DAGMAR KRAUSE

Dagmar Krause biography
Dagmar Krause is a German avant-gardiste vocalist (and pianist) who was born in 1950. She has a unique and beautiful but particular voice that makes her immediately recognisable when your hear it. She released several studio albums over the years but is mostly known for her work with the original RIO group Henry Cow (she was the vocalist in In Praise of Learning), Slapp Happy and Art Bears (a Henry Cow offshoot band that released three great albums).
At the age of fourteen, she was already singing in some clubs. When she was eighteen, she recorded an album with The City Preachers (a humoristic German folk band), and another one two years later with Inga Rumpf, a member of this same band. The album they recorded together was under the name I.D. Company. On this album, the first side was Rumpf?s compositions and the second one was Krause?s.
In 1971, Krause met Anthony Moore, who would later become her husband and form Slapp Happy with her and Peter Blegvad (they would all participate to Henry Cow?s In Praise of Learning). Some of Slapp Happy?s albums would include members of Faust, a famous Krautrock band. They also released an album with Henry Cow on which they are both credited (Slapp Happy/Henry Cow) named Desperate Straights. She also appeared on Henry Cow?s Concerts, in which she sang duos with Robert Wyatt.
After that couple of albums with Henry Cow, she left the band but agreed to participate in their next album. This album, who was supposed to be another Henry Cow one, but turned to be the first Art Bears album (due to disagreements in the band) named Hopes and Fears. They finally made two other albums under that name, both featuring Krause.
Dagmar Krause founded News from Babel with Chris Cutler, Lindsay Cooper and Zeena Parkins in 1983. This band released two albums: Work Resumed on the Tower in 1984 and Letters Home in 1986. In the same year, she worked with Lindsay Cooper again in her album (Cooper?s, not Krause?s) Music for Other Occasions. In the early nineties, she worked with Cutler and Lutz Glandien on the album Domestic Stories and with Hodgkinson on Each in Our Own Thoughts.

Dagmar Krause was totally fascinated by the works of Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler, and it is easy to understand her admiration for them in her solo albums. Her two solo albums were released both in English and in German.

Biography written by Gabriel Rivest (Tsevir Leirbag)