Dissidenten

Originating in Berlin, Germany, the three Dissidenten members Uve Müllrich, Marlon Klein, and Friedo Josch concentrate on African musical traditions. The group came together in 1981 and put out several independently funded singles prior to spending nearly twelve months on the road across Asia. Relocating to India by 1982, they took up residence inside the palace of Maharaja Bhalkrishna Bharti of Gondagaon in Madhya Pradesh, and that setting became the birthplace of their first full-length album, Germanistan. The recording brought in outside contributors such as the Karnataka College of Percussion, vocalist Ramamani, and saxophonist Charlie Mariano from the United States. A year afterward the trio shifted base to Tangier, Morocco, where author and composer Paul Bowles connected them with leading local instrumentalists; the resulting sophomore album, Sahara Elektrik, was produced by Abdessalam Akaaboune.

During the middle of the decade the dance track “Fata Morgana” delivered the band’s initial major success in Spain and Italy. A subsequent sold-out Spanish tour led to a John Peel session in England and broader international attention, with particular enthusiasm in Canada where Sahara Elektrik reached the top of the independent charts. In 1986 the musicians established themselves in Spain and completed their third album, Life at the Pyramids. Promotion included an extensive world tour highlighted by the opening concert of the 1988 New Music Seminar at New York City’s Palladium.

Dissidenten’s first 1990s release, Out of This World, also marked their debut on a major American imprint, Sire/Warner. North African guests on the record included the string section of the Royal National Orchestra of Morocco together with Cherif Lamrani and Mahmoud Saadi, both of whom had performed with Lemchaheb, Jiljilala, and Nass El Ghiwane. After nearly a decade the trio returned operations to Berlin. The following year the live set Live in New York, drawn from the 1988 Palladium performance, appeared while the members focused on a film and music project centered on Native American traditions.

Most of 1992 was devoted to the next studio effort, The Jungle Book, which again featured guest contributions from the Karnataka College of Percussion, Trilok Gurtu, and Ramesh Shotham. Released a year later, the album earned second place in the European DJs’ annual World-Music-Charts Europe poll, and Sven Väth reworked “Jungle Book Part II” into a techno single. After the supporting tour concluded in 1995, Marlon Klein spent the rest of that year in Los Angeles producing Gary Wright’s albums Human Love and First Sign of Life, the latter containing a guest appearance by former Beatle George Harrison.

In 1996 the band launched its own label, Exil Musik, and issued Instinctive Traveler, the first Dissidenten album to feature English-language vocals; the record coincided with festival appearances at Stuttgart Jazz Open, Leverkusener Jazztage, and Barcelona’s Festival De La Diversidad. Two years later further concerts with Izaline Calister, Noujoum Ouazza, and Manickam Yogeswaran included a slot at England’s Glastonbury Festival and yielded the second live album, Live in Europe.

Entering the new century, Dissidenten joined American composer Gordon Sherwood in 2000 on an opera about the Danube River that received its premiere with orchestra and choir at the International Donau Musik Festival in Ulm. That same year Marlon Klein traveled to Durban, South Africa, to record the Zulu Choir Phikelela Sakhula and the Real Happy Singers while also producing PILI-PILI’s album Love Letter. Marking the group’s twentieth anniversary in 2001, the compilation 2001: A Worldbeat Odyssey presented remixes of earlier material by nine DJs and producers including Badmarsh, Lemongrass, Shantel, and Slop Shop; unlike most remix collections, the project was followed by a tour featuring several of those participants.