Sacred Bones Records Announce Xmal Deutschland’s “Early Singles” Reissue & Anja Huwe Solo Album

Today Sacred Bones Records have announced two parallel releases on March 8th, an expanded reissue of Xmal Deutschland‘s Early Singles, as well as the debut solo album from the band’s inimitable frontwoman Anja Huwe, Codes. Xmal Deutschland are now marked as forerunners of the post-punk movement and Early Singles (1981-1982) is a map of their foundational movements. The band’s pursuit of something greater is palpable with this release, a reflection of a time that introduced accessibility to new means of making music following the onset of punk. This reissue includes two bonus tracks; Kaelbermarsch, that originally appeared on the Lieber Zuviel Als Zuwenig compilation, and a gritty live version of Allein, that is taken from the Nosferatu Festival compilation, which is shared online today along with a video montage of footage from this era of the band’s career.

Alongside the reissue comes the debut solo release from Xmal Deutschland‘s incomparable frontwoman, Anja Huwe. Invited by her long-time friend Mona Mur, Huwe reconsidered her decades-long hiatus from music and decided to join Mur in her studio in Berlin. Together, they worked for a year and a half, composing, performing and producing the tracks from scratch which eventually became the album, Codes. Integral to the overall sound experience was the input of Manuela Rickers who added her famed signature guitar style. The collaboration was relentless:  “Mona and I have a similar artistic background since the 1980s. We hung out together, and we sport a similar attitude towards life and art. We don’t have to explain ourselves to one another,” says Huwe. Mur adds: “Anja’s voice is like a spear, her appearance a torch in the darkness.”

Initially inspired by the diary entries of Moshe Shnitzki, who, at the age of 17, left his home in 1942 to live in the cavernous White Russian forests as a partisan, Codes is about the human experience and what extremes can do to an individual. “The result is a poetic, musical cosmos that encompasses the following themes: forest, fear, pain, loss, violence, and loneliness but also beauty, longing, hope and the will to survive,” Huwe explains. Along with the announcement today, she shares Rabenschwarz, a frenzied captivating combination, which, with Rickers’ hypnotic apocalyptic guitars, Mur’s agitated and distinctive electronic sounds and beats, forged together with Huwe’s unmistakably energetic and expressive vocals, hits you in the face.