Kafkas - CD collection

[originally posted April 28th 2024 on cohost]

Not too long ago I've stumbled upon the band Kafkas, and since I've sort of speedrunned getting their discography together. One reason being, this band is from Fulda in Germany, making them somewhat local to me (at least more so than most bands I listen to). The other reason, as you can tell by my fascination with bands like Chumbawamba or Linkin Park for example, I have a thing for bands that do a complete 180 in the style of music they're playing.

Kafkas started out in the mid 90s playing angry and very politically blunt melodic hardcore that earned them comparisons to Propagandhi (who they also shout out in the booklet of Sklavenautomat), but throughout the 2000s and 2010s they got more subtle and started increasingly shifting towards a more electronic indie and dance pop sound, as guitars and acoustic drums disappear more and more throughout their output in favour of synthesizers and drum machines. The first thing I heard was their latest album Ringo, which was released just last year after a couple of years without any output. Although I didn't like it at all initially, I was still intrigued about the band and after exploring them further, it allowed me see it in a larger context of this band's output and the sound eventually grew on me, though I still do find it a bit cheesy at times. My favourite releases are in their transitionary period, the EP Lebenslang from 2014, and of course the brilliant album Paula from 2010. That period lands in a great middle-ground between the two extremes of their sound, ending up with a great synthy but still guitar driven indie dance punk mix.

The newer releases I got through their own online shop (through which I also ended up in a small email exchange with the singer and songwriter Markus, who was incredibly nice), and the older stuff I managed to pick up through ebay. A good chunk of the discography is extremely out of print and hasn't even been re-released digitally. Luckily I was able to find copies of Privilegienthron and Serotonin, the latter of which didn't even have the album cover available online anywhere in a resolution higher than like 100 pixels. What's still missing is the debut album Hypochonder and a small handful of EPs, but I definitely have managed to get all the most important pieces.

Really interesting band and it's a shame it took me so long to find out about them