Charisma is between 8 and 17, phew - i'm an Elf (2007)
Quite how Chrisma (later Krisma, erm why??)
came across their 80s German sound is anyone's guess but it seems
likely they jumped every band wagon, and tried every scene in
musical history at one time or another. Most of it you would rather
listen to a George W speech than, but for some very very odd and
unexplainable reason 20jfg got the big love for a few of these time
traveling lycanthropes tracks.
From supporting the Beatles as part of the
Italian beat
movement to becoming a cut down Bucks Fizz/Dollar doesn't seem a
good starting point for any act - and lets set it straight - Chrisma
is an act, not a band.
Whether it was working with
Vangelis and his brother Nico that
gave them the over-serious edge of just copious amounts of cocaine
and bad taste, we love them for it.
In the late 70s they managed to produce the
blatantly ridiculous cliche full b side 'Black Silk Stockings' which
defies all common sense to be amazing. The shockingly bad a-side and
minor hit Lola still gets played on Radio 2 for your Dad to sing
along, but it's the b-side that's worthy of inserting myringotomy
tubes.
Black Silk Stockings seem to capture the
spirit of
Suicide, and
a guitar like straight from the
Helios Creed school of
sounds.
Christina Moser sings with the deadpan of a
barely conscious
Nico
and the swagger of
Amanda
Lear, combining in a sexy punk rock version of
The Normal.
Chrisma - Black silk stockings
This is back before manufactured pop,
predating even Trevor Horn's dalliances or
Trio's VL-tone
masterpiece.
At the time of moving to London from Maurizio
Arcieri's dress sense in this video they must have had an interest
in what was going on their with punk, and did many dodgy things
including cutting his finger off on stage, oh those Italians.
The proto New Wave of Gott Gott Electron shows
them shifting genre again as soon as punk lost its selling power.
The 1979 euro-art erotic video for Aurora B,
with its depiction of sex on the underground and suicide should
clearly have been a hit on late night MTV only a few years later,
but instead you got the 10cc/Godley and Cream directed sub-page 3
style titillation
Nite version of Girls on Film.
By the time of the 1980 hit Many Kisses it was
more like bad Silicon Teens with Hazel Dean, which as anyone knows
who's been forced to watch Breaking Glass is a legitimate reason for
euthanasia.
Let's not end on the bad points though.
Here is the almost motorik ambience of their
perhaps most unexpected classic C-Rock, full of a left over feel
when Maurizio worked with Brian Eno who probably lent him some Neu!
Or Harmonia.
|
