BSPH: Kraftwerk - Boing Boom Tschak

In continuation of previous post - let's remember the last time someone pulled the audacious trick "Let's spell obviously scat lyrics absolutely straight".



"Boing Boom Tschak" is a composition by legendary german techno-pop band Kraftwerk. It was released in 1986 as an opening track on their abortive comeback album "Electric Cafe". The composition is a part of the Techno-Pop suite that encompasses the entire side A of the album.

And what an album it was. While "Electric Cafe" continued to explore minimalist stilted aesthetic presented on the 1982 album "Computer World" and 1983 single "Tour de France", in the same time it presented something new and completely different for Kraftwerk. If previously Kraftwerk were working out the theme - this time there was no concept to back up the music, it was less about exploring any particular idea and more about just making some bangers.

Or so it seemed.

Also - they've probably heard Art of Noise and Yello, said "What?" a couple of times and thought they should hold their beers. Which was rather fair assessment all things considered.

"Boing Boom Tschak" is built around the blips of samples of onomatopoeiac exclamations reminiscent of sharp percussive sounds. In addition to obvious "Boing", "Boom" and "Tschak", there is also "Peng" and a slew glitched-up, chopped and screwed variations for every word. Every exclamation got their share of "B-b-b-b", "Tsch-tsch-tsch", "Pe-pe-pe", "Boo-boo-boo" and "Bo-bo-boing" fills. In addition to that there is a title drop "Musik Non Stop" which is means so little in the space of this track, it could have been "giraffes on horseback salad" to the same effect.

Despite being reminiscent of drum sounds, the samples blatantly sound like mere words and nothing else which creates dubious dissonance with their meaning. The exclamations are intentionally devoid of any semblance of groove and dried down to their very carcasses. They occur as sparks in the vacuum, surrounded by some sparse sonic wallpaper.

It sounds utterly pointless but in spite of that, the resulting "lyrics" are really inspired example of constrained scat sound poem score designed for as many elaborations as possible but stuck in the routine. It should be noted that the variation part was something that was explored by Yello at that time.

"Boing Boom Tschak" tries really hard to fill as much space as possible with this stuff and in the same time make it feel like every word is launched straight into heart of the abyss. After a while it starts to resemble poker face "try not to laugh" exercise. However, despite all odds, combined together they create some otherworldly Dalek-like groove.

As it is "Boing Boom Tschak" is barely a song, it is more like an extended jingle that just goes on and on and on apparently nowhere but with that boggling tenacity. It is a part of the bigger thing that was torn out and left on its own. The next track "Technopop" just pretends "Boing Boom Tschak" don't exists and does its own thing.

In 1991 it was incorporated into the song "Music Non-Stop" on the 1991 album "The Mix". This time it was much better fit that improved upon both songs which were criminally underdeveloped in their original forms. Now it sounded like a demented Detroit Techno stomp by the way of Moondog.



But as it is, "Boing Boom Tschak" is a weird stilted piece. It is stuck uncertain of what it should be. The best word to describe it will be "pointless" and it is probably the most glorious example of a completely pointless song that nevertheless exists and definitely proud of this fact. But the lyrics are really great scat material worth performing the right way.