Lechz — Born Under Bad Signs: An interview with artistic duo Malola
In 1984, Maren Sanneh and Christian Schaffner founded the artistic duo MALOLA in Basel, Switzerland, where the then-couple conceptualised their performance art as part of the city’s squatting scene and explored the creative possibilities of a variety of different media like concept art, installations, photography and music. Now, in the year of MALOLA’s 40th anniversary, we talked with Maren and Christian about an enigmatic piece in their oeuvre, a wonderfully weird 7” inch single with experimental electronic music released in 1989. Sold the last time over 2 years ago, and with only 6 known copies in collections across the world according to Discogs, this is the story behind ‘Lechz — Born Under Bad Signs’.
While he is still based in Basel, and she is currently living in The Gambia, it becomes immediately clear that both Christian and Maren are still very much involved with art. She runs a small art centre near the coast of the West-African country, and Christian combines a job as a youth worker with painting and drawing and regularly participates in exhibitions. They both identify more as artists than as musicians and, before we dive into the history behind ‘Born Under Bad Signs’, Maren mentions that she hosted an event at the art centre a couple of days before our call. And that, even though she delivers the vocals on the B-side of the record, that was the first time she had picked up a microphone to sing in over 30 years.
WHEN MARY LONG MET LORENZ LAUCH
Maren and Christian met in 1984. She had been an art student in her hometown of Hamburg, Germany, until she moved to Basel in 1982 after meeting a couple of Swiss guys during a trip to New York. Known under her nickname Mary Long, she was introduced to Christian, who was also an art student and by then had adopted the alias Lorenz Lauch.
The two hit it off, and bonded over similar views on the shifting society of the early 80s and the role of art as a medium for critique and a catalyst for change. They became involved with the Basel punk scene, and were squatting in both Hamburg and Switzerland’s third-biggest city, which has been home to the now world-renowned art fair since 1970 and was a hotspot for creative expression at the time.
It was also around that time that they both started playing music, with Christian eventually becoming a member of the Swiss experimental cult band Elephant Chateau, and, in 1984, they began creating art together as the duo MALOLA, an acronym of Mary Long and Lorenz Lauch.
DAS SCHWIERIGE FEIERN / CELEBRATING THE DIFFICULT
One of the first works the couple created together, was a silkscreen on padded satin with the message ‘Das Schwierige Feiern’, which translates to ‘Celebrating The Difficult’. Originally conceptualised to be sent in as an application for an artist’s grant in Hamburg, Christian and Maren vividly remember this piece as a form of protest against the changing of the times in those early eighties.
Christian & Maren: ‘It was the mid to late 80s which wasn’t a very happy time in Basel. The times were grey, the parties were not what they used to be. It was the end of the hippie-era of the 70s, people used to be more free, but things were becoming harder again. It was a difficult period for artists and creativity, with a lot of rules starting to come up. It was not like Woodstock anymore, it seemed like society was becoming more closed again.’
Unfortunately, the work wasn’t selected for a grant that year, but in the years to follow, the pair would send in two more art pieces to complete the tryptich to compete: ‘LECHZ’ and ‘Auf Einen Fetten Blick’. While the latter, made from expanding polyurethane, would eventually land them the support they were looking for, it was the work with the title ‘LECHZ’ that would eventually form the base for the 1989 vinyl release with the same name.
LONGING
In German, the verb ‘lechzen’ stands for a strong longing, like how a dog can long for a treat, salivating at the mere sight of it. To symbolise this Pavlovian process, Maren and Christian opted to craft the original art piece completely out of fur and, continuing their associative approach to creating, it was this link to dogs and wolves that would eventually lead to the recording of their first-ever vinyl release.
Christian & Maren: ‘The LECHZ release for us was really all about experimentation and finding how to work with music as a form of artistic expression. Back then, we had just read the novel ‘Steppenwolf’ by Herman Hesse, about a man named Harry Haller who finds it hard to fit in with a changing society, and we decided to incorporate some of this wolf-symbolism on the record. That’s why you can hear a howling wolf on ‘Born Under Bad Signs’, and why we decided to title the B-side track ‘Harry’ after the protagonist in ‘Steppenwolf’.
Born Under Bad Signs’, where Christian does the vocals, was all about that gloomy feeling we had in the early eighties and the changing times. We wish we could tell you more about the meaning of the lyrics, but after so many years it has become impossible to decipher Christian’s handwriting on the piece of paper where we scribbled the song text. (laughter)
Harry on the other hand is more groovy with a commanding bassline played by Maren. Based on the story of ‘Steppenwolf’, the lyrics are about Harry Haller, a guy who is a bit of an outsider and longed to be part of society. Just like the novel was mirroring Hesse’s inner thoughts, the music was mirroring ours.’
STRIKE AT THE PRESSING PLANT
Christian & Maren: ‘When listening to the record again now, we were astonished at the creative process that went into it, because we were really new to this kind of music production. Maren was the one programming the TR-909, and we had to add certain bits after recording everything else, like taking some sounds from movies we loved watching.’
In ‘Born Under Bad Signs’ there is the wolf sound from ‘Never Cry Wolf’, a 1983 Disney movie about a scientist living with wolves, and there’s also that brass sound at the end of Harry, that is taken from ‘Le Mani Sulla Citta’ from Francesco Rosi, a film about a corrupt building company in Napoli and the Camorra. Since we didn’t have samplers back then, we just recorded the audio from the tv with a microphone to cassette, and then mastered it on a Revox mastering machine. In the years that followed, we would get better and better at making electronic music and using those new technologies, but that first release was really a lot of manual work.’
The music was eventually pressed on 300 copies that were sold in local record stores and handed out at various art events, but the record almost didn’t make it out of the factory, as Christian recalls.
Christian: ‘At the presswerk where they cut the vinyl, there was an old engineer wearing his blue overalls. He came up to me and said he didn’t want to press the record because it would destroy the whole machine due to all of the high tones in the music. It turned out great in the end, but at first he went on kind of a strike against our experimental sounds and needed some convincing. (laughs)’
ART IS LIKE A TURNING WHEEL
When we first approached Maren and Christian to reissue their music, they were surprised, to say the least.
Christian & Maren: ‘We were astonished to hear people are still interested in this release. We really hadn’t thought about that. Young people or current collectors might be looking for something different, something crazy, while for us now the music would be a bit too nervous.
But it’s like with all art, it’s like a turning wheel. Things come and go and come back again, just like how people keep searching for music that is not like anything else being brought out at the moment. So maybe our crazy sounding, loud music appeals to modern audiences because of that.’
We actually never considered reissuing any of our works due to the costs involved with vinyl reissuing and because we honestly didn’t think there was any interest in a digital rerelease. But we were very happy to hear that people are still resonating with our work, and the fact that you respected the music and us as artists, made us excited to work with you and making our music available to the people who still want to enjoy it.
The new remasters are honestly sounding very good. It was very surprising to listen back to them after all these years, because we probably didn’t listen to the original music anymore in the past 30 or so years. We noticed you made ‘Harry’ a bit faster, which gives it a bit more punch and makes it more groovy. We really liked that.’
For those who are interested in learning more about Maren & Christian’s work, you can find detailed documentation of all their art works and more recent musical projects on their website http://www.malola.net/.
‘Born Under Bad Signs’ is now available in digital format exclusively on Revibed, you can check it out here.
