Avant-pop cult favorites
Slapp Happy formed in Hamburg, Germany in 1972; there vocalist
Dagmar Krause, a veteran of the folk group
the City Preachers, first met British experimental composer
Anthony Moore, who had previously issued a pair of solo LPs, Pieces from the Cloudland Ballroom and Secrets of the Blue Bag, on Polydor. When the label rejected a third
Moore record, he instead proposed a pop project, recruiting
Krause and New York-born guitarist
Peter Blegvad to form
Slapp Happy; recorded with input from members of the famed Krautrock band
Faust, the trio issued their debut album Sort of... in 1972, its commercial prospects severely limited as a result of the band's refusal to perform live. Still, Polydor assented to a follow-up, with
Slapp Happy soon convening to record Casablanca Moon; the label rejected the album, however, and upon landing at Virgin, the trio re-recorded the disc in its entirety, releasing it as a self-titled effort in 1974.
Slapp Happy next banded together with the like-minded art-rock outfit
Henry Cow to record a pair of collaborative LPs, Desperate Straights and In Praise of Learning; creative tensions then forced
Moore and
Blegvad to exit the project, although
Krause continued singing with
Henry Cow though their 1980 dissolution. In the meantime, both
Moore and
Blegvad pursued solo careers, although in 1982 they reunited with
Krause to record a new
Slapp Happy single, "Everybody's Slimmin'," followed by their first-ever live appearance at London's ICA. All three again collaborated in 1991 on Camera, a television opera commissioned by the BBC and broadcast two years later; a new
Slapp Happy studio album,
Ça Va, followed in 1998. Camera was issued two years later. ~ Jason Ankeny