Four decades after debut album A Secret Wish, original Propaganda vocalists Claudia Brücken and Susanne Freytag reconnected with producer Stephen Lipson to form xPropaganda. In 2022 the singers revisited the past and explained that year’s top-20 record The Heart Is Strange.
In March 2018, Claudia Brücken and Susanne Freytag reunited at The Garage in Islington, where they performed Propaganda’s 1985 classic, A Secret Wish, in its entirety. It was a move as welcome as it was unexpected; and the response across both sell-out nights was overwhelming. It was so inspiring that Brücken and Freytag decided to throw themselves into a new project.
Together with producer Stephen Lipson – who oversaw A Secret Wish back in the day, – they’ve reconvened as xPropaganda, a full 35 years since the band’s initial split. “When Susanne and I finally managed to pull off the gig in 2018, it was just so tremendously enjoyable,” explains Brücken. “We quickly realised we needed more music for our live shows. To begin with, we were thinking of doing only four songs or so; then while we were writing we just said, ‘Why don’t we do a full album?’”
The upshot is the exceptional The Heart Is Strange, a long-overdue companion to A Secret Wish (1990’s 1234 was a Propaganda album in name only). “It really grew out of the whole writing and studio time,” says Freytag. “We’d always tried to work on new music throughout the years, but somehow it just never happened.”
Brücken adds: “It always felt such a shame to leave A Secret Wish on its own. And the band still had such great potential. So Propaganda has felt like unfinished business to us.”
The Heart Is Strange stands up surprisingly well to its lauded predecessor. It’s a sleek 21st-century upgrade on the Propaganda sound of their ZTT years; a rhythmic triumph of fluid precision. Chasing Utopia could be a reconditioned, funktronic Cabaret Voltaire; Don’t (You Mess With Me) rushes out like a harder-edged Kraftwerk; The Wolves Are Returning is a techno-pop masterclass.
The album is bookended by two long-form treasures. The Night feels like a broody corollary to Dream Within A Dream, the Edgar Allan Poe-rooted opener to A Secret Wish. The closing Ribbons Of Steel, meanwhile, is an experimental piece that floods the senses for nearly 10 minutes, with a nod to Pink Floyd’s The Division Bell. It’s an intense and poignant affair.
“We’d been talking about the wall in Berlin,” says Freytag, “and this story about two friends, on either side, who couldn’t get to one another.”
Brücken: “For me, the ribbons of steel represent the barbed wire that was erected overnight. People suddenly had no choice – it was like this instant separation. We had all these associations with that; it’s really embedded in our history.”
The Germany of the singers’ youth was bitterly divided, the Berlin Wall a pitiless symbol of Cold War segregation Growing up further west, in Düsseldorf, unity of purpose seemed paramount. “Everybody wanted to be in a band when I was a teenager,” Brücken recalls. “It was about expressing yourself, going to rehearsal rooms at the weekends and escaping the grey boredom. It was a way of communication and togetherness.”
At Ratinger Straße, which backed on to the academy of arts, like-minded creatives from across the city gathered in numbers. “Later on, Kraftwerk came along and tried out their new mixes in discothèques in Cologne, nearby,” Freytag recalls.
Brücken also remembers performances by DAF: “We were dancing on the same dance floor and there were loads of bands there, hanging out and looking very cool. The whole thing had an amazing energy; it was so exciting.”
This sense of inclusivity extended to the way music was consumed. “In Germany you weren’t so limited to one genre,” says Freytag. “You could listen to Pink Floyd and also Patti Smith or Neu!. It was all seen as new music – whereas in England I think it was more categorised.”
Prog played a major role too. “My radar was picking up so much stuff,” Brücken says. “Tangerine Dream, King Crimson, Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd. And all that Krautrock was part of it, then Kraftwerk and electronic music. I also loved Supertramp. Crime Of The Century is one of my favourite records.”
Living in London was a culture shock – understanding everyday colloquial English was really difficult
Susanne Freytag
All that diversity found its way into Propaganda. Formed as a trio in 1982 – featuring singer Freytag, visual artist Andreas Thein and Ralf Dörper of industrial rockers Die Krupps – the band expanded to a five-piece with the addition of Brücken and the classically-trained Michael Mertens. Post-punk, prog, electronica, disco and avant-garde music all found room to co-exist.
Initially championed by John Peel, a copy of Propaganda’s unique reworking of Throbbing Gristle’s Discipline found its way to music journalist Paul Morley, who was then installed as ‘minister of information’ at Trevor Horn’s newly minted ZTT Records. Morley wanted the label to be more European than American, forging links with the city of Kraftwerk and the cradle of techno. Propaganda, he said, was the ideal expression of that.
“Arriving in England and living in London was extremely exciting,” Freytag remembers. “It was also a culture shock, because understanding everyday colloquial English was really difficult. And of course, being in the studio with Stephen and Trevor was fantastic.”
“It was quite mind-boggling, to be honest,” Brücken laughs. “being invited to these amazing studios and suddenly working with these incredible musicians. We just kind of stumbled into it, really.”
The desire from everyone to keep it going is there. It’s a very big thing
Claudia Brücken
A Secret Wish was trailed by two terrific hit singles: Dr Mabuse (produced by Horn) and Duel, which warranted an appearance on Top Of The Pops. Both served notice of an album that married filmic art-rock with icy motorik grooves, coated in Lipson’s hi-spec production.
For a heavy-duty Floyd fan like Lipson, prog was a key factor too. Better known for his work with Kevin Ayers, Mike Oldfield and Roy Harper, David Bedford provided Dr Mabuse’s extraordinary string arrangement. Yes guitarist Steve Howe played the solo on The Murder Of Love. Marillion’s Ian Mosley furnished Dream Within A Dream with a drum loop.
David Sylvian, meanwhile, featured on p:Machinery. In the planning stages, there was even talk of him producing the album. “It was an early idea,” Brücken says. “I think it was maybe a bit too much of a task for David. But his contribution to p:Machinery is so beautiful – you can really hear that it’s his language. That’s what I love about A Secret Wish : It embraces everything. You can’t pinpoint it.”
Propaganda ended unhappily, undone by a lengthy legal battle with ZTT over royalties and contracts. Cue fallouts, a handful of short-lived reunions featuring different line-ups, plus various solo projects. Most recently, in 2018, Brücken furthered her prog credentials by teaming up with Jerome Froese (son of Tangerine Dream skipper Edgar) for the very fine Beginn.
But The Heart Is Strange feels like the moment Brücken, Freytag and Lipson have been waiting for. “I have such fondness for A Secret Wish and that whole time,” Brücken reflects. “It was our youth; it was such an important period for us. And I think that’s what brought us together again now with Stephen. It was really weird in the studio – it was as if we’d just picked up from where we’d left it. It all felt so easy and natural.”
“I like to look at it as a continuation,” Freytag adds. “Claudia and I were always quite connected musically, so there was always a wish to do this again. And it was great to reconnect with Stephen too.”
It may still be early days, but all are in agreement that xPropaganda will last longer than The Heart Is Strange and the band’s upcoming tour dates. “I think the desire from everyone to keep it going is there,” says Brücken. “For us, it’s a very big thing.”
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