The Schimpfluch-Gruppe is the main European actionist and ritual-noise circle. Its claim is that the work is psycho-physical research rather than music.
Rudolf Eb.er is the central figure of European actionist and ritual noise. Born in Switzerland in 1965, he founded the Schimpfluch-Gruppe in Zurich in 1987 as a working collective rather than a band · the claim being that the work is psycho-physical research (Eb.er's own term) rather than music, and that Schimpfluch exists to hold exactly that. He works through three main outlets: Rudolf, his solo work (the most direct, psycho-physical research to the front); Runzelstirn & Gurgelstøck (RS&G), his main project from c. 1988 and the most-cited work in the circle; and the Schimpfluch-Gruppe collective, holding the collaborations with Joke Lanz, Dave Phillips and the rest.
The work is quite distinct from the parallel F·07 power electronics (Whitehouse, Sutcliffe Jügend, the UK catalogue) and F·08 Japanoise (Merzbow, Hijokaidan, the Japanese noise scene). Where F·07 worked through extreme volume and transgressive content, and F·08 through textural extremity, Schimpfluch works through what Eb.er calls actionism: the Vienna Actionists (the 1960s-1970s body-art and performance circle around Hermann Nitsch, Otto Mühl, Günter Brus and Rudolf Schwarzkogler) carried into late-twentieth-century European sound art, the body-performance and ritual sensibility held inside the work.
The work runs through three forms. The solo Rudolf work is the most direct · psycho-physical research to the front, built from tape collage, treated voice, contact microphones and ritual percussion. It comes out mostly on small-edition cassette and CD-R through Schimpfluch Associates and other specialist labels. RS&G is the main project from c. 1988, the most-cited work in the circle. And the collaborative work runs through the collective, chiefly with Joke Lanz (long of Sudden Infant) and Dave Phillips (the Swiss sound artist, a main collaborator from the late 1980s).
Eb.er has worked largely from Japan since the early 2000s, on extended stays and within the Japan-based sound-art scene. That work runs alongside the F·08 Japanoise network (Merzbow, Hijokaidan, Incapacitants, Masonna) while staying its own thing through the actionist sensibility and the Schimpfluch approach. The closeness is more a matter of geography and infrastructure than of shared method, though several collaborations with Japanese noise figures make up his Japan-based collaborative work.
The frame of reference is dense: the post-Vienna-Actionist body and performance art, turned into musical material in late-twentieth-century sound art; the post-1970 European avant-garde; and the contemporary body-performance and ritual-and-trance work since 1980. Together it amounts to a distinct argument within European avant-garde sound art.
The Schimpfluch circle reaches across several outlets. It runs mainly through Schimpfluch Associates as its own label (the small-edition CD, LP and cassette work); through releases on collaborators' labels (Tochnit Aleph, RRRecords, Hanson Records and others); and through live performance, where the actionist staging matters as much as the records.
Its importance is as a foundation for the contemporary actionist and ritual-noise network. Schimpfluch does much to establish the ground after 1990, and the European actionist and ritual noise of the 1990s and 2000s builds on it. The Bureau treats the Schimpfluch-Gruppe as foundational for the post-1990 European actionist and ritual-noise tradition.
This file is the parent for the Schimpfluch circle. The solo work (Rudolf), the project (RS&G) and the collaborations (Joke Lanz and the rest) are filed in their own places, cross-referenced back here.