Dagmar Krause has the thin, consumptive look of a cabaret singer, as if she is about to expire at any moment from want of a man, money or the simple pleasures of a hot meal.
At first listen, her voice falls neatly into the same genre. It is plaintive and reedy, with a certain vulnerability that reminds one of Edith Piaf. Yet underneath there is a touch of steel, a glittery harshness that is tempting to call typically German.
As the singer for '70s prog-rock group Slapp Happy, the closest she has ever gotten to pop, Krause underpinned even the happiest, most playful moments with a touch of caution. Since the band's demise in the late '70s, she's become the darling of the avant-garde, recording with everyone from avant-pop guru Chris Cutler to Michael Nyman.
The Slapp Happy reunion tour last year saw her only slightly mellowed. Her voice is denser and more controlled, but she is still able to pack a thousand ambiguities into a single, simple lyric. The response to the tour -- five sold out dates in Tokyo -- is reason enough for her return trip.
More recently, she has been recording the songs of Friedrich Hollander, whose works were also performed by Marlene Dietrich. Krause's fatalistic delivery has also made her one of the foremost recent interpreters of 1920s and '30s art songs, particularly the works (some of them distinctly political) of Bertolt Brecht, Hans Eisler and Kurt Weill. She has been called "the voice of Armageddon." Her interpretations of Brecht's melancholic, wistful songs, equally sympathetic and pedantic, could be the soundtrack for the day of reckoning.
