Subversiv-Dekadent is the classification given to Mark Reeder in his STASI file.
The Subversiv-Dekadent Album cover photo was taken by Mark Reeder at the Mayday parade in Communist East Berlin in 1982,
just minutes before he was hauled off by the STASI for illegally walking in their precious parade and trying to take a photo of their Premier,
Erich Honecker.
The STASI had been following Mark all day, and their fantasy and curiosity immediately went into full alert, when Mark unexpectedly entered, what was otherwise an officially organised Mayday parade,
with the aim of marching with the members of the Socialist State’s red carnation carrying Arbeiterklasse.
They believed he probably had a plan and was going to do something devious to disrupt their parade, like perhaps an attempted assassination of their beloved leader?
At the moment Mark pressed his cameras-shutter, they grabbed him, and dragged him off for a day of intense interrogation.
The STASI were the dreaded and omnipresent East German Secret Police and they viewed Mark Reeder, with serious suspicion.
They believed this Englishman with a penchant for wearing unconventional clothing, had a clandestine Agenda:
To the corrupt youth of East Germany with music.
West-musik.
In actual fact - and depending on which side of the Wall you were from - they probably weren’t that far wrong.
For the recipients of Mark’s smuggled-in music cassette tapes,
it was more like an education.
An introduction into an unknown musical World that was officially forbidden,
A World that had previously been unobtainable for them, that is,
until Mark Reeder stepped into their lives.
On the other hand, for the communist Authorities,
Mark Reeder was merely considered to be subversive and dekadent.
Mark’s other activities in the East, such as organising illegal punk concerts, co-presenting British TV programmes, or crossing the border with his friends in the US Army, only helped to confuse the STASI’s opinion of him.
If anything, Marks only Agenda was to bring his Eastie friends some happiness.
Happiness, through the latest music that he could easily buy
and listen to in West-Berlin.
The difficulty and danger came in physically smuggling the music into the East.
Crossing the border with clanking cassette tapes was no easy task,
as the East German authorities took draconian measures to ensure Western music didn’t infiltrate and pollute the minds of the youth of their Farmer and Workers State.
The 80s were tense and troubled times.
East versus West.
This super-power struggle ensured that both sides could mutually exterminate each other, many times, over.
When the Berlin wall fell in 1989,
everyone believed that the threat of nuclear holocaust
had finally been lifted and we were going to enter into a better, more open-minded future World.
The electronically exciting new sound of techno filled the dance floors and brought the people together.
Therefore, it is remarkable to think that in the 21st century,
humanity is still struggling with the same kind of power-hungry leaders,
killer diseases, war, famine, climate ignorance, isolation, religious intolerance, racism, homophobia, nationalism, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction, that we had in the 20th.
The idea of nations being driven into conflict by power, corruption and lies, or simply by a leader’s decision to divide and rule by seeking out a minority group to blame for everyone’s misfortune, while they conduct their dirty business behind closed doors, is nothing new.
These corrupted leaders confine and control their populations into crisis, as they wine and dine at their people’s expense.
It is a very Orwellian image.
Mark Reeder decided to put together this collection of tracks and remixes which he created together with his studio partner Micha Adam, to celebrate his own internationalism, and the cross-border way in which he works.
Breaking down barriers with music.
Subversiv-Dekadent opens with the melancholic beauty of the creatively underrated, and highly productive Beijing born artist
Fifi Rong.
Today, Fifi lives in the UK, where she sings, writes, produces
and directs her own music and videos from her Homebase in London.
Mark first met Fifi at a Yello gig in Berlin, where she was performing on stage with the Duo.
At a small private performance in a Berlin bar the following evening,
he discovered just how talented she is as a musician in her own right
and after her gig, they decided to work on a few songs together.
The other Far-East Asian representatives featured on Subversiv-Dekadent are STOLEN, the highly successful young band from Chengdu, China.
In the West, they are arguably China’s most well-known band,
having performed as the support act for New Order during their European tour of 2019.
STOLEN were the first Chinese band to perform a live internet gig in March 2020 only 3 days after the end of their strict six-week lockdown rules were lifted and they performed live, to over 650 000 viewers spread around the World.
m.youtube.com/watch?v=NDsoQHw2tgU
Mark and his studio partner Micha Adam produced their highly praised album Fragment and remixed The Loop Sin especially for this album.
New Order are a Manchester institution, and probably no other band represents the City more.
Their latest single Be A Rebel was initially written during their Music Complete Album sessions, but never finished.
The first Coronavirus lockdown in 2020 finally gave them time to revisit it and for us to discover what a wonderfully inspiring song it is.
Mark was asked to remix it, and his Cheeky Devil Remix version, is exclusive to this album.
Representing Switzerland, are the illustrious duo of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank who have performed together since 1981, under the project name Yello.
Mark wanted to emphasise the beautiful and hidden vocal performance of their 80s song, Vicious Games and breathe new life into it, while giving the song his own personal touch.
The original Yello version is an intricately woven patchwork of samples, held together by the rich, resonant voice of Rush Winters.
Liars are an eclectic avant-garde-art-group from Australia, fronted by their eccentric vocalist, Angus Andrew.
Their sound is often disjointed, dark and threatening.
Marks remix for Staring at Zero is equally dark, but it’s held together
by a pulsating, fuzzed-to-fuck bass guitar and throbbing bass sequencer.
MFU (Modern Family Unit) are an exceptional band from Manchester.
They were introduced to Mark by legendary Author and DJ, Dave Haslam, where they recorded Mmm Mmm Mmm Aghh for Mark’s Mauerstadt album.
This is their second outing together.
Mr Sam is an old collaborateur friend of Mark’s
and, a member of the French Trance Resistance, he originally wrote and recorded this song with Australian singer Rani Karmal.
Mark was always enthralled by her captivating voice.
Mark decided to rewrite the music, sample Rani’s vocal, bring the tempo down, replay and rearrange it to show what a beautiful love song this truly is.
The Cemetery Sex Fairies originate from a grave-yard somewhere in Bonn, West Germany.
Tanz Allein was originally featured on their debut album
The Liquid Source of Joy and Horror.
Their electronic-rock driven sentimental sound with it’s dead-pan Deutsche vocals, create an atmosphere of grave gleichgultigkeit.
Birmingham Electric, are a multi-national synthpop duo.
Their electrifying singer and frontman Andrew Evans,
is originally from the USA, but lives and works in Holland,
and performs together with OMD’s Malcolm Holmes.
Their attractive mixture of post-punk-synthpop has a familiar feel to it, without being contrived.
Liz Morphew, Queen of Hearts frontfrau, has also enjoyed a long-standing creative relationship with Mark Reeder.
They composed a couple of songs together for her magnificent debut album Cocoon.
Neon was originally featured on Collaborator, the Mark Reeder compilation album released on Factory Benelux, and which was available on CD only.
Neon gets its digital debut on Subversiv-Dekadent.
Mesmerising psychedelik-synth duo, The KVB are now from Manchester, seeing that they recently moved there from Berlin.
Mark worked together with The KVB writing the intro song
for his previous Mauerstadt album.
This favourite of Mark’s, is a song off their album Of Desire,
and it was originally remixed for the White Walls 12” single.
This Subversiv-Dekadent version is a slightly different alt. mix.
New York based, multi-instrumentalist Zachery Allan Starkey
supported New Order on their America tour in 2018.
He has worked together with Bernard Sumner
on his latest Album Fear City, a dystopian audio-vision of New York.
Zachery also remixed the track, Chaos by STOLEN
for the Japanese release of their album Fragment on UMMA.
In 2019, Mark invited Zachery to perform at the Maze club in Berlin,
as part of a mini-festival with STOLEN.
Coked Up Biker Anthem is a chrome-heavy, high-speed track
snorted off Zachery’s Album.
DeerMx are an experimental, classically trained, darkwave synth band
from Mexico, but they currently live in Hong Kong.
They were stranded there after playing a gig before the unrest started,
and all their flights were cancelled.
Since then, they have been living and working there.
Last but not least, is Love of My Life,
a track by popular Lithuanian singer Alanas Chosnau and Mark Reeder
taken off their highly acclaimed album, Children of Nature
and specially remixed for this album by Mark Reeder & Micha Adam.
Mark met Alanas at a film festival in Vilnius and shortly after, they started to work together.
Alanas has his own fascinating story about growing up in war-torn Iraq
and moving to what was then, still the Soviet Union and how with the fall of communism, he became Lithuania’s first independent teenage pop star.
The song-title says it all.
