Alfred Hilsberg was a giant living in a nutshell. With the founding of ZickZack in 1980 he paved the way for what was probably the most radical outbreak of experimental pop music in Germany. Lieber zuviel als zu wenig (Better too much than too little) was the title of an early label compilation, and the phrase also described the astonishing frequency of releases in the label’s early years.

The creative bandwidth of DIY music was overwhelming in the heyday of the so-called Neue Deutsche Welle, a term coined by Hilsberg: it was later appropriated and poisoned by the commercial music industry. He belonged to a generation of idealists who believed in the utopia of changing the system by cultural subversion. Alfred didn’t know how to run a label, he didn’t know how to handle money; he actually applied his own communist method by investing all profits immediately in the next releases – a way of private cultural funding that did not always meet with approval among his artists. A documentarian and mad enthusiast rather than a strategist, he ran into many problems, not just financial.

I will never forget his visits to my parents’ house on the outskirts of Hamburg. I was a young teenager and four-track cassette producer. Alfred had invited my hyperactive synth duo Die Egozentrischen 2 to his notorious festivals several times. Dressed all in black with a white scarf around his neck, he always used to bring along a pink plastic suitcase with the newest ZickZack records that we eagerly snatched from his hands.

The founder of ZickZack never cared about followers and commercial success. He was completely incorrupt. Without any business plan or financial support or even the slightest encouragement from home, he decided to dedicate his whole life to the support of uncommercial, nonconformist music. Today I think that his main interest lay in the social effect that his releases and festivals triggered, the discussions they ignited and last but not least the encouragement to do it yourself – and better.

On 18 August, almost forgotten by the younger generation, Alfred Hilsberg left this world forever. The legacy of ZickZack seems very uncertain, and Germans have never been very good at taking care of their own underground heroes. To refresh the memory of how uncompromising and innovative his label was, here’s a collection of my personal favourite tracks.

Abwärts
“Maschinenland”
from Amok Koma (1980)

A very early ZickZack release and one of their biggest commercial successes which encouraged Hilsberg to speed up the frequency of releases. Unlike other punk bands from Hamburg, Abwärts included toy instruments, drills, jackhammers and synth effects in their music and stood out with their spot on cynical lyrics. This track perfectly sums up the monotony (the bassline never changes key) and tristesse of the German motorway and its surrounding industrial landscape.

Palais Schaumburg
“Kinder der Tod”
(1981)

Palais Schaumburg’s unclassifiable style combined the contrasting musical influences of their four members with the conceptual approach of their mastermind Holger Hiller. Experimental production and collage techniques characterised their dissonant tracks, along with Dadaist lyrics such as “Green angle canoe, I will wring your neck”, “Tomorrow the forest will be swept”, and “Children, death isn't so bad after all”.

Kosmonautentraum
“Deutsche Nacht”
from Jiri Gagarin (1982)

Even though Kosmonautentraum and their charismatic singer Ziggy XY originated from Hanover, they were associated with Berlin’s Geniale Dilettanten movement, and artists such as Frieder Butzmann, Einstürzende Neubauten, Die Tödliche Doris and Sprung aus den Wolken. However, their music was more stripped down and nightmarishly poetic, as if the band resided in an empty warehouse up in the clouds. “Deutsche Nacht” describes a spooky horse ride through the ruins of post-war Germany with reference to Schubert’s “Erlkönig”.

Andy Giorbino
“Stolpern”
(1981)

Andy Giorbino was the ultimate home recording artist. The lo-fi character and playfulness of his music were evident in every track, but the living room productions sometimes obscured the great musicality, sense of harmony, and unusual compositional structures he was capable of. After a few 7"s and tapes he put out two highly recommended full length albums on ZickZack, Lied an die Freude and Anmut und Würde.

Die Tödliche Doris
“Haare im Mund”
from “ ” (1982)

Definitely one of the most original and disturbing groups on ZickZack, these Genius Dilettantes were more an art collective than a band, with a conceptual approach to music, performance, film, objects and lyrics. Their biting sense of humour and bizarre lyrics would shock even the most hardboiled punks. “Haare im Mund” (“Hair in the mouth”) plays with the German double meanings of the words “Loch” (“hole”) and “Scham” (“shame”) in the context of cunnilingus. “If you don’t want to hear, fall into the hole!”

The Wirtschaftswunder
“Analphabet”
from Salmobray (1980)

The tiny Catholic city of Limburg had a blossoming underground scene, and its most famous representative was this band, a motley crew comprised of four people hailing from four different countries. Front man Angelo Galizia, a descendent of Sicilian ‘guest workers’, sang and screamed in mixed languages. In this track, he takes the piss out of his own grappling with the German alphabet: “Sister, what is the Ypsilon? Oh, I want to learn everything!”

Saal 2
“Angst vorm Tanzen”
(1980)

Slightly on the goofy side, this brief excursion into “fear of dancing” became a minor underground hit and ran a few times on public radio. Particularly remarkable is how the band slips out of rhythm three times and then simply carries on playing without losing their drive. In the 90s, a bar in Hamburg was named after them.

Einstürzende Neubauten
“Aufrecht gehen”
from Kalte Sterne: Early Recordings (1981)

Of Einstürzende Neubauten, Alfred Hilsberg said: “The first thing I organised with them was a concert in Hamburg's Markthalle [venue]. Blixa Bargeld appeared in his legendary rubber suit, which was an event in itself, and screamed his heart out. Andrew Unruh had brought along a drum kit made of metal offcuts, which he and FM Einheit – who was also a member of Abwärts – played with sledgehammers and other extreme tools, creating not only a powerful body of sound but also a visual spectacle that had never been seen before. It was so overwhelming for the audience that they stood there in amazement, hardly daring to applaud.”

Hát Với Quê Hương
from Hát Với Quê Hương
(1982)

A rare and quite unusual EP that Holger Hiller and Walter Thielsch (the two successive singers of Palais Schaumburg) produced with three young female refugees from Vietnam. While two of the tracks are musical revisions of traditional Vietnamese folk songs, this one is much more experimental and informed by Hiller’s later signature sound that he refined on his solo releases on Mute: a montage of constructivist samples embedded in pop structures.

Teurer denn je
“Jamais Vu”
from Spannung. Leistung. Widerstand. Magnetbanduntergrund DDR 1979–1990 (2006)
Choo Choo Flame
“Nein”
from Spannung. Leistung. Widerstand. Magnetbanduntergrund DDR 1979–1990 (2006)

Since the launch of his label, Hilsberg had been keen on connecting with the eastern European cultural underground. He had plans to visit the GDR as a journalist but was denied access and ultimately declared persona non grata by the authorities. In 2006, ZickZack co-released a groundbreaking double CD and book called Spannung. Leistung. Widerstand. about the “magnetic tape underground” of the GDR between the years 1979–1990. Curated and initiated by East German representatives of the scene, it was met with much critical acclaim and astonishment in West Germany. No one would have thought that such creative, subversive and resistant work would exist in the repressive GDR. The track “Jamais Vu” finds a secret language (lyrics by Leonhard Lorek) to express the gloomy atmosphere of distrust and self-alienation in a denunciatory system, while Choo Choo Flame experiment with abstract voice and sound samples.

Cpt Kirk &
“Puscher”
from Reformhölle (1992)

After the Neue Deutsche Welle had subsided, a new scene of intellectual pop musicians started to form in Hamburg. More guitar-oriented and less experimental in musical form, yet strong in lyrics and attitude, bands like Blumfeld, Ostzonensuppenwürfelmachenkrebs and Kolossale Jugend became spearheads of the 90s pop generation in Germany. One of their original pioneers were Cpt Kirk &, a quartet around the singer and producer Tobias Levin that took on influences from jazz, spoken word, post-rock and minimal music. This track was released on Hilsberg’s second label What’s So Funny About.

Festland
“Menschen Reden”
from Welt Verbrennt (2010)

In the late 2000s, this trio turned into a favourite of Hilsberg. Only five people showed up to their debut Hamburg gig at the Golden Pudel Club, Alfred and me among them. He loved it and didn’t care about the poor turnout, and a strange memory flickered: 25 years earlier, at Hamburg’s Hafenklang venue, I had played a concert with Die Egozentrischen 2 as part of a magazine launch party. Within 15 minutes the whole audience had left the room, apart from Alfred Hilsberg and his colleague, the brilliant radio presenter Stefan Kühne. That’s how I met Alfred.