Musically Proper

In 1988, Holger Hiller of Palais Schaumburg created an audio visual project in collaboration with video artist Akiko Hada.

The project is considered a pioneering effort in blending video editing with music sampling. Only 10 years later, the idea of transferring sampling techniques from music to video got popular with ‘Timber’ by Coldcut, who used custom-made software to create it.

Hiller primarily used the E-mu Emulator II, a legendary 8-bit sampler that was a staple for experimental and industrial artists in the late 1980s. He was one of the first musicians in Europe to treat the sampler as his primary instrument rather than just a playback device.

“Palais Schaumburg played with Dadaism in their lyrics and was seen as the intellectual and super cool dance band in the German punk scene. Originally founded in Hamburg most of the band members moved later in the 80’s to West Berlin and became pioneers of the electronic music scene.

Holger Hiller is now a teacher, but Thomas Fehlmann became very well known as one part of The Orb and Moritz Von Oswald as the founder of Hardwax records and Basic Channel.”

🎥: ‘Deutsche Welle’ 1981 by Michael Bentele & Thomas Merker