This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening to… Kleenex/LiLiPUT

Time for some post-punk. Really early post-punk, and what could be better than Switzerland’s all female post-punk band Kleenex, later renamed Liliput. A group(s) whose musical home would be one step away from the peerless Slits, another step away from Swell Maps, think abrasive guitars, sonic experimentation, interesting vocals and sounds… yes, a lot of sounds.

Founded in 1978 they first appeared as Kleenex, but legal action from the corporation who produced said domestic consumable saw them change it to LiLiPUT. Their first album was released in 1982, their second a post-split collection of bits and pieces a year later. They went through numerous line up changes in the space of six years but the core group was Marlene Marder and Kauldia Schiff, though only Schiff was there from start to end.

There was a massive mythology about them for years, with albums apparently changing hands for amazing prices, but you know, while that sort of monetisation of collection and music leaves me cold, for once I tend to think that the hype wasn’t entirely incorrect.

Because this is dynamic edgy stuff which compels that the listener to engage. It’s a lot more melodic than might be thought, with appealing melodies secreted away amongst the noise, but the noise, in all its multiple forms, whether whistles, whistling, grunts, groans, jagged guitar sounds, flat horns or whatever is what makes it. There’s just this sense of possibility in every track. And in each track there are sufficient ideas to power other groups for years.

For myself I have a bias to their earlier Kleenex early post Kleenex material, particularly their singles, but it’s all good (The Jatz – for example, from 1983 has something of Romeo Void about it). I would argue (for hours – at least) that Die Matrosen is one of the greatest post-punk songs ever, and it’s not just the whistling, though that’s a big part of it. But then I listen to Eisiger Wind and I think that’s one of the greatest post-punk songs, due to that guitar line, that chorus, or is it a chorus? Again, it’s that sense of possibility that one hears, and which in a sense typifies post-punk.

Absolute classics.

Die Matrosen

Eisiger Wind

Hedi’s Head

Nice (as Kleenex)

Hitch-Hike

Split

The Jatz (from later in their career if I’m not mistaken)