 Walter Samuel, esteemed Professor of music at Hamburg's Erma Schultz Akademie, has long been seen and regarded as a highly respected authority on the the music of Klaus Harmony and has seen to it that Klaus's music is now being studied as a central part of a German Music Conservetoire module (Klaus Harmony und die moderne Beschfatiguing des Pfostens von numeralogical refrence in der Musik der Erotik Expressionistbewegung 1969-1981). We are very excited to be seeing this and are giving our full endorsement to Prof. Samuel for the use of any materials in these most worthy academic pursuits. As such, and from time to times, I am committed to including writings from him on the subject of my friend's music here on my blog. So without any further doings I present a analysis of Another Day, Another Friend, which is included on the fourth volume of OEUVRE... ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER FRIEND, 1971 A keen proponent of the palindromic form, Friedrich Wohlfäht ends Die GROSSE BRUSTWARZE KARNIVAL in the same setting as its opening titles. Focusing on Lora's return from the countryside and her rural affair, the closing montage inter-cuts slow motion footage of her tender experiences with images of the metropolis to which she is returning. Klaus Harmony's response to the sequence was a breathtakingly simple and fine piece featuring a moog ostinato on the tonic chord throughout. The composer believed it to be his best music to date and called it 'an expression of humankind's capacity to defy uncertainty'.  Wohlfäht thought it a work of genius and felt certain it would achieve recognition as such. Eventual disappointment followed however; the composition never became widely known other than for its use in a corporate presentation film for Spaldeve PLC, a Danish company selling time shares in Sweden. Walter Samuel, 1997 Klaus Harmony Pac-Man 09/20/2009
The very clever son of genius Jerrick Vander came to me and said, "hey Jan. What about a Klaus Harmony interactive game?" Well, Klaus loved gadgets as we are all aware and we think he would have loved this!  Dierdre Vander (I only just discovered his name is a girl's one - stupid!) has created Klaus Pac-Man. (try it out) Klaus has to eat as many viagra as possible. Not likely. Anyway I think I am going to play with myself on this. Pupu wil not be happy. She wants to visit a charity auction in Loughton where thay are selling Julie Goodyear's boot collection. Peace, Jan Sink Did Fabien Mitterrand kill Klaus Harmony? 08/01/2009
It has been claimed, mostly by some, that Fabien Mitterrand did kill Klaus Harmony. Well, it could, of course, be so. But why would he do it? Obvously it is like a Mozart and Salieri thing (God forbid that I should need to say that Klaus is Mozart here!).  Tales of their rivalry - or Mitterrand's bitterness - are well document. First Klaus was in the midst of a breakthrough with the first digitally recorded pop album with Ladies Man in 1977. When Mitterrand found this out he sent a man to be an undercover runner in the studio and wipe jam on the recording heads of the tape machine which Jerrick Vander had invented. What a mess, I can tell you! So Klaus had to start again but on analogue tape. The sad thing is that two years on from this Ry Cooder had the same idea but did it the other way round. This was bad enough (as if it wasn't!) but then in 1980 he stole the master tape of Klaus's Eurovision entry, Sad Funk Lonely. It was a sure fire certainty to win but Klaus, being Klaus, would not fight the fight and let it go instead. Later Amando Ferrari recorded this song at his very emotional birthday concert in Milan and we have a beautiful recording of these on Oeuvre Zwei. And so it goes on. Klaus never paid back these feelings and could never understand why Fabien Mitterrand was as hostile as these. But one could never account for the creative psyche! He was almost certainly a bad man but we don't think he killed Klaus. For one thing, he wasn't clever enough for it! Also Klaus was much more clever and would have outsmarted him if they had been truly against each other (though not so that he was in the KGB like some are saying - crazy!) If FM was alive today he could elucidate it all but for that tragic business with the tractor in Norfolk County, UK (he was annoyed by the noise and hijacked it from the farmer before accidentally driving it into the path of a speeding Smart Car.) Terrible but... you know. We did go to his funeral and, of course, Streef la Belle was there and so was James Last. I counted 57 guns amongst all their bodyguards. They terrify me. Bad men for sure. Peace, Jan Sink |   About Jan Sink
Jan Sink was born in Utrecht, Netherlands in 1944 and, following a largely unsuccessful career as a roadie, became a recording engineer at the infamous Amsterdam recording
studio, The Velvet Glove. In 1969 he was hired by legendary erotik film composer Klaus Harmony to engineer sessions for 'Elektrische Lippen', the composer’s first collaboration with director, Friedrich Wohlfäht. Jan went on to engineer and mix and co-produce soundtracks for classics such as 'Die Sins des Apostles', 'The Ladies Man' and 'Die Sexorcist'. Following the composer’s death in 1984, Jan took the role of CEO of HarmonSink Corp founded with Klaus’ son, Helmut Harmony, to administer the Klaus Harmony publishing catalogue. In 2005 HarmonSink Corp acquired the rights to the complete recorded work of Klaus Harmony which is now being re-released in the form of the acclaimed multi-volume 'Oeuvre' series. Jan divides his time between Amsterdam and London and sometimes lives with his wife, Pupu. CategoriesAll ArchivesAugust 2010 |