The Return of the Hifi Killers

I first became aware of Electric Beatniks in 2007. Someone hooked me up with their self-titled album released on Saftkugler Unlimited. I have played their off-kilter masterpiece many times since then, waiting anxiously for more crazy Beatnik sounds. In late 2011 the Beatniks started posting up Cover of the Month tunes every month or so on their website, a total of eight cover tunes as only EB could imagine them. Then March of last year they released their sophomore release Our Insignificance Has Always Been Our Greatest Strength on RDS. I was listening to it the other day & realized that a lot of you may not be familiar with their terrific style. Decided to post up their self-titled first release here.

Wolfgang Hagedorn & Raouf Khanfir first played music together in the noise-rock band Hifi-Killers. After the group disbanded in 1997 Hagedorn along with Michael Lückner (alias Digital Jockey) co-founded Computerjockeys (who scored the international hit "Ping Pong" ). Khanfir formed Man vs. Nature (who played an obscure trashy version of the sounds à la Captain Beefheart meets the Butthole Surfers that they called "pig jazz"). In 2007 Hagedorn had some music without words & Khanfir some words without music. They once more got together, became The Mites, then shortly changed their name to Electric Beatniks. That name is very well represented by their music…beatnik music gone electronic. It’s dance music from a different perhaps parallel universe. It’s got a lot of weird sounds, samples, & bits of vocals done up on guitar & synthesizer. Hagedorn is a proponent of fuzzy post-punk guitar playing influenced by Link Wray & 70s Soul sounds. Khanfir works the synthesizer & provides vocals, howling, screaming, vocalizing through various pitch shifters, delays, & distortion. His style of undistorted singing leans heavily toward Shane MacGowan, Tom Waits, Mark E. Smith, David Thomas, & Gibby Haynes.

Electric Beatniks – self-titled, Saftkugler Unlimited, 2007.
decryption code in comments

Tracklist –

Beatnik Stomp

Loop Lu

Michaux

Hands

Hellride

Bassman

I Love My Insects

Electric Birds

Me & My Furniture

Steal What You Need

Electric Island

bonus cover of the month tracks –

Romeo (Wipers cover – Nov. 2011)

Hound Dog (Elvis cover – Jan. 2012)

Superbad (James Brown cover – March 2012)

Let’s Lynch the Landlord (Dead Kennedys cover – April 2012)

Life is Strange (Tall Dwarfs cover – May 2012)

Money (Sonics cover – June 2012)

Bonnie & Clyde (Serge Gainsbourg & Brigitte Bardot cover – July 2012)

Touch Me, I’m Sick (Mudhoney cover – Aug. 2012)

plus one from their latest –

Marriage Bureau

Enjoy & snap those fingers Daddy-Ø,

NØ