Naïve [Bonus Tracks] [PA] [Limited] [Remaster]

Performer: KMFDM
Engineer: Blank Fontana; Lee Popa; Chris Shepard; Blank Fontana
Producer: Lee Popa; Sascha Konietzko; Paul Barker; Sascha Konietzko; Paul Barker; Lee Popa
Distributor: Alternative Dis. Alliance

Notes: NAIVE is available on HELL TO GO (Wax Trax) with 5 tracks remixed. Personnel: Sascha Konietzko (vocals, guitar, synthesizer, bass instrument, programming); G�nter Schulz (guitar, guitars); William Tucker, William Tucker (guitar); Paul Barker (bass instrument); Rudolph Naomi (drums); En Esch (vocals, guitar, drums); Mark Durante (guitar); Johann Bley (drums); Bill Rieflin (hi-hat); Christine Siewert (background vocals). Audio Mixers: Lee Popa; Sascha Konietzko; Chris Shepard. Audio Remasterer: Brian Gardner . Photographer: Alice Turzynski. Widely considered to be the first truly exceptional KMFDM album, 1990's NAIVE presents the German industrial-rock ensemble expanding its formative sound with better production and catchier arrangements. In addition to the surging title track and the fierce, buzzing "Godlike," the record also features the furious, guitar-heavy "Liebesleid," a track that foreshadowed the future metal-influenced aesthetic of Sascha Konietzko and his ever-rotating band, and led to a copyright infringement suit (for using a sample of a piece by composer Carl Orff). The disc is also known as NAIVE/HELL TO GO, the title of its mid-'90s reissue. Having built up both their reputation and their increasing musical range over earlier releases, the members of KMFDM brought it all together on the brilliant Na�ve, one of industrial/electronic body music's key albums and a great blast of entertainment from start to finish. The self-referential qualities evident from earlier songs like "More and Faster" came to the fore with the brief "Welcome," literally doing just that for new listeners, and from there KMFDM does everything from four-to-the-floor beats to Wagnerian epic metal and back again. What's especially impressive about Na�ve is that for all the genre-hopping, it's all still clearly the work of one band -- but one so ridiculously good that everything they touch pretty much turns to gold. The title track is especially fantastic, a disco anthem for a generation grown up on feedback as much as acid pulse, with a catchy-as-hell lead female vocal matched by the expected distortion on En Esch's own drawl and the whole thing slamming forward without pause. As good as that it is, though, there's no question which song is the total standout -- "Liebeslied." Outrageously interpolating Carl Orff's noted vocal piece Carmina Burana into a bombastic explosion of mechanical rhythms, orchestral hits, and an increasing amount of hero guitar feedback slabs, not to mention the husked, desperate lead vocals, it's a jawdropping masterpiece that demands and gets total surrender. Regrettably, sample clearance issues meant later versions of the album had edited versions of this and other songs -- be sure to look for the original Wax Trax! (as opposed to Wax Trax!/TVT) pressings. (Bonus cuts include a live take on "Disgust" and a Ministry-produced version of the storming "Godlike"). ~ Ned Raggett

The German industrial dance act KMFDM were one of the first bands to recognize the link between the mechanical ferocity of industrial music and the unrelenting rhythms of the dance floor. Although they formed in Germany in 1984, they soon made a name for themselves in the United States as one of the premier bands on the seminal Chicago industrial label Wax Trax. While their popularity faltered a bit in the wake of more cartoonish American versions of KMFDM's aesthetic, the band's influence on industrial music can not be underestimated.

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