Cassiber was a German avant-rock band that was founded by Alfred Harth, a German composer and saxophonist, and Heiner Goebbels (German composer, music-theatre director, and keyboardist), Chris Cutler from Henry Cow, and Christoph Anders, a German guitarist. They released five albums and toured extensively in Europe, Asia, and North America before dissolving in 1992. Cassiber’s music was a mix of speed-punk and free jazz, with a lot of sampling that incorporated news broadcasts and found sounds. Their live performances were renowned for their “frantic intensity”. Time Out’s critic said that Cassiber played as if they had only one minute to live. Their style of playing was also well-known, where they “improvise complete pieces”. Chris Cutler met Alfred Harth, Heiner Goebbels and Christoph Anders through the So-Called Left-Radical Brass Band in 1977. In 1979, Harth and Anders had a punk group in Frankfurt am Main. Harth recorded the LP Es herrscht Uhu im Land, which was released by JAPO Records/ECM in 1980. This album included Anders, Goebbels, and other musicians who were interested in combining punk rock, classical music, and free jazz. The Duo Goebbels/Harth felt inspired to create a smaller group with similar ideas. Harth asked Anders Cutler and Anders to join the Duo Goebbels/Harth. This new group was given the name “Kassiber”, later changed to “Cassiber” by Anders. Cutler, Harth, Goebbels and Anders met in 1982 at Etienne Conod’s Sunrise Studio in Switzerland, to record an album. They decided to “improvise complete pieces”, which is to attempt to spontaneously produce structured and arranged material. It was the result of a double album, Man or Monkey. This was well received in Germany, and it led to an invitation for them to perform at 1982 Frankfurt Jazz Festival. Cassiber traveled extensively throughout Asia and North America for the next ten-years, and was a regular at most major European festivals. Live performances were a mixture of original pieces and pieces from their albums, which they performed without ever having practiced or learned. Cassiber (minus Anders), joined Duck and Cover in May 1983. This was a group Burkhard Hennen asked Harth to form for the Moers Festival and a later commission from Berlin Jazz Festival. They performed in West Berlin in October 1983 and another one in East Berlin in February 1984. Cassiber, again minus Anders, joined half of the Italian progressive rock band Rock in Opposition and Cassiber to form Cassix (Cassiber/Stormy Six), for a workshop and recording project in Italy. Harth quit Cassiber to form avant-rock groups Gestalt et Jive, Vladimir Estragon and Cassiber remained as a trio. Cassiber was a performer at the 4th Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. This event took place in October 1986, Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada. They invited Hannes Bauer, Dietmar Diesner and others to join them for their final year. Cassiber, as a quartet, recorded two albums: Man or Monkey (1982), and Beauty and the Beast (84). They recorded two more albums after Harth’s departure, Perfect Worlds (1986), and A Face We All Know (1990). The latter dealt with the fall of the Berlin Wall and included texts from Thomas Pynchon’s 1973 novel Gravity’s Rainbow. On one disc, Live in Tokyo, a 1992 concert in Tokyo was recorded by Masami Shinoda. Otomo Yashihide (turntablist) was the other disc and reworked the concert material for 1998. He had been there at the original concerts. This album records Shinoda’s final performance, which was shortly after Cassiber left Japan. It also includes Cassiber’s last performance as a group. Ground Zero’s valedictory project was Yoshihide’s material. Cassiber’s last concert took place in Lisbon on 13/12/92 at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Chris Cutler claims that Cassiber’s name was a Slavic slang term for a message or note smuggled from prison. “Like The Beatles, we spelled it different and it wasn’t meant to mean anything.” From Wikipedia
