187. xPropaganda

The Garage

24 March 2018

Back in 1985, Propaganda were the sound of art students trying to start a revolution with eyeliner and oscillators. They were Trevor Horn’s answer to Kraftwerk, and a band who made synths sound dangerous. Thirty-odd years later, two of its original conspirators, Claudia Brücken and Susanne Freytag, have re-emerged as xPropaganda, dragging their immaculate Teutonic cool into a venue better known for sticky floors and lager.

The Garage, bless it, is not built for sophistication. It’s built for sweaty guitar bands not immaculate German minimalism. But tonight, it does its best impression of Düsseldorf circa 1984; all dry ice and synths, although lacking the bespectacled German literature students on beanbags casually scoffing at the sheer Kafkaesque concept of joy.

The stage lights flicker; a voice whispers something vaguely Orwellian; and the duo glide on, dressed in black and poise. There’s a moment of reverent silence before the familiar pulsing intro of “Dr. Mabuse” fills the room, that perfect collision of menace and glamour, a Bond theme rewritten by nihilists. It’s glorious. It’s ridiculous. It’s completely wonderful.

Brücken’s voice remains pristine, all cool detachment and quiet command, whilst Freytag supplies the icy spoken word counterpoints with the air of a woman reading classified documents to a beat. Behind them, a pair of keyboard players conjure the ghosts of Fairlights past, bathed in white light so intense, it threatened to melt the stage equipment.

These aren’t just songs; they’re Cold War manifestos set to sequencers. What’s striking is how “now” it still sounds. The beats throb, the synths slice, the choruses soar with absurd grandeur. You realise how much of today’s pop owes to Propaganda’s strange, subversive glamour, the way they fused art-school pretension with pure pop melodrama and somehow made it stick.

Between songs, Claudia and Susanne banter like old friends at a class reunion, a little awkward, a little warm, occasionally hilarious. These two have not been on a stage together for thirty years, but they still have chemistry.

When “Duel” hits, the entire room erupts in perfect, if slightly wobbly, unison: “The first cut won’t hurt at all…” It’s glorious. Thirty years late but right on time. xPropaganda may no longer be the future, but they just proved to us all that they can absolutely own the present.