It says a lot about post-punk Germany that often the supposed ‘second-tier’ artists made albums that were just as richly compelling as bigger names like Einstürzende Neubauten, Malaria! or Palais Schaumburg. The first Siluetes 61 album is a case in point. The solo project of musician and visual artist Tom Dokoupil of The Wirtschaftswunder, who was born in former Czechoslovakia but relocated to Limburg, Germany, Siluetes 61 involves a soupçon of many of the tropes that made German post-punk so compelling: juddering, skidding electronics; warbling, whistly acoustic improvisations; simple-chord non-songs that shake with ‘idiot energy’. The combination of childlike curiosity and hardnosed experimentation here means that nothing gets too serious, but also, nothing goes off to toytown – the chipmunk voice in “Film” is ridiculous, but that’s kept in check by wobbly wah bass, and clattery drums. It’s maybe a bit like The Raincoats circa Odyshape trying the kinds of performance art / avant-brut experimentations of Die Tödliche Doris, with synths manned by an attention-deficit Cabaret Voltaire. Suddenly, a group like nineties Krautrock kids Workshop don’t seem quite so sui generis.