The brothers Lippok (To Rococo Rot, Tarwater) present another performance of one of their earliest collaborative project, Ornament & Verbrechen, at Hamburger Bahnhof this February.
Founded by brothers Robert and Ronald Lippok in East Germany the 1980s, Ornament & Verbrechen never saw themselves as a conventional band that followed only one artistic concept. Instead, they opted for openness, for different styles – such as jazz, industrial or electronic – or even different, partly multimedia implementations of their projects, as is reflected in the band’s ever-changing line-up and its many different pseudonyms. Using basic equipment and partly self-built instruments, sounds were created – a conscious counter-concept to the contemporary mainstream.
In 1983, Robert and Ronald Lippok founded the music group “Ornament & Verbrechen” in East Berlin. With their raw sound aesthetics between jazz and punk, industrial and electronic, “Ornament & Verbrechen” shaped the underground scenes of the GDR before the fall of the Wall. The brothers saw the band as an open platform. Since they were forbidden from performing in public, their concerts took place in the studios of artist friends, apartments or even churches.
Even though Robert and Ronald Lippok subsequently gained international fame in other formations such as “Tarwater” and “To Rococo Rot”, “Ornament & Verbrechen” continues to exist to this day. The appearances of “Ornament & Verbrechen” are like performances for which Robert and Ronald Lippok develop spatial concepts or integrate the sound properties of objects into their improvisations.
