Anima-Sound

Emerging from Munich's thriving Krautrock environment at the close of the 1960s, Anima—also called Anima-Sound—revolved around the married couple Paul and Limpe Fuchs and stood among the scene's most daringly experimental and inventive acts. Their improvised atonal textures and unconventional instrumentation aligned far more closely with the ethos of experimental free jazz than with rock in any conventional sense. The Fuchs entered the counterculture of the late '60s, augmenting standard instruments such as drums, bass, and cornet together with wordless vocal yelps and screams by constructing homemade devices including the Fuchshorn, Fuchszither, and Fuchsbass that heightened the formless character of their music. A 1970 appearance in the X-rated documentary Sex Freedom in Germany shows Limpe, naked except for black body paint, striking drums while Paul deploys his inventions to produce musical anarchy. Ohr Records released their debut album, Stürmischer Himmel, in 1971 after it was recorded inside a 1,000-year-old cottage. That summer the group performed at Ossiach, the three-day outdoor festival organized by famed Austrian classical/jazz pianist Friedrich Gulda that also featured Tangerine Dream and Pink Floyd. Gulda soon developed a close friendship with the Fuchs and participated on their next releases, the 1972 albums Anima on the Pilz label and Musik für Alle. Over the following years the Fuchs frequently toured with Gulda and made guest appearances on his recordings. Anima continued issuing discs of its eccentric music, extending from the 1974 double album It's Up to You to Monte Alto in 1977. The double LP Der Regt Mich Auf/A Controversy, recorded between 1978 and 1982, added new bandmember Zoro Fuchs, son of Paul and Limpe, on drums. The same three-Fuchs lineup appears on the double album Bruchstucke für Ilona, recorded in the summer of 1985 and released later that year. By 1987's Via, Anima had become Limpe Fuchs' solo project. She sustained a solo career thereafter, releasing an album every several years in a comparable vein with a strong emphasis on creativity.