The Janitors Of Lunacy - 1984-'87 (GER)

This is the third part of my series called "A VISIT TO THE DARK SIDE".

The band THE JANITORS OF LUNACY was founded in 1983 in Worms, Germany, as a dark experimental industrial band and soon moved to Berlin. Most of their songs have a real sinister atmosphere full of angst and depression and despair.

In the beginning the JANITORS were heavily influenced by THROBBING GRISTLE, but soon moved on to a greater variety of sounds. Of course there is a strong NICO and VELVET UNDERGROUND influence (the band is named after a NICO song), but one can also hear traces of SUICIDE or BAUHAUS. "We All Want To Be Loved" could easily be an early EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN track, and "L'etranger" sounds like a JOY DIVISION instrumental outtake. 
The singer sometimes resembles a sedated late JIM MORRISON (e.g. on "Back to the 50ies"), while the girl singer most of the time sounds EXACTLY like NICO. Really amazing!

 
My personal favourite tracks are "Stanley Kubrick's Diaries" and "The Sweat of Fear in Lying Beds".

 
In late '87 the band simply vanished from the German Underground scene, and guitarist Maxim Engl later went on to ORANGE and EPHEMEROL in the Frankfurt/Rhein-Main area.

The Janitors of Lunacy - 1984-'87

(mp3 zip, 14 songs,100,4 MB, 73 min)

01. L'etranger - 4.01

02. Twenty Three - 2.39

03. Today (version 1) - 3.04

04. We All Want to be Loved - 6.30

05. The Long Tomorrow - 8.34

06. Back To The 50ies - 4.37

07. Stanley Kubrick's Diaries - 7.11

08. Catholic Girl - 3.10

09. Today (version 2) - 2.26

10. The Sweat Of Fear in Lying Beds - 11.16

11. Stormy Weather - 7.50

12. Won't You Try - 3.23

13. When A White Swan Meets A Black - 4.42

14. Alia - 3.20

Get it here!