It's the end of 1979, in Ludwigshafen, Ingrid (bass) and Pia (drums) want to start a feminist punk band. The two young women do not yet know how to play any instruments. They only know that they want to play, and meet other women like themselves. Less than 30 minutes away by car in Heidelberg is where Stephanie (guitar) lives. She responds to an advertisement from two young women who mention they're looking for a guitarist, without really knowing why. April 5th, 1980, the women play in front of their first public audience. At this point they call themselves "Knitterfrei". Starting in November 1980, they decide on the name "Trümmerfrauen", thinking that their music had evolved with the arrival of Gabi (synth). Very quickly, they will become associated with the Mannheim Punk scene (the city that neighbors Ludwigshafen, separated by the Rhine). In November 1981, the band records their first 7" in Berlin which will be released by Zensor. A few months later, in April 1982, Pia quits the band. Stephanie, Ingrid, and Gabi decide to continue Trümmerfrauen. This will be the beginning of the end. Our take: Discography release from this early 80s German post-punk quartet, and while it’s probably amateur hour to compare a band that sounds like this to Kleenex, it’s the best I can give you right now. I mean, it’s not like Trummerfrauen sound exactly like Kleenex, but when you’ve got this kind of rickety post-punk sound with standard rock band instrumentation (there is a synth, but it doesn’t play a huge role on most tracks) and it’s fronted by one or more women yelling at you with a thick German accent it’s really hard to get away from that Kleenex comparison. Trummerfrauen are definitely a bit rawer and louder, though, lacking many of the more overt pop elements of Kleenex and LiLiPUT… in other words, there aren’t a lot of tracks here that you’ll be humming later in the day. That’s not to say that this isn’t a great listen, it’s just that—like a lot of post-punk music—the emphasis seems to be more on densely interwoven rhythms than on conventional pop melody. And the lyrics—which are split roughly 50/50 between German and English—are really cool and obviously well thought-out as well, providing an interesting window into a very late 70s / early 80s take on feminism. It’s obvious that the members of Trummerfrauen were plugged into a lot of interesting things happening during their time, and their way of enthusiastically cramming them together in the band’s music and presentation is infectious.
