| Slapp Happy |
Cover
of Slapp Happy's 1974
album Slapp Happy
Left to right: Peter Blegvad, Dagmar
Krause, Anthony Moore |
| Background information |
| Origin |
 Hamburg, Germany |
| Genre(s) |
Avant-progressive rock |
| Years active |
1972–1975
Reunions: 1997,
2000 |
| Label(s) |
Polydor, Virgin,
V2
Recommended, FMN |
Associated
acts |
Henry Cow |
| Former members |
Peter
Blegvad
Dagmar
Krause
Anthony Moore |
Slapp Happy was a German/English avant-garde
pop
group consisting of Anthony Moore (keyboards), Peter
Blegvad (guitar) and Dagmar Krause (vocals). They formed in
Germany
in 1972,
moved to England
in 1974
where they merged with Henry Cow, but the merger ended
soon afterwards and Slapp Happy split up. From 1982 there have been
brief reunions to work on an opera, record a CD and tour Japan.
Slapp Happy's sound was characterised by Dagmar Krause's
highly original and idiosyncratic vocal style making their music
instantly likable by some and hated by others.
|
Contents
- 1 History
- 1.1 Germany
- 1.2 England
- 1.3 Reunions
- 2 Music
- 3 Members
- 4 Discography
- 5 See
also
- 6 External
links
|
History
Germany
Slapp Happy was formed in 1972 in Hamburg, Germany by British
experimental composer Anthony
Moore. Moore had recorded two avant-garde/experimental
solo LPs for Polydor
Germany,
but when they rejected his third because it was not commercial enough,
he proposed a pop
project with his girlfriend, Dagmar Krause from Hamburg, and a
visiting American friend, Peter
Blegvad. At the time Dagmar couldn't sing because of voice problems,
but when Moore and Blegvad claimed their singing was "terrible", Dagmar
agreed to sing for the group.
With krautrock
group Faust
as their backing band, Slapp Happy recorded their debut album Sort Of
for Polydor Germany in 1972.
The songs were simple, primitive pop, a "naive rock"
as Peter Blegvad put it, and with Dagmar Krause's pure and innocent
sounding voice, Slapp Happy's trademark sound was established.
Commercially, the LP did not go very far, primarily because Slapp Happy
refused to perform live "like a real pop group".
In 1973
they returned to the studio (again with Faust as their backing band) to
record their second album Casablanca Moon. After
the commercial failure of Sort Of Polydor had
demanded more pop-sounding material, and so Moore and Blegvad wrote
"straight" pop songs with beautiful melodies and poetic lyrics, but
Polydor was still not happy and refused to release it.
England
Slappy Happy then left Polydor Germany and moved to London where they
signed a deal with the then emerging Virgin
Records label, which was looking for experimental groups. Faust and Henry
Cow had already signed up. At Virgin's
Manor
Studios in Oxfordshire, Slapp Happy re-recorded Casablanca
Moon with the help of session musicians (under the direction
of violinist Graham Preskett) and Virgin released
it as Slapp Happy
in 1974. The
songs here were more sophisticated than those on Sort Of,
lyrically and musically, and their eccentricity showed Slapp Happy's
ambivalence towards pop music. Slapp Happy and Mike
Oldfield's Tubular Bells
were big cash earners for Virgin in 1974, and they helped fund the non-commercial
Virgin releases at the time. Slapp Happy was later
re-released as Casablanca Moon.
It wasn't until 1980 that Recommended
Records released the original Casablanca Moon (with
Faust) as Acnalbasac Noom
(the words of the original title reversed). Comparison of the two
releases revealed two very different musical
arrangements. Acnalbasac Noom had a raw and
unsophisticated feel about it (which appealed to many fans), whereas Casablanca
Moon tended to be more sentimental and "dreamy" with more
complex arrangements, including a string
orchestra. The debate as to which is better still goes on.
On 25 June 1974 Slapp Happy, with Geoff
Leigh, Fred
Frith and Lindsay Cooper from Henry
Cow, and Robert Wyatt recorded
Blegvald's song, "A Little Something" from Casablanca Moon
for the BBC's Top
Gear radio show. Credited as "Slapp Happy & Friends", "A Little
Something" was broadcast on 16 July 1974 and later released in 1994 on
Wyatt's compilation album, Flotsam Jetsam.
In November 1974,
Slapp Happy invited Henry Cow, a politically-oriented avant-garde
rock
group, to be their band on their next LP for Virgin and the two groups
recorded Desperate Straights
as "Slapp Happy/Henry Cow". The success of this collaboration surprised
everyone, considering how dissimilar the two bands were, and they
decided to merge. Desperate Straights was the
perfect mixture of avant-garde music and nostalgic pop. The music often
had a Berlin
Cabaret
feel about it with a taste of avant-garde jazz.
The merged group returned to the studio in early 1975 to record Henry
Cow's In Praise of Learning
(as "Henry Cow/Slapp Happy"). The only real contribution from Slapp
Happy (besides Dagmar's singing) was the Moore/Blegvad song "War",
which blended in well with the album's political aggression. But
differences in approach between the two groups had came to a head in
April 1975 and Anthony Moore and Peter Blegvad quit, suggesting that
Henry Cow's music was too serious (and political) for their liking.
Dagmar Krause, however, elected to remain with Henry Cow, who needed a
vocalist to bolster their sound. But this effectively spelt the end of
Slapp Happy as a band.
Reunions
Anthony Moore and Peter Blegvad then both embarked on separate
solo careers, and it wasn't until 1982 that the trio reunited briefly to record a
new Slapp Happy single, "Everybody's Slimmin' " and perform at the Institute of
Contemporary Arts in London in 1983.
The three collaborated again in 1991 on a BBC commissioned television opera "Camera",
based on an original idea by Dagmar Krause, with words by Peter Blegvad
and music by Anthony Moore. Dagmar played the lead character "Melusina"
and the opera was broadcast two years later on Channel 4 in
the United
Kingdom. The soundtrack Camera was released on CD
in 2000,
although under the names "Dagmar Krause, Anthony Moore and Peter
Blegvad". Aside from Dagmar's singing, the music on Camera
was performed by other artists and for that reason, Camera
is not strictly a Slapp Happy album.
In 1997
Slapp Happy reunited again to record a new studio album Ça Va
on Richard Branson's new V2 label.
It was Slapp Happy's first album since 1975 and the music picked up from where they
had left off with literate and quirky pop songs. A departure from the
past, however, was that they made the music themselves. They played all
the instruments and used a digital studio to produce a layered sound on
many of the tracks. This departure from Slapp Happy's "acoustic sound"
disappointed some fans, but overall the album was well received.
Slapp Happy was very popular in Japan and in 2000 they toured there, playing on stage
without any backing musicians. A CD Live in Japan
was released in 2001
in Japan
only.
Music
Slapp Happy's music was eccentric pop with an "avant-garde"
twist to it. It drew on a variety of musical idioms, including waltzes, bossa
novas, French
chansons
and tangos.
The songs' lyrics were literate and playful while the mood varied from
"dreamy" to sinister.
But it was Dagmar Krause's unusual and eerie
high-pitched voice that was the group's most arresting feature. Her German-inflected
vocals ranged from a sweet melodious croon to the love-it-or-hate-it Armageddon
style typified on In Praise of Learning.
Slapp Happy's music is an acquired taste, but to aficionados,
it is enchanting and intriguing.
Members
- Anthony Moore – guitar,
keyboards, percussion, programming, tape manipulation, toy theremin,
melodica, harmonica, vocals
- Peter Blegvad – guitar, bass guitar,
saxophone, clarinet, percussion, harmonica, vocals
- Dagmar Krause – vocals, piano,
percussion, harmonica
Note: Dagmar Krause was credited as "Daggi" on Slapp Happy's
first album, Sort Of (1972). On
the next three albums, Slapp
Happy (1974), Desperate
Straights (1975) and In
Praise of Learning (1975), she was credited as
"Dagmar". From Acnalbasac Noom
(1980) onwards Krause was credited with her full name.
Discography
These are Slapp Happy's albums (excluding bootlegs) showing
the year they were first released:
- 1972
Sort
Of (LP Polydor, Germany)
- 1974
Slapp Happy
(also known as Casablanca Moon)
(LP Virgin
Records, UK)
- 1975
Desperate Straights
(with Henry
Cow) (LP Virgin Records, UK)
- 1975
In Praise of Learning
(with Henry
Cow) (LP Virgin Records, UK)
- 1980
Acnalbasac Noom
(LP Recommended Records, UK)
- 1998
Ça
Va (CD V2 Records, UK)
- 2000
Camera (as "Dagmar Krause/Anthony
Moore/Peter Blegvad") (CD Blueprint
Records, UK)
- 2001
Live in Japan
(CD FMN Records, Japan)
See also
External links
| v • d • e Slapp
Happy |
| Peter
Blegvad • Dagmar
Krause • Anthony
Moore |
| Discography |
| Sort Of
(1972) • Slapp
Happy (1974)
• Acnalbasac
Noom (1980)
• Ça Va (1998)
• Live in Japan
(2001) |
| with Henry Cow:
Desperate Straights
(1975) • In
Praise of Learning (1975) |
| Related bands |
| Faust • Henry
Cow |
