Inside The Noise Floor: Johnny Achtung — Towel Down (SUB003)
Berlin has a culture of holding onto certain voices long after the scene collapses — one of those voices is Johnny Achtung, Berlin’s synth upsetter.
Towel Down, the debut offering from Berlin agitator Johnny Achtung, is an EP of short bursts and long surges. Engineered, yet awkwardly organic, the patterns and pulses threading this synthwave gem hearken to the underground club days of late-seventies Sheffield, a scene of crowded basements and the dawn of the electro-pop/new romantic era.
Born out of the German post-punk revival phase of the 2010s, Achtung gravitated to electronic music after watching the Synth Britannia documentary — an eighty minute rollick through the early days of Daniel Miller’s Mute Records, an influential label spawning electro-punk acts The Normal, Deutsch-Amerikanische Freundschaft, Fad Gadget, and Silicon Teens.
“I was blown away. I couldn’t believe the sounds these guys were producing as far back as the seventies. It was so original, and helped me realize that everything I’ve ever written and recorded is so overdone.”
Akin to the electro-pioneers of yore, Achtung has meticulously programmed Towel Down with a deliberate synthetic angle, designing to hit with not only intent, but Euro club sleaze. But it’s that Achtung voice that drives this baby — an untrained vocal that bends through registers, slinking low, shooting high, and idling somewhere between Bauhaus’ Peter Murphy and Bowie after a sleepless fortnight of cocaine and ice cream. The idiom-shift between English and German on a dime is the voila.
The late-night pressure throughout all three songs (Schmutzige Hande, Keine Pause, Roter Punk) refuses to buckle — the end result a production feeling more like sexual harassment rather than a gyrate among the Eurotrash uber cool. Achtung calls this method Chrome Body Instruction. A fitting term given the sound: heavy rhythm, heavy grit, and a constant sense of surveillance humming behind every measure.
Laugh too loud
Drink too fast
Pay me first
Suck me last
Heels they click
Countdown clock
Body yes
Eyes say stop
Towel Down doesn’t play by any scene’s rules; it’s part of no trendy clique. For an artist such as Johnny Achtung, there is no scene at all. and that suits the strapping german fine:
“I’m an introvert who is benefitting by the recluse-friendly technology of today. That’s the beautiful thing. We’re all recording in our homes now. Snooty, cliquey scenes are no longer required. Good luck trying to pigeon-hole a bedroom artist these days.”
Disdain for peer approval withstanding, Towel Down would comfortably fit in to a dungeon-club DJ set in Berlin’s early hours, its movement, heat, and confrontation fitting for a 3am dry hump on a lounge bar couch. And really, isn’t that the best form of approval?
Towel Down is available now through Substatik Recordings on Bandcamp.
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