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4 - FROM ANALOGY TO EARTHBOUND
JUTTA & MARTIN

London 1975
EARTHBOUND:

Martin Thurn
Scott Hunter
Jutta Nienhaus

EARTHBOUND:

Jutta Nienhaus
Martin Thurn
Julia Cameron
Scott Hunter

Franco Battiato, a very famous Italian musician who had become a friend of the band very early on, put them into contact with Bla Bla Records, where he was under contract. In December 1973, Jutta, Martin and Mops signed a contract with the above label, but the agreement was that a certain William should become part of the band as vocalist next to Jutta. Rehearsals started, but they turned out to be a minor catastrophe, which is why nothing came out of that. Franco Battiato, who was in the studios to prepare his next LP “Sulle corde di Aries” (Bla Bla BBXL 10003), asked Jutta and Martin to help him. Jutta appears on the LP as vocalist and in a couple of recitatives, Martin contributed ideas such as lyrics by Wolf Biermann. Although this was supposed to be the beginning of a longer co-operation, Franco was so much into synthesised music that the two were unable to see their musical interest in the project, which meant that, after about three months, it was dead.


In the meantime, Jutta and Martin had a couple of gigs as an acoustic duo until they got into contact with the Collettivo Teatrale La Comune, conceived and run by Dario Fo, later to become a Nobel Prize winner for literature. One section of this “Collettivo” was dealing with music, run by folk singer Paolo Ciarchi. The two joined this venture, touring Italy for about three months. The idea was to present improvised music to a slide show featuring socio-political topics. One of the live gigs in Genoa was published under the title of “Cammina, cammina..” as an MC. The politically explosive statements of the show even led to an arrest on drug charges during a gig in the centre of Milan. The entire Colletivo had the honour of spending two days in the State Penitentiary of San Vittore, Milan, before being released as there were no grounds at all. The whole thing was so topical that the two were, albeit in separate cells, able to watch their own arrest on RAI 1 TV the same evening. In spite of all that publicity, the project had died.


In the summer of 1974, Jutta, Martin, Mops and Mauro (the original Joice) joined Sergio Conte, keyboarder of Jumbo, in a project concerning a sort of socio-critical musical under the title of “Arianna e Teseo” (two tracks of which are to be found on the CD “25 Years Later”). They spent about four weeks among cobwebs and cockroaches in a derelict castle in Soriasco near Pavia, recording about an hour of pure music. When the sponsors of this project decided to call it off for lack of money, Jutta and Martin decided to leave Italy for England.


On arrival in London, they were fortunate enough to meet important people such as Kevin Ayers, Paul Buckmaster, Kevin Coyle, Lol Coxhill, Nico, David Vorhaus and Lady June, a poet whose flat used to be the meeting point of the London underground scene. As a result, Jutta and Martin formed their own band, Earthbound, who, after various changes in the line-up, formed their own label, Archway Records, with the help of distributors Charmdale Records and the well-known publisher Campbell-Connelly. In January 1979, they recorded three tracks, produced by David Vorhaus (“White Noise”), which were released as single and maxi-single. After many gigs in England and two Italian tours, the band dissolved in early 1980, when also Jutta and Martin’s relationship had found an amicable end.


In order to save The Suite, of which there had been no acceptable recording, from oblivion, Martin gathered most of the former Earthbound members, including, of course, Jutta, in the Goggle Studio, London, in the early summer of 1980, to record this opus, with John Oram as producer. Intercord, the German record company, was about to sign the band for a deal but withdrew at the last moment.


In late 1981, Martin Thurn left England for Hamburg, where he met guitarist, singer, songwriter Alan Dunn from Middlesbrough. In early 1983, the two started gigging successfully as a duo and published, in early 1985, their MC “Yours faithfully”, which, after all, sold around 1,000 copies. Incidentally, they also pressed ten (10!!!) LPs on vinyl with a white label, designed to be a present for close friends and relatives. After Alan had decided to move to northern Italy, they had their last gig in September 1990.


Both Martin, in Hamburg, and Jutta, near Saarbrücken, stayed in Germany, working as translators and lecturers.
Mops caught Aids during a long stay in Nigeria and committed suicide during the final stages of his suffering in 1990. The CD “
25 Years Later” is dedicated to his memory. Wolfgang Schoene worked as a translator in Italy until he moved to southern France, and Mauro Rattaggi has never left his home country. Rocco Abate is a professor at the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan and a well-known composer of contemporary classical music, whereas Nikola Pankoff has pursued a successful career as a painter and musician.


For the presentation of their three-CD boxset “Analogy/Earthbound - The Complete Works” the band reunited for a short gig at the Bloom in Mezzago (near Milan) in February 2010. The line-up was: Jutta, Martin, Mauro, Scott Hunter, Dick Brett, Nikolai Mithoff and Rocco Abate.

In September 2011, the band, with new keyboard player Roberto Carlotto (Hunka Munka), took part in a celebration concert of the Zerbo Festival near Pavia.

This short appearance and a very successful week of rehearsals in Milan with new keyboarder Roberto Carlotto (ex-Dik Dik) led to the decision to venture a return on stage as the sheer joy of playing together again was overwhelming. In April 2012 Jutta, Martin and Mauro Rattaggi met with ex-Earthbound members Scott Hunter (drums) and Richard “Dick” Brett (bass) in Roberto Carlotto’s house in Lamezia Terme (Calabria) to prepare for a series of concerts, which started with a show at the Teatro della Fondazione Terina in Lamezia on 14 April, recorded live by Viva Voce TV-station.


In time for the concerts in northern Italy, again in Zerbo (near Pavia) on 20 May and at the Bloom di Mezzago (near Milan) on 25 April, a DVD entitled “ANALOGY/EARTHBOUND – The Video Collection” (AMS/Vololibero) appeared on the market, produced by Claudio Fucci.


The final highlight of this short series of gigs was the band’s participation in the RADICI DEL ROCK festival in Viterbo (near Rome) on 21 July, where all the great acts of Italian progrock had come together (PFM, Banco, Osanna, UT (New Trolls), NRRR).
In May 2013, the band returned to Italy to appear in a breakfast show on first Italian Television (RAI) and to present their new live album “KONZERT” on the AMS label (CD & vinyl). This latest publication was recorded during the band’s concert in Lamezia Terme on 14 April 2012.


Sadly, the long history of Analogy suddenly came to an end in 2018 with the untimely death of Martin (in April) and Jutta (in December).


ALAN & MARTIN:

Hamburg 1985
ANALOGY:

Viterbo 2012