In Münster, at the Paulinum High School in the 80s, there were two young musicians from the same class competing with their bands: Stephan Brüggenthies and Gernot Bramkamp. When Stephan gave some demos to Funfactory! label manager Axel Seitz in 1986, he loved the music, but wanted a different singer. That’s how the two former competitors Gernot and Stephan united.
They went into the local TIB Tonstudio in 1987 and recorded a professional demo of New Harbour’s for Axel. This convinced him to make a 12”, and since he recently got to know Italian producer Graziano Mallozzi (who had some ominous credits for SABRINA in those days), Axel coupled Stephan, Gernot and Graziano. In some sleepless nights at the TIB Tonstudio, New Harbour’s was produced in three different versions. “Let’s be brothers“ Stephan and Gernot decided, and since Stephan was a huge fan of New Order, the 12” by MOVEMENT was released in June 1988.
When it became a club hit, Axel wanted to have a full album from the band and asked for more demos, which Stephan and Gernot recorded in winter 1988. Graziano had a studio collaboration with Marco Sabiu in Forlì, Italy, and so Stephan and Gernot travelled to Forlì in May 1989 to record the album. Some weeks of producing (and swimming in Rimini) followed, but when the ‘brothers‘ came back with the master tapes, Axel didn’t like them: Too commercial, too frisky, too anything. Movement had long discussions about that with Axel, but finally he didn’t release the album. Stephan and Gernot, studying at that time, were frustrated and angry, even if later – for a sampler – a new acoustic version of New Harbour’s was produced (in the old Alphaville Studio, by Ekki Maas, who’s a very renowned producer for German acts until this day).
Movement recorded some other songs at home, but they got never released or even heard by anybody. Since Gernot became a doctor and Stephan went into the film industry in those years, the band dissolved into an impalpable hiatus. But Stephan never forgot that there were some beautiful recordings who didn’t see the light of day… and some fans, fortunately, didn’t either. After more than 30 years, Axel and Stephan got along again, they met and Axel provided the master tapes from Forlì. Stephan also dug into his vaults and managed to find many of the demos… and we at Dead Wax Records are so happy that this all could actually happen.
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