Slapp Happy, an avant-pop ensemble with a devoted cult following, originated in Hamburg, Germany in 1972. Vocalist Dagmar Krause, already a veteran of the folk group the City Preachers, encountered British experimental composer Anthony Moore there; Moore had earlier released the solo albums Pieces from the Cloudland Ballroom and Secrets of the Blue Bag on Polydor. When that label declined his third record, Moore instead conceived a pop project and enlisted Krause plus New York-born guitarist Peter Blegvad to launch Slapp Happy. With assistance from members of the renowned Krautrock band Faust, the trio delivered its debut album Sort of... in 1972, though its commercial reach remained sharply constrained by the group’s refusal to perform live. Polydor nevertheless green-lit a follow-up, and Slapp Happy proceeded to record Casablanca Moon; after the label rejected it, the trio moved to Virgin and re-recorded the material in full, issuing the result as a self-titled album in 1974.
Slapp Happy then aligned with the kindred art-rock collective Henry Cow for the collaborative albums Desperate Straights and In Praise of Learning. Creative friction soon prompted Moore and Blegvad to depart, yet Krause remained with Henry Cow until its dissolution in 1980. Moore and Blegvad each pursued solo work in the interim, but in 1982 they rejoined Krause to cut the Slapp Happy single “Everybody’s Slimmin’,” which preceded the band’s first live appearance at London’s ICA. The three collaborated again in 1991 on Camera, a television opera commissioned by the BBC and aired two years later; a new Slapp Happy studio album, Ça Va, appeared in 1998, followed by the release of Camera in 2000.
