How did this record not get released in the U.S.? After all, Dagmar "The Voice of Armageddon" Krause's recordings with Slapp Happy, the Art Bears, and Henry Cow had been issued here, and her wonderfully engaging recording of Kurt Weill, Bertold Brecht, and Hanns Eisler's music, Supply and... [+] Expand

How did this record not get released in the U.S.? After all, Dagmar "The Voice of Armageddon" Krause's recordings with Slapp Happy, the Art Bears, and Henry Cow had been issued here, and her wonderfully engaging recording of Kurt Weill, Bertold Brecht, and Hanns Eisler's music, Supply and Demand, had been issued here to great critical acclaim and consistent if modest sales. Perhaps it's because, like that record, Tank Battles is an uncompromising vehicle to showcase the radical compositional method that Eisler employed even as he tried to write songs that would be popular -- among those who resisted fascism. He wrote in the vernacular of the Weimar Republic and in the sophisticated language of jazz as it entered the cultural mainstream, despite the fact that he was taught by Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna until he quit and went to Berlin, wanting to write music for people instead of periods. It's true that these are "art songs," but only through the lens of history. Krause, who is truly one of the most gifted vocalists of the 20th century, situates these songs -- most of them collaborations with Brecht -- as Eisler wrote them, in the wind of resistance and commitment to defeating the fascists, reclaiming Europe from their influence, and regaining dignity for workers in a socialist struggle. But in no way do these songs sound like timepieces in Krause's treatment of them, nor do they sound like hollow moments of history run through with the holes of empty victory and decadent complacency. Krause is a firebrand of urgency and emotion -- her style goes for the heart of a melody and twists the lyric around it, whether on a labor organizing song such as "You Have to Pay," a melancholy song of displacement and loss such as "Chansons Allemande," or a song that combines both, such as "Ballad of the Sackslingers." All of Eisler's best-known songs are here, from the aforementioned to "Song of a German Mother," "And I Shall Never See Again," and "Battlefield," along with many others. There are also some of his lesser-known but hauntingly beautiful pieces written for the theater, "And I Shall Never See Again" and "Genevieve: Ostern Ist ein Ball sur Seine." Krause's performances of these songs are more than empathetic; it's as if Eisler and Brecht wrote them especially for her. Her sense of the dramatic is unparalleled and her voicings of the more subtle shades of meaning in the lyrics are truly visionary, offering these songs in a completely new setting -- one that is current, valid, and perhaps just as urgent in these tense times as they were in Eisler's. On the Voiceprint edition, there is a bonus of ten extra tracks from the original German edition, Panzerschlacht. Either as an introduction to the music of the least known of Weimar's great triumvirate or to the voice of Dagmar Krause, Tank Battles is a worthy and even necessary addition. As an album of popular music, it is a monolith to be reckoned with. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide [-] Collapse

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