Holger Czukay | |
|---|---|
 Czukay in 1973 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | Holger Schüring (1938-03-24)24 March 1938 Free City of Danzig (present-dayGdańsk, Poland) |
| Died | 5 September 2017(2017-09-05) (aged 79) Weilerswist, Germany |
| Genres | |
| Instrument(s) | Bass,guitar,keyboards,percussion,drums,vocals,French horn |
| Years active | 1968–2017 |
| Labels | |
Spouse | |
Holger Schüring[1] (24 March 1938 – 5 September 2017),[2] known professionally asHolger Czukay (/ˈʃʊkaɪ/),[3] was a German musician who co-founded thekrautrock groupCan. Described as "successfully bridg[ing] the gap betweenpop and theavant-garde",[4] Czukay also created early important examples ofambient music, explored "world music" well before the term was coined, and was a pioneer ofsampling.
Czukay was born as Holger Schüring on 24 March 1938 in theFree City of Danzig (present-dayGdańsk, Poland). According to Holger, his grandfather told theThird Reich officials that their family "must beAryan", and came up with a family tree supporting the claim. The family also changed their Polish last name "Czukay" to Schüring, a Dutch name.[5][6] In early 1945, after World War II, his familywas expelled from Poland. They booked tickets for a passage on the shipMVWilhelm Gustloff, which was due to depart on 13 January 1945, but at the last moment his grandmother changed her mind and took them to the railway station, where they boarded a train carrying wounded soldiers toBerlin.Gustloff was hit by a Soviet torpedo, and almost ten thousand passengers died.[7]
Czukay family resettled toLimburg an der Lahn, and when Holger was in his teens, moved toDuisburg, where he attended the Gerhard Mercator Scientific School and worked part-time in a radio and TV repair shop. While working at the shop he became fond of the aural qualities of radio broadcasts (anticipating his use ofshortwave radio broadcasts as musical elements) and became familiar with the rudiments of electrical repair and engineering.[7][8] Around that time, in the late fifties, Czukay was playing double bass in local jazz bands, including his own Holger Czukay Quintet. His fascination for music inclined Czukay's relocation to East Berlin and enrollment at theHochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin in February 1962. Holger was expelled from the Berlin Music Academy, but kept pursuing his music studies.[9]
Czukay signed up toKarlheinz Stockhausen's new-music course inCologne, studying under Stockhausen from 1963 to 1966.[10] While studying he met his futureCan bandmates—Irmin Schmidt andDavid C. Johnson.[11] In May 1966, Czukay resettled toSt Gallen (Switzerland) taking up a lecturing post in music at theInstitut auf dem Rosenberg. One of his pupils,Michael Karoli,[12] familiarised Czukay with the contemporaryrock music, introducing him toThe Beatles,Velvet Underground, andFrank Zappa. Holger particularly liked "I Am the Walrus", impressed by its unusual musical structure and blasts of AM radio noise; perpetrating "avant-garde pranks in a pop/rock context".[13] Czukay and Karoli played with rock pianistTony Ashton and several members of his band,Remo Four, proposing him an idea to form anexperimental band, but didn't followed through. When Michael was finishing school, Czukay was fired from the Institut auf dem Rosenberg, as Czukay explained, "for being too … er … intriguing!"[14]
In late 1967, Czukay got a letter from Irmin inviting Holger to form a group in Cologne. Czukay brought Karoli with him.[12]
Czukay co-foundedCan in 1968, where he playedbass guitar, and undertook most of the recording and engineering for the group. During live performances Holger wore his signature white gloves using them while playing bass to protect his fingertips for tape editing, and also to absorb sweat.[15]Rosko Gee, former bassist of the British bandTraffic, joined the band in 1977, with Czukay handling only tapes and sound effects on the albumSaw Delight, his final LP with the group before departing for a solo career.[16] Czukay had been sidelined due to creative disputes and his failure to progress as a bassist, admitting his shortcomings on the instrument which he had taken up "almost by default" in the early days of Can.[17]
After his departure from Can, Czukay recorded several solo albums. One of his trademarks was the use ofshortwave radio sounds and his early pioneering ofsampling,[18] in those days involving the painstaking cutting and splicing ofmagnetic tapes. He would tape-record various sounds and snippets from shortwave and incorporate them into his compositions. He also used shortwave as a live, interactive musical instrument (such as on 1991'sRadio Wave Surfer), a method of composition he termed "radio painting". Czukay stated "If you want to make something new, you shouldn't think too far beyond one certain idea".[19]
Czukay continued to work with the former members of Can: playing bass on Irmin Schmidt's soundtrack pieces released inFilmmusik Vol.2 (1981), recordingFull Circle (1982) with Jaki Liebezeit,[20] and mastering Michael Karoli's debut albumDeluge (1984).[21] Czukay further collaborated with other musicians, including a series of albums withJah Wobble andDavid Sylvian,[10] two younger British musicians who shared his interest in blending pop music with experimental recording and sampling techniques. Other collaborators includeU.N.K.L.E.,Brian Eno,Eurythmics, and GermanNeue Deutsche Welle bandTrio.[16]
In 2009, after a problematic time with the record company that had been gradually re-releasing his albums on CD, Czukay began a new collaboration with the Claremont 56 record label,[22] releasing vinyl-only remixes of tracks from earlier albums, as well as some new recordings. This approach changed Czukay's plans for his back catalogue, so that the original albumsDer Osten ist Rot (1984),Rome Remains Rome (1987) andMoving Pictures (1993) are no longer being reissued (in the case ofMoving Pictures, because the master tapes have degraded beyond repair).[23] Instead, most of the tracks are being remade and newly organized as limited edition vinyl releases.
In 2018, it was announced that Czukay's work was being released in abox set,Cinema, including his solo works, collaborations, and unreleased material. It was released in March 2018.[24]
Holger Czukay was married for nearly thirty years to the German painter and singerUrsula Kloss (known professionally as Ursa Major, and later as U-She), with whom he collaborated on numerous multimedia pieces. Ursula Schüring (as she was called after marrying Holger Schüring under his real name) died on her 55th birthday (28 July 2017) after having been severely debilitated by illness for over a decade.[25][26][27]
On 5 September 2017, Czukay was found dead in his apartment, converted from Can's old studio inWeilerswist, near Cologne.[28] TheNew York Times reported that he had died on the same day, but the cause of his death was the subject of a police investigation.[2] His death was eventually assumed to have been from natural causes.[29]
Young, Rob;Schmidt, Irmin (2018).All Gates Open: The Story of Can (e-book ed.). London:Faber and Faber.ISBN 978-0-571-31151-4.
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