Delicatessen was formed in Cologne, Germany in 1999. They recorded their first album Deface the Music in 2000 in the middle of an oil refinery in Dusseldorf, surrounded by hissing, smoke and fire.

They reflect this heavy industrial environment in production-line tracks which characterise their work. Their sparse style, based on repeated rhythmic figures and simple harmonies, was employed as the basis of more hypnotic compositions on 2001's Space Cowboy.

In 2002 the band moved to London, England and issued the double-set Double Space, composed of their first two German albums. Noted influences are John Cage, Terry Riley and Karlheinz Stockhausen. The albums are filled with the harsh, mechanised sounds of heavy industry, the everyday reality of modern German life: sudden noises, unidentifiable bangings. They use the studio to make phase-shifts, speed-up tapes and treat their sounds. The first two albums are experimental and show the group finding their feet among the electronic elements at their disposal.

Removal (also 2002) showed increased confidence, being a more exuberant, enthusiastic album with fresh surface texture and a strong beat.

Delicatessen now live and work in London, where they have built their own studio. They are presently recording their forth album, Artillary.

PLEASANT CAFE: one day there will be a plaque in Alperton.

Hey JO, where you goin wid that gun in your head?

IRON IN THE SOUL: psalm 105, verse 18.

SULTANA: the wife, mother or daughter of a sultan; a kind of raisin grown in Smyrna; or a little club somewhere in London.

MY MADNESS: We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art. (Henry James, The Middle Years)

ALASKA: big place.

RADIATION: get down to the crazy Geiger beat.

ROYAL SWEETS: don't ask Alice.

INDIANS: duelling sitars.

ELIZABETH: Sultana impresario. The club not the fruit.

DREAMER: All that we see or seem/Is but a dream within a dream (Edgar Allan Poe, A Dream within a Dream)

ALBUM 2
SPACE COWBOY
made 9 june 2001at 58 pinner road, harrow

SHOWDOWN: Hi Hal. It is 2001, after all.

EX-LOVER MUSEUM: There is no greater pain than to remember a happy time when one is in misery. (Dante's Inferno; canto 5, line 121)

CARDBOARD HEARTS: say it with a valentine.

ONIBABA is a film. Made by Kaneto Shindo. About a Japanese legend. In medieval times on a remote marshy plain, a mother and her daughter live by killing stray soldiers and selling their armour, until the daughter takes one for a lover and the mother becomes jealous.

NO NOISE: What can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. (Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1918)

DENIAL: I am a nice person. People like me.

ARNOLD SCHOENBERG: an octave wasn't enough.

LONER: Hell is other people. (Jean-Paul Sartre, Huis Close)

BEING THERE: People mistakenly thought Jerzy Kosinski was profound.

UNKNOWN: where is the love?

MUNCHKIN: nobody sees the mighty Oz.

ALBUM 1
DEFACE THE MUSIC
made 24 june 2000 at 58 pinner road, harrow

SADO: Thou goest to women? Remember thy whip! (Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra)

UMA is an actress. Uma is also a goddess.

INCUBATOR: ooh baby baby.

CHANNEL 5: like the last US presidential fight-out, all bush and gore.

Gloria IN EXCELSIS Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis (Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace to men of good will.)

DINER: nighthawks and Stepford wives eat blazing salads.

ELEPHANT BOY: Sabu to Mickey Dolenz, elephants never forget.

NERO: absolute power corrupts absolutely.

ORTEGA y Gasset is one of the foremost philosophers of existence. He seeks to come to terms with the conflict between historical relativity and the desire for authentic personal living. He also has a groovy name.

Even as it [Great Britain] walked out on you and joined the Common Market, you were still looking for your MBEs and your knighthoods, and all the rest of the regalia that comes with it. You would take Australia right back down the TIME TUNNEL to the cultural cringe where you have always come from. (Paul Keating addressing the Conservatives, 27 February 1992)

ENOUGH: already.