Le Forbici Di Manitù' play & remix Lieutenant Murnau
Label : Earthly Delights / Soleilmoon

Paradoxically, the musical project Lieutenant Murnau only officially existed at its dissolution in 1984. Formed in 1980, the group achieved several cassettes, disks, and announcements of concerts scattered through Italy.
But Lieutenant Murnau was so mysterious that no one knew who was hidden behind this entity, and could achieve these strange sounds solely based on the plagiarism. It was to wonder if Murnau existed indeed. This was solved in 1984 when the project stopped existing.
It is only 10 years later, in 1994, that his main instigator, Vittore Baroni, decided to achieve a retrospective for the label Earthly Delights. But noting that a simple compilation of title wouldn't be of a big interest, he asked the members of Le Forbici di Manitù, of which he was part at the time, to rework and remix his pieces.

Lieutenant Murnau was a precursor of the plagiarism, which became these last years a fully-fledged artistic movement with the apparition of artists such as John Oswald, Christian Marclay, Steev Hise or Negativland.
This technique of cutting borrowed to various sources has also been strongly used by Pierre Schaeffer, William S. Burroughs or John Cage. And here is today the result of so much labor, being gleefully the most accomplished work of Forbici to date. The rework of the Murnau songs is especially interesting because all the musical styles that are being used here are today very present. Although Lieutenant Murnau is more a frame of mind that a group, the roots are solidly anchored to the source of industrial music. The titles link together crossing several atmospheres such as ambient, avant-gardists to experimental and industrial deliriums. One even finds a piece of power - electronics from the beginning of the 80's. More that an anthology, it is a very modern work, remixed to the musical colors of today, like a tasty cocktail with all difficult musics for demanding people. An excellent discovery. And as the sleeve said it: 50'000'000 Lt. Murnau fans can't be wrong...

Stéphane Fivaz
April 2000

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