Achim Gaetjen | Les Rabiates

city-trash-jazz rock'n'roll & polka-beat

Les Rabiates have been around for quite some time. In 2009, the CD “Ein Kiosk mit elf Millionen Nachten” was released as a collaboration between Les Rabiates and the German-Polish poet Artur Becker, whose absurdly twisted and complex poetry the band congenially painted with a kind of ruffian jazz to Becker’s recitation. The next coup followed in the same year with the CD single “Bastard”, in which the quartet worked for the first time with the Spanish singer CaLi, but also operated with German lyrics, which the band’s founder Achim Gätjen, actually a saxophonist, sings and speaks with a deep, growling bass. Singer CaLi is also present on the current album “Destination Unknown”, now as a permanent band member.

On “Destination Unknown”, Les Rabiates stage a crashing, driving, and then tenderly lyrical dark rock in singer/songwriter style, in which the color black predominates: Here, Cohen, Cave and Cash are sitting on the Velvet Underground sofa in Warhol’s Factory – the latter mainly because CaLi’s voice is somewhere between Nico and Patti Smith. Les Rabiates are also lounging on this sofa, and they feel right at home here. The lyrics are in English and Spanish, although the composer Achim Gätjen found his inspiration not in Spain but – surprise! – in Greece.

Of course, Les Rabiates have a history. For years, Achim Gätjen experimented with the band Swim Two Birds, which played a kind of ruffian jazz with literary aspirations. The band name itself suggests this, as it is derived from the novel of the same name by the Irishman Flann O’Brien. Swim Two Birds have worked with spoken word performers (most recently with the aforementioned Artur Becker). The septet with its strong brass section is now history. With Les Rabiates, Gätjen is now partly following the rabid music of Swim Two Birds, but on the other hand this is also a decisive step in a new direction, especially since there are no more brass instruments at all, but instead a lot of work is done with samples, analogue keyboard sounds and very distinctive guitar with powerful drums.

Artur Becker 

»Les Rabiates« and I

Poets are afraid of music because the song and melody of a kithara can reach the beating chambers of the heart much faster than the written word, and in principle the universe is nothing more than an expression of music and mathematics, even if the Bible teaches that in the beginning there was the word. But Edward Stachura says that everything is poetry and every person is a poet(a). As a poet, he may of course be completely right in this case with his somewhat pathetic-sounding claim - unless he meant that every person and everything that exists is divine, immortal. But what happens when a poet(a) or a writer and four musicians meet? It is not easy for me to explain this, since I am this poet(a). Why should I write about our music, which I try to enrich with my poems and recitation, in the sense of a critic or gourmet? I'm not a crazy graphomaniac who reviews his own product with delight, especially for an imaginary audience.

Nevertheless, the following can be said clearly: No one involved in the musical-literary project "Les Rabiates & Artur Becker" gets in each other's way - the guys play their music and I recite my lines and verses, so that the pieces of music then sound like completely normal songs, at least at first glance or when you first listen to them. The four musicians of "Les Rabiates" are actually just doing what they have always done, in various bands and at various concerts: They send the world a message; they are not ashamed of their exuberant feelings during a live performance, they are not afraid to make a critical judgment about people and their actions or about themselves in their musical expression, even if it turns out to be harsh or even absurd. In other words: They respond to the love, hate and indifference of the world. It is a very personal response to today's times, social conditions and complications. At the same time, it is a response to the never-ending hum of our infinite universe, which we sometimes condemn and sometimes praise as a divine, immortal life installed in us humans. But their music must first and foremost be understood as a response to my poems and texts.

The musical reaction of the composer and saxophonist Achim Gätjen and the drummer and producer Jens Ahlers to my poetry overwhelmed me when we first met in the studio and on stage - I was not prepared for my literary garden to be able to reproduce itself through sounds, solos, melodies, cacophonies, notes, cascades of noise and songs to create something completely new; And that is also the most important keyword when it comes to this "socialist" collaboration called "Les Rabiates & Artur Becker": The combination of text and music seems to work very well in this case because it gives the impression of something new and genuine, and not just of something that is striving for authenticity. In the field of poetry setting, one genre is usually given more emphasis: the texts shine, and the music degenerates into nothing more than esoteric background music. In "Les Rabiates", on the other hand, both genres and muses are given equal status - something new is created, and the audience is finally no longer forced to listen intently to the poems, to float on a soporific carpet of sound from the supermarket; with this band project, the listener can also let themselves be carried away by the compositions, melodies and sounds, they do not have to focus all their attention on the texts. The electric pianist Michael Berger shows courage in this new venture and attempt in the field of setting poetry to music - he makes the songs seem surreal in places, although he remains true to the blues, swing and his great favorite Johann Sebastian Bach, who inspires Berger's love of improvisation. The multilingual Ralf Benesch wakes up from the beauty sleep of a virtuoso guitarist and bossa nova fanatic in this marriage of music and poetry and puts his foot on the gas in the bends, including on his baritone saxophone. And I even find a little time to forget my recitation of the lyrics and listen to the indestructible alto saxophone solos by Gätjen, whose sound and playing aesthetics remind me of the films of the Nouvelle Vague. Ahlers cooks this sophisticated dish on his drum kit, tastes it again and again and always finds his way back to its origins - to the tried and tested rhythms of jazz and rock. The whole thing then goes into the meat grinder again and later back to earth: as a purified soul walking between the beds of this new garden.

Artur Becker ©