Caspar Brotzmann’s Massaker

Caspar Brötzmann Massaker is a band formed during mid-1980’s West Germany
dedicated to the singular musical vision of avant/experimental electric guitar player Caspar Brötzmann. The musical traits of the Massaker band are not completely derived from any singular Guitar/Bass/Drums instrumental genre on the spectrum of rock music, but instead characteristically distinct in Caspar’s personal approach of utilizing playing techniques to the guitar as a sonic object, carried by dynamic band interplay.

The band’s music has been characterized by utilizing a structured song composition of atmospheric noise and tonal dynamics. Intentional use of guitar-as-sonic object used as an element of composition on a structure of extended tribal/rhythmic bass and drums, with melodic singing, chanting, and vocal cries. Chorus/refrain phrasing and musical motifs evoke the formal stricture and simple melodic phrasing of folk song. Often entire songs are a mix of verse/chorus, evolving into and/or abruptly bookended with calm relief of sonic tension, roaring and menacing atmospheric feedback clouds, interlaced with quieter sounds, creating an overall feeling of brooding, hesitant, anticipatory tension. There is often poeticized lyricism expressing existential issues of the human experience: love, hope, suffering, war, dreams, peace, imprisonment, et al. Songs are mostly sung in English and some in German.

Caspar has often described his approach to realizing his musical vision as utilizing the guitar as a brush with which to paint songs with sound. Within Caspar Brötzmann Massaker, Caspar is a right-handed player of a left-handed Stratocaster (upside down), but strung righthanded with traditionally ordered string gauges, as a means to extend the sonic potential of the lengths of strings from bridge, neck and headstock tuners.