Hubert Von Goisern - Fön (2000)

Many thanx to Tobi from Austria for this true discovery!

«Activist, composer, and actor Hubert Achleitner (better known as Hubert Von Goisern) was best known for his stint as lead singer of Die Alpinkatzen. Von Goisern was born and raised in Austria, where he learned to play the guitar, trumpet, and accordion at a young age. He lived in South Africa and Toronto for many years before returning to his homeland in his late twenties in order to pursue a music career, forming Die Alpinkatzen with Wolfgang Staribacher in 1986. Honing a blend of synthy Europop with traditional Austrian folk music elements (yodeling chief among them), the group became immensely popular in Germany and Austria. The group called it quits in late 1994. Von Goisern busied himself with various projects, musical and otherwise, over the course of the following decade. […] He also became deeply involved with activism. […] In addition to his interest in Tibet, Von Goisern was also known for speaking out against the Austrian music industry. In the midst of all this, Von Goisern continued to record and release albums. His first solo effort, Fön, came out in 2000.» (AMG)

«Shrill yodelling and dissonant yodelling in defiance: the worn path of alpine folklore is terrible for him. Away from petit-bourgeois conformism and traditionalism, Hubert von Goisern has experimented with sound and style directions since the release of his first album, Alpine Lawine in 1988 – always endeavoured to elicit new sounds from the diatonic accordion, flugelhorn or the Styrian harmonica. The search for inspiration led to finally to Tibet, Africa and India – there he searched for distance from the Alpinkatzen project, left Hiatamadl behind him, "Goisern", who sang the praises of his homeland, said a quiet farewell. But now the "alpine rocker" is back. Energetic, effervescent with delight in playing and linguistic jokes, he pulls out all the stops on the CD Fön (Blanko Musik), mixed folksy elements with rocky rhythms in his unmistakable manner. In the number, “Kålt”, he expresses syllables in striking dialect imaginative, loaded with meaning, behind which coded quotations from the right wing populist, Jörg Haider, are hidden: "Mir ist kålt, und mir wird kålter, und des liegt, des liegt nit am Wetter. (“I am cold, and I am getting colder, and it's not down to the weather”). He attacks the double moral standards of the church as well, like he beats against power and war. While in “Die Stråss'n” he draws – not without melancholy – a final line under the past: "Wås vorbei is', is' vorbei..." (What's past, is past...")». (Christof Völlinger, Magazin am Wochende)

Official site: http://www.hubertvongoisern.com/

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