MDFMK

MDFMK. Rarely have five letters meant so much and yet revealed so little. Attempts to pronounce the word have proven futile and even dangerous to the uninitiated. Is it an acronym? Does it stand for something? These and other questions will be answered in good time, but only in the cryptic, brain-skewering style of MDFMK.

A bit of background: after fifteen years as a leading force in pioneering techno-hybrid music, KMFDM disbanded forever in 1999. Arising phoenix-like from the ashes is a new musical force, founded by the late KMFDM core-members Sascha Konietzko and Tim Skold, joined by Lucia Cifarelli. The name is MDFMK, but it’s much more than simply KMFDM held up to a mirror.

“We’re not just doing a so-called techno thing,” says Tim of the songs on MDFMK’s new album. “We’re merging guitars and vocals with and all kinds of digital garbage. We wanted to pursue things a bit differently this time. The focus is on the actual songs. Yeah, you heard me right, I said SONGS! I think this might come as a surprise to some people.”

For evidence, check out “Rabble Rouser,” the new song from MDFMK’s debut album for Republic/Universal. It’s a stunning, beautiful assault on the senses that mixes the sonic gristle of KMFDM’s industrial past with head-crashing beats and an unexpected emotional human element. It is music that rails against convention, lashes out against mediocrity, and takes a punishing stand for truth.

Whereas KMFDM always relied on assorted diva cameos to sweeten the various snarls and growls of its male vocalists, MDFMK highlights Lucia’s heavenly screams. Lucia, a native New Yorker, recorded two albums as front-woman for Drill before the band imploded in 1998. Tim, a native of Sweden now based in LA, came to the US is ’88 with metal band Shotgun Messiah and brings an unrepentant love of ABBA and melodic music in general into the mix. As always, Sascha continues to bring the noize.

Tim joined KMFDM in 1997, having met Sascha a few years earlier when recording for the ’96 RCA release “SKOLD” in Seattle. Tim recalls it this way: “The first time we worked together I was living in LA and Sascha sent me a tape of a track he was working on, all in the key of D. I mean no chord changes, no progressions, just a straight D. Now how the hell can I write a song to this? But damn, those beats were cool and it came out really well.” This track became the song ‘Anarchy,’ later included on the symbols album, released in 1998.

In late 1998, Tim and Sascha began working on “Adios,” which would become the final KMFDM record. It was released on April 20, 1999, by tragic coincidence the same day the Columbine high school shootings took place in Littleton, Colorado, putting KMFDM in a very dubious, yet entirely undeserved spotlight.

“When that album was finished, KMFDM was really falling apart,” Tim says. “But Sascha and I realized we still liked working together. So Sascha killed KMFDM and we started MDFMK.”

Of course, in real life things are never quite that simple. Man cannot live on bread alone, and before long the two were jonesing for some musical estrogen in their new line-up. Sascha had done a remix of “What You Are” for Lucia’s band, Drill, which appeared on the Empire Records soundtrack in 1996. Still seared and haunted by the memory of Lucia’s emotional inferno of a voice, Sascha called her and invited her to join the fledgling MDFMK.

And then there were three. “We had never actually met at that point,” Sascha recalls, “but I remembered her singing: the uninhibited, relentless, unrestrained character and might, the range of moaning and groaning and the excessive use of the trachea.”

Lucia, for her part, views the invitation from Sascha somewhat differently: “He salvaged me from the wreckage of my second record,” she says. “I was in a pretty bad place and Sascha called me and gave me”

“a ticket and an open microphone,” Sascha says, finishing her sentence.

The members of MDFMK have a knack for finishing each other’s sentences in musical terms as well. The writing for their new self-titled album became more of a three-way project. “It’s funny, the way that both Sascha and I work,” says Tim. “We have similar ethics: we’re completely neurotic, we won’t leave any stone unturned or get any sleep until the music is exactly the way we want it to be. We’ve been there and done that when it comes to the perfect technical capabilities of machinery. You could say we’re perfectionists, but perfection is a multi-faceted phenomena. Do you want to go for the obvious perfection or the more interesting version of perfection? If you like it, it’s perfect.”

“The moment Lucia entered the picture, MDFMK went in a new direction,” says Sascha. “Lucia’s brought in this completely different element, like a red thread running through the entire record, while Tim brings the glam, the guitars, and a love for massive supercomputer hacking.”

Tim replies: “Sascha’s just as Euro as me; we’re pop kids. Yeah, sure, I was in a hair band and that was fun as shit. I hope I can spend the rest if my life in a constant state of change. If every day was the same, that would be really sad. When it comes down to it, it’s just rock and roll. That may sound demeaning but it’s not. It’s just entertainment. But there are depths to MDFMK that are hard to find in most contemporary music.”

“This album was really stripped down,” Sascha says of the new record by MDFMK. “Musically speaking, this is the first album I’m really happy with. It was harmonic and inspiring. There were no compromises. No guitarists. And no weird people flopping around the studio in tutus. Those days are over.”

“He doesn’t know that,” says Tim. “I have some really cool tutus lined up. There will be some nasty surprises for sure.”

While in the past, KMFDM’s music had ranged from serious political commentary to complete absurdist self-mockery, according to Sascha, MDFMK will be less obviously political.

“We’re not on the campaign trail but we still have opinions,” adds Tim. “But it’s not about preaching; it’s more about saying ‘Hey pay attention! Keep an open mind! Make up your own fucking mind!’–which is pretty preachy,” he laughs. “But that’s the first rule of rock and roll isn’t it? Always contradict yourself.”

“We’re still anti-establishment,” Sascha explains. “But whereas KMFDM was blatantly political and loudmouthed, that’s a thing of the past. I’m tired of commenting on the idiosyncrasies of society. And because MDFMK’s lyrics were written in a three-way collaboration, the process is more poetic and less soapbox. It’s both more mature and more juvenile.” “There’s still a lot of angst on the record,” adds Lucia. “It’s just of a different nature.”

“It’s not KMFDM for sure, because a lot of the original members are gone,” Tim says of the new group. “But to say MDFMK is something completely different would also be wrong. So the only thing we felt was right was to flip the whole thing backwards. It’s a hard thing for most Americans even to say MDFMK. We like to throw people for a bit of a loop, a bit of a mind fuck.”

“It’s a more dangerous beast,” agrees Sascha, on the topic of what makes MDFMK different from his past musical ventures. “But in a different guise. We were wondering what to call the new band, and we thought: everybody wonders what KMFDM stands for, so why not continue it ad absurdum? We like fucking with everyone’s mind. One of our mottos in forming MDFMK was, “The future of music must not belong to the mediocre.”

MDFMK is Sascha Konietzko, Tim Skold and Lucia Cifarelli. The new album was produced by MDFMK and Chris Shepard.

Prepare to be thrown for a loop. It’s called MDFMK. And it’s coming your way.