they also appeared in Bulgaria, Poland, the Baltics, the GDR etc.

[Casey]

And this in the age before CGI. George Lucas take note!

[spacefreak]

The so-called Spartakiads originated in Czechoslowakia but by the early/mid-60s were staged in all Warszaw Pact countries. They were basically propaganda showcases in the form of sports rallies, intended to signal strength through discipline and coordinated order as demonstrations of the will of the new, collective "socialist man" who'd thrown off the yoke of fascism and imperialism. These events reached bizarre proportions in Romania (as you said, additionally influenced by the grotesque exhibitions witnessed by Ceausescu on his visit to Kim Il Sung's North Korea), but they also appeared in Bulgaria, Poland, the Baltics, the GDR etc.

Exactly! I have a cousin which was a member of the greek stalinist communist party youth (ages 8 to 15) New Pioneers; he studied in Romania and participated in two late 70s student Spartakiads there.

I believe that originally the Spartakiads were an opposal to the Olympics (at least their title symbolised "proletarian" in contrary to the more "aristocratic" nature of the Olympiads. However, by the time these countries enrolled the Olympic games, they lost their international "flavour" and survived as localised events.

I did a little research in my home encyclopedias and found that the first international winter Spartakiad was held in Oslo (February 17-19, 1928). Sponsored by the Soviet Union I guess...

[Scrotum Scissor]

I did a little research in my home encyclopedias and found that the first international winter Spartakiad was held in Oslo (February 17-19, 1928). Sponsored by the Soviet Union I guess...

This is partly true; Norway had the AIF (Arbeidernes Idrettsforbund; Workers' Sports Union), which during the 20s grew larger than the official national sports assembly and was essentially subordinate to the Union of Labour and the Norwegian Labour Party, both of which actually settled to the left of the stalinist Norwegian Communist Party of the day, renounced the Comintern and even spent two weeks in government office before they were ousted. The radical labour movement was immensely powerful here back then, and indeed the Labour Party didn't steer off the revolutionary road until 1934, by which time they as social democrats constituted the most influential political force in Norway - a position they still maintain.

The arrangements in Oslo in 1928 were obviously less overtly pompous than what the Czechs introduced in 1955, though. But notable characters from this event later resurfaced in executive committees of the legendary "alternative" olympics of Spain in '36, staged by the radical, elect Republican government as protest against the official games in Berlin.

[Trane]

I believe that originally the Spartakiads were an opposal to the Olympics (at least their title symbolised "proletarian" in contrary to the more "aristocratic" nature of the Olympiads. However, by the time these countries enrolled the Olympic games, they lost their international "flavour" and survived as localised events.

Although this thread awakes some muddy and cloudy memories that were all but totally forgotten, I don't have any recollection that these Spartakiads were organized as a "protest to Olympic Games", but maybe as an in-between OG alternative . Remember that the Commonwealth games have existed for decades, as well as the Pan American Games (involving all of the New World)

Already the name refers to Sparta (ancient Greece's rival to Athens) and there were dozens of sport clubs in all of these communist countries called Spartak-sumthin'... But yeah, the opposition of rougher-edged "Spartans" to more-educated snobby Athenians was certainly an image the communists probably couldn't resist using

[Scrotum Scissor]

^The "Spartakiads" name was in reality an allusion to the revolutionary Spartacus movement of Liebknecht and Luxemburg in Germany 1918-19. Which again of course played on the image of the Spartans as proletarian opposers of oppression.

[Trane]

^The "Spartakiads" name was in reality an allusion to the revolutionary Spartacus movement of Liebknecht and Luxemburg in Germany 1918-19. Which again of course played on the image of the Spartans as proletarian opposers of oppression.

Ah, OK, I always assumed Sparta instead of Spartacus...

My bad

[spacefreak]

^The "Spartakiads" name was in reality an allusion to the revolutionary Spartacus movement of Liebknecht and Luxemburg in Germany 1918-19.

Exactly and on the image of a revolted Spartakus, leading his "army" of slaves and gladiators against the oppressors.

[Trane]

Exactly and on the image of a revolted Spartakus, leading his "army" of slaves and gladiators against the oppressors.

Didn't Spartacus end up dead at 40 at the hand of the enemies??

Not that great of a symbol, IMHO.

[Scrotum Scissor]

Didn't Spartacus end up dead at 40 at the hand of the enemies??

Not that great of a symbol, IMHO.

But somehow you're perhaps missing the point then; it's all about martyrdom, it's always about that. As when Ernst Thälmann became the guiding light of youth in the GDR; Thälmann was the German communist party leader who was arrested by the nazis already in 1933, kept in miserable solitary confinement for years and years before being sent to Buchenwald in 1944 and pretty much shot on arrival - and then cremated in one of those hellish ovens. Needless to say there were no bodily remnants left to be buried, still the GDR (i.e. post-war East German) government erected a marvellous gravesite over him for People to mourn and remember his sacrifice. Already back when he was in jail during the years 1936-39, the International Brigades of the Spanish civil war had a large enlistment named the Thälmann Batallion (one of my great uncles served there), all the time while Stalin refused to appeal to Hitler for Thälmann's release and furthermore fucked up the struggle of the anarchists, trotskyites and independent Spanish socialists against the fascist Falange.

Meaning: it's not about outcome or fate - it's always about principle and will and commitment and dedication. And above all - about role. Spartacus was perfect for the role - as they interpreted him.

[Svetonio]

A stunning album with a hoax as a clever marketing for this project.

[Casey]

Nice analysis Scrotum Scissor. The way communism (or any -ism for that matter) is more about principle than practice. No one is allowed to look behind the curtain or under the tent flap.

[Zeuhlmate]

A stunning album with a hoax as a clever marketing for this project.

3 albums. http://www.kosmischerlaufer.com/

[Mascodagama]

Already the name refers to Sparta (ancient Greece's rival to Athens) and there were dozens of sport clubs in all of these communist countries called Spartak-sumthin'... But yeah, the opposition of rougher-edged "Spartans" to more-educated snobby Athenians was certainly an image the communists probably couldn't resist using

Ironic if so - Spartan society in the Classical period having been even more brutally elitist than that of Athens, based on the savage oppression of the majority Helot class by the small minority of Spartan citizens, who maintained the balance of power through terror and violence.

[Svetonio]

3 albums. http://www.kosmischerlaufer.com/

Yeah, sure.
No surprise if will be more.
But something tells me that the first LP is the best part of the project and that it will stay on the top.

[arturs]

The East German Olympic story is clever, plausible, and fascinating too... But the music? It is good. But... 1970s Soviet synths? No fucking way. Sorry.

Wanna hear some real 1970s Soviet synths (and a few western ones, too)? The Zodiaks LP below was put out circa 1980 in the then-Latvian SSR and become a hit throughout the USSR. Some relatives sent me a vinyl copy back in the day. You can hear how primitive Zodiaks sounds compared to the Kosmische Laufer thing. A good album but primitive. Not a chance in hell the Kosmische Laufer thing was recorded in the same time period.

[spacefreak]

Not a chance in hell the Kosmische Laufer thing was recorded in the same time period.

A badly disguised hoax as Svet quoted above. Even serious Eastern European synth stuff from that era sounds way more dated than Kosmische Laufer.

[Svetonio]

Re synthesizers, of course that they were able to import a few synths from the west for their "secret project". However, the music at Kosmischer Läufer sounds too modern; "retro", but modern.
Aside of the equipment, why would they have to put in a top secret files something that actually was not prohibited? My favourite Yugo-prog band Smak was touring DDR regularly in the seventies. Perhaps Kosmiche Muzik was especially forbidden? Lol. As someone who has lived half of his life in - albeit Yugoslavia was more liberal than DDR and not a member of Warsaw Pact - real-socialism, I clearly see that the hoax is created for those who were learned to think that those socialistic European countries weren't normal countries too.

[arturs]

^^^ The "interview" with the supposed creator of the kosmische laufer music states that "We had some Western technology in effect units and such but the synthesizers were mostly Soviet in origin and could be very temperamental."

Regarding the "secret" part, the secretive nature of the project was not to overcome any sort of prohibition but rather--I think--because it could have helped the East German teams so much that they did not want any other countries' Olympic teams to know about it. As I said a clever story.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/146194346...rtin-Zeichnete