Appi

condition (record/cover): EX / VG+ (light brown stain on back)

Insert included. Twelve tracks on a seven-inch single: that alone tells you most of what you need to know about André Aspelmeier's method. Appi was his solo noise project, active from late 1985 through the middle of 1988, self-released on a series of German underground labels. Mahnfaktor Katharsis is the project's first and only 7" EP, recorded in May and October 1986 in Bielefeld on the four-track of a friend known as Misha, then pressed on Böse Stimmen.

Track titles arrange themselves into an ironic digestive arc, opening with "Einlauf (Vorwärts Rein...)" and closing with "Auslauf (... Rückwärts Raus)," with stations like "Gierige Blutegel" (greedy leeches), "Dampfhammer," "Luft," and "Noir Permanent" in between. The approach is the bedroom industrial of the early-to-mid Eighties German cassette circuit, compressed to miniature: very short pieces, dry four-track recording, a mix of synth scraping, voice, tape manipulation, and object percussion. There are moments that recall what Maurizio Bianchi was doing on Endometrio-era tapes, others closer to the NDW fringe.

Aspelmeier wound down Appi in 1988 and would later resurface in German techno-industrial circles, but the 1986 7" catches him before any professionalisation set in. Bielefeld bedroom noise at its most concentrated, twelve panels on a piece of vinyl the size of a coaster.