Japanische Kampfhörspiele

Motivated by an eccentric conviction that grinding began in Japan more than two millennia earlier, together with their self-perceived mental instabilities, Christof Kather on drums and Klaus Nicodem on guitar launched Japanische Kampfhörspiele in 1998. Working exclusively in German for the lyrics, the pair—whose name approximates “Japanese Combat Radio Plays”—spent the following four years amassing sufficient self-described “grindpunk” tracks to fill more than eight albums, among them a web-only EP offering altered renditions of material by Death, Slayer, and a-ha. Markus Hoff on vocals, Daniel Schaffrath on guitar, and Marco Bachmann on bass were enlisted in 2003 to enable live performances, and these same musicians also appeared on the Fertigmensch EP issued the next year.