Robotwerke was the debut album by German trio Supersempfft who met at school and recorded this in for CBS in 1979 after Franz Knuttel had built his own drum machine, alongside Musical ingenue Deiter Kob and Musical architect Franz Aumuller, they created their own Sci-Fi fantasy soundtrack about a Tuba toting frog who gets transformed into an intergalactic superhero.
The album opens with Robotwerke that feels like a spectral launchpad, that marries almost medieval folk music strings to a long heavy tone, that shifts into cartoon synth dance pop, in a similar vein to Sammlas Mammas Mannas.
We Found It Out has voice box/Vocoder treated vocals on a sweet pop melody as they let us know they Found It Out, this manages to sound current while being over 40 years old, especially what the percussion and drum machine add to the sound.
Fantasia has the gurgling sounds of the frog's pond with music coming from nearby churches bells and sweet acoustic guitar figures. Pipedreams On A Lilypad expands on the themes, the frog starts to narrate his tale.
Let's Beam Him Up has squelchy beats, with the vocoder toting space aliens preparing to shoot the frog through the sky into space, this is almost Funkadelic style space madness with a classic bassline driving it on.
I'm Gonna Make You Big is a soul pop song explaining how he is going to transform the frog while sounding like it could have been on Sesame Street crossed between some of the sounds from Calling Occupants Of Interplanetary Craft.
Be A Man You Frog go on man up and transform to the squelchy beats, loose keyboard, but be careful you might end up like Jan Hammer rather than the cool techno geek you'd rather be.
Supersempfft the band theme tune is almost like a marriage of the Rhubarb & Custard theme to a Dunkelziffer tune as they go weirdly Calypso techno pop.
Out Of Time is a Sylvester style Hi-NRG disco floor filler about your calling and destiny in the cosmos, the lyrics are all about where the frog is going to in the galaxy on his magic butterfly, everyone get down on the dancefloor.
The album closes with The Best Thing Is To Get High with a tuba led brass band and sung like a Richard Stillgoe semi-serious song encouraging us to all get high, how could you resist.
Find out more at https://shop.tapeterecords.com/supersempfft-roboterwerke-4117 https://orcd.co/supersempfft
