Forma Tadre releases ‘P-Songx, the hidden path’ – the songs that almost never had seen the light of day
Out now is “P-Songx, the hidden path”, an album that was recorded & mixed back in 1989-1993 (except for the track “M15 – She a threat?” which was re-recorded in June 2020) by Andreas Meyer we all know from Forma Tadre.
The genesis of the songs on this release is quite an interesting one as the musician explains.
Andreas Meyer: “Until the early 90s everything Forma Tadre did was recorded and mixed on tape. The very common analogue cassette tape to be precise, cause we had no money to buy better stuff. The tapes were numbered (50-60 still exist), but there have always been, right from the start, two different kinds of tapes. One type was labeled “Forma Tadre”, the other one was labeled “P-Songs”. P-Songs stands for “personal songs”, songs that I wrote and recorded without the help of the other two band members. These songs were set apart from the regular recordings and they also differed stylistically from the official Forma Tadre output – they were much more electronic in nature than what we did as a trio (or later, until 1994, as a duo).”
The band’s earliest recordings (like “Brightful Times”) had been post-punk, dark wave and NDW, while the P-Songx tracks were mainly EBM, electro-industrial, soundtrack and experimental electronica.
Andreas: “The two kinds of recordings were like two paths leading through a forest (this is a crooked analogy but I can’t think of a better one right now). Both paths went into the same direction. They were parallel, but only one was open to the public – the other one was hidden. That hidden path was the P-Songx path.”
The electronic tapes never saw the light of day. Back then, Forma Tadre was ruled by a certain formula as Andreas puts it: “Me writing the songs plus at least one other band member performing the vocals and/or writing the lyrics and/or playing the guitar. As a result, solo works or P-Songx could not become part of Forma Tadre. I could have, of course, released the P-Songs under a different band name. But that idea somehow never occured to me.”
When in 1994 Forma Tadre split up, with the last remaining member of the original trio leaving the band, it was “Plasmasleep” (the demo version published on “Travelogue”) that had been the turning point in all this.
Andreas: “Despite its definition as a solo work and therefore originally filed under “P-Songx”, I released the song on a local tape compilation as “written by Forma Tadre”. This eventually led to the final break-up – but it also led to a record deal, because the German record label Offbeat became aware of the compilation and contacted me.”
Golem 100 luckily didn’t make it as a band name
After the break-up Meyer started to work on “Navigator” – using a lot of the P-Songs he had written before. He signed the contract with OffBeat and thought about renaming the project – to mark a fresh start. The alternative and brandnew band name would have been “Golem 100” (after a science fiction novel by American writer Alfred Bester).
Andreas: “I thought about this for a very long time but finally dismissed the idea – at the last moment – before the official release of “Navigator”. Everybody at OffBeat was relieved, I still remember their faces. After all, “Forma Tadre” (the original band name) was my own creation: I remember having read Pink Floyd’s biography years before. Until then I had always thought that “pink” stood for the colour only but found out, that Pink was the just the given name of a blues musician called Pink Anderson. And Floyd was the given name of another blues musician called Floyd Council. So, Syd Barrett created the name “Pink Floyd” by combining two names of musicians he adored. This idea appealed to me. But instead of taking the names of two other musicians I took just one name of another band (Tangerine Dream) and an album I adored at that time (Force Majeure). To make it even more complicated and to give the name a little bit of mystery I dissected the words. The result was “Forma Tadre”. I still think that this is the way the name was created, but to be fair – a former band member claims otherwise.”
Check out the songs below.
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading Side-Line Magazine than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can - and we refuse to add annoying advertising. So you can see why we need to ask for your help.
Side-Line’s independent journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we want to push the artists we like and who are equally fighting to survive.
If everyone who reads our reporting, who likes it, helps fund it, our future would be much more secure. For as little as 5 US$, you can support Side-Line Magazine – and it only takes a minute. Thank you.
The donations are safely powered by Paypal.
