Wumpscut: Music for a slaughtering tribe

After many years of DJ-ing Bavaria's industrial/ goth club scene and several limited edition tape-only albums, Rudy Ratzinger's official album debut was a hard punch in the face of the stale, increasingly guitar-driven industrial scene. Ratzinger created some of the most hard-hitting music to date without using any guitars. In fact, with deathmetal/blackmetal pretty much reaching its saturation point in the mid nineties, Wumpscut arguably took extreme music to a whole new level. Favouring pounding electronic rhythms and psychotic, haunting melodies over the high speed approach of the metal scene, MFAST created an atmosphere much more intense and menacing.

Sonically, the album was one of the first to blend the experimental structuring of classic industrial greats like Esplendor Geometrico and Skinny Puppy with less controlled power-noise outbursts in the vein of Merzbow's later work. Several other unusual influences, like distorted hip-hop grooves and the use of very proper song structures, make this album quite an unusual one indeed. It must be said, though, that the album does suffer somewhat from the "apocalyptic fairyland"-style lyrics, as Ratzinger puts it, in the sense that they come across as being somewhat adolescent horror fantasies. But, in honesty, this album is not about the lyrics. Wumpscut continued to be ground-breaking later in the 1990's by being one of the frontrunners of the Darkwave scene but in the process some of the rawness was lost.

Although Ratzinger is and always has been Wumpscut all by himself, several guests appear on the record. On the excellent track "Fear in motion" we can hear Aleta Welling on lead vocals, whilst Ratzinger does most of the singing on all the other tracks. Aghast View and Kirlian Camera provide interesting remixes.

The record was released on Ratzinger's own Beton Kopf Media label. For this reason perhaps, there wasn't a lot of consistency between the different pressings of the record. That is, Ratzinger couldn't resist the temptation to make small changes on each pressing of the album. This is a mixed blessing. It is nice that there are many different tracks around, but for the listener it is annoying to have to buy all versions of the album to get all tracks. Further, different versions were released on different labels as well. Below is a complete coverage.

Music For A Slaughtering Tribe

Label: Beton Kopf Media/VUZ
Release date: December 20, 1993
Two versions exist: the BKM release has a brown paper cover with two working men on it and the VUZ release has a human skull photographed from below.

1. Soylent Green (extended version)
2. On the run
3. Koslow
4. Fear in motion
5. Dudek
6. Default remixx (remix)
7. Bleed
8. Concrete rage
9. Believe in me
10. She's dead
11. Rotten meat
12. The day's disdain
13. Float
14. My life

Label: Beton Kopf Media/Metropolis (American release)
Release date: January 1, 1997
Cover: A human skull photographed from the front (as opposed to below on the first release)

1. Soylent Green (extended version)
2. On the run
3. Bleed
4. Fear in motion
5. Default (Aghast View remix)
6. Concrete Rage
7. She's Dead (Kirlian Camera remix)
8. Koslow
9. Default
10. She's dead
11. Believe in me
12. Dudek
13. My life
14. Red Water (hidden track, short prelude to the album Bunkertor 7)

Music For A Slaughtering Tribe II

This version, released very shortly after the 1997 re-release, is identical to the original release but has an extra remix disc.

Label: Beton Kopf Media
Release date: February 2, 1997
Content of the remix disc:

1. Fear in motion by Remyl
2. She's Dead by Kirlian Camera
3. Soylent Green by Haujobb
4. Fear in motion by Haujobb
5. Dudek by Brain Leisure
6. Default by Aghast View
7. Float by Dive
8. Soylent Green by Brain Leisure

Last, a Music for a German tribe was also released. It has German versions of many popular Wumpscut tracks, not only of this album. This was done because the American audiences liked the German tracks more than the English ones.