Date: 17/10/2025
Mood: focused
Listening to: Kill the Sexplayer - Girls Against Boys
How to Listen to Feeling B: A Beginner Guide
I keep seeing people who are curious about Feeling B into the same problem: they do not know where to start, what they are supposed to listen for to appreciate whatever punk is, or how to process the stranger parts of the music. Noise rock had already trained my ears for this particular mess as something I enjoy, so your resident bunny is stepping in. This guide offers a manageable starting point, explains why Feeling B was much more than simply "some 80s punk project before Rammstein", and points out the parts of Paul's playing worth hearing along the way.
What Feeling B sounds like
At first, Feeling B can sound exactly like what you imagine when someone says "1980s punk": wiry, scrappy, energetic, and perfectly comfortable beside bands such as Flipper or Swell Maps. They also have some of the bizarre, playful energy of Pylon and Kleenex. That familiar foundation matters to your impression, but only part of their discography stays inside this genre box. This is likely why they weren't so accepted by usual punk bands and constantly remained anomalous their entire careers.
The real appeal is how quickly Feeling B begins pulling that foundation apart and dismantling the stereotype you went in looking for. Traditional punk crosses into post punk, Neue Deutsche Welle, experimental rock, avant rock, and eventually noise rock. If you dare to even glance at the side projects or Magdalene Keibel Combo - you're greeted with experimental electronica and Feeling B demos in rough form. (Incredible to see Tschaka broken down into three layers of separate ideas.) By the band's later years, Paul's riffs were becoming heavier and more metallic while losing some of their earlier punk looseness. When you hear him evolve chronologically, his eventual transition into metal does not feel surprising at all. You can predict it in 1993 if you were there holding the new tape that week.
Flake is one of the main reasons the band sounds so distinctive. His Casio can resemble a child's toy, which some people in the DDR music establishment regarded as a flaw. I mean it lovingly: those cheap, peculiar sounds give the songs a texture that an ordinary punk lineup could never produce. Add brass, saxophone, clinking percussion, abrupt structural detours, and passages that border on Dadaism, and at that point "punk band" stops being a sufficient.
Du wirst den Gipfel nie erreichen wanders into a clattering experimental segment with clinking. Tschaka barely behaves like conventional punk at all with a vocal direction leaving you scratching your head but wanting to hit replay anyway. And the latter half of Ich weiß nicht, was soll es sometimes sounds like an early industrial beat of all things. I don't know how they managed it. Elsewhere the band borrows loose pieces of reggae, medieval and folk music, and Germany specific electronic influences resembling the at the time popularity Klaus Schulze. Which today, feels so removed and distant from the discussion despite being apparent. Their closest relatives are often not other straightforward punk bands, but groups that treated punk, post punk, and experimentation as ingredients. They are closer in concept to 80s experimental punk bands.
For the older recordings, I recommend trying speakers before earbuds/headphones. Several songs use very hard left and right panning placement rather than the smoother stereo panning expected today. Flake may sit heavily in one channel such as left, and Paul's guitar in the right, and even the vocals can move around. Frusti machs gut and Kim Wilde are easy examples. On headphones this can feel lop-sided or odd. But through speakers, the pieces are more ambient and take up the whole room. A CD, cassette, vinyl copy, or decent speaker setup preserves that quality and I would suggest this choice if you can do it.
There are a few other adjustments for a new listener. The songs are not always as short as the punk stereotype suggests, where a two minute track such as Artig could stretch much further to four or five minutes - somehow. Aljoscha's voice may take a few songs to get used to but you'll get over it quickly. Paul's occasional vocals are considerably deeper and easy to distinguish as definitely him. While Flake's are unmistakable because he sounds out of tune. (Lovingly stated.) Most of his vocal appearances can be found on Grün & Blau.
The band is often described as nonsense or "Dadaist punk" by random commentators, but that only accounts for the soundscape. I don't believe the lyrics really deserve that label. Many songs have perfectly understandable lyrical ideas so I'm unsure why its so exaggerated. Even Flake exaggerates about it. I feel like the claims of nonsense lyrics really are stemming from memorable "what the heck" moments from Tschaka or Izrael. (Thanks, Paul.) You do not need to solve every lyric before enjoying what the instruments are doing. So if you truly can't take the lyrics, the music is still perfectly suitable to get the vibes.
Most importantly, Feeling B is one of the best places to learn Paul's guitar sound. If you have trouble identifying his playing by ear in Rammstein, go backward and hear him. His attack and distorted textures become much easier to recognize. You have to spend some time inside the music, but eventually your ear reaches the point where it simply goes: yes, that is Paul for sure. He used a Marshall JCM-800 family amp for their recordings.
And this meme is exactly how I feel about it.
Albums to start
These are full album links sitting on YouTube by a guy who had the right idea instead of making a playlist.
best full album entry point
Hea Hoa Hoa Hea Hea Hoa
This is their strongest from start to finish. Perfectly good for some self-taught guys doing stuff. I highly suggest listening to this one through if you find yourself liking any of my selections below. If you let me, I will end up dumping this entire album into the selected songs list. You can tell the best of the best ideas and attempt was put here thinking it would be their 'one shot'. I can hear extreme effort. It shows.
Quick suggestions: Artig, Geh zurück in dein Buch, Alles ist so unununheimlich dufte
noise rock / punk hybrid leanings
Wir kriegen euch alle
This one shuffles between punk and elements of noise rock. This is my personal favorite because it shows genre growth and gets more experimental. This album is more driven by loudness, guitars, and taking the foundation of the first album other places.
Quick suggestions: Du findest keine Ruh, Unter dem Pflaster, Schlendrian
medieval punk with metal riffs
Die Maske des roten Todes
Aljoscha woke up one day and thought medieval needed to go with punk. This is what happened when he let Paul and Flake (and Schneider) buy into this idea. Paul also does the intro/outro phone bit, if you were curious. The album ends on a 30 minute Oxygène impression. I don't know what this album is either.
Quick suggestions: Hammersong, Veris Ducis
old tape compilation
Grün & Blau
A compilation of older tape material. Good for hearing the messier, rawer side of the band once the main albums have clicked or you are seeking alternative takes or feels to the songs. There are some hidden gems here.
Quick suggestions: Wieder keine Zeit, Häßlich
Selected Feeling B songs with commentary
Starter punk
Artig
If you want your most stereotypical genre song, we got that. That's why it's the first album's opener. Interestingly, the rest of their discography will not be this easy.
Unter dem Pflaster
Conceptually, this may be the strongest base example of them as a punk band. If I put this one before Artig, I'd probably get roasted though. So it's second.
Alles ist so unununheimlich dufte
I love how this sounds off this tape rip with this warm low feeling. But woah, the real version goes hard even if a little slower. This has no right being this good. I get this song stuck in my head. Worth checking out the Grün & Blau version too.
Am Horizont
The guitar sits in my brain regularly. That is all. Flake's parts are chaotic in a good way. This song is definitely... eclectic.
Herzschrittmacher
You have to cope through Flake's vocals, I'm sorry he's out of tune but I will give him B+ for effort. This guitar work??? Sometimes, it wants to go harder with some riffs (0:28) but then loosens back up off that and starts sounding too goofy (0:45) to be. 1:22-1:53 is where you gotta go. Go look at that. It feels like everything Paul is doing should be on a different song that goes so much harder than this does. This really should be a much harder track. And like my god, the demo version of this song is so much better. I guess the raw tape grain vibe appeals to my ears. He's so... mechanical and sharp sounding.
Frusti machs gut
I feel like this meme every time I hit play.
Experimental
Kim Wilde
This song is insane in how it starts on Paul doing whatever that is. Then Flake makes Casio toy noises and the vocal direction is everywhere. Then at the end, it turns into a totally different song...
Ich weiß nicht was soll es
This is what I mean by Flake being a toy sometimes and is this not actually amazing though? Where else could you get this? I quite like the strange turn the song takes halfway through at 1:52 and listen to the whole thing just for the ending half. I don't know, there's something about how it cuts out 2:23 and back in. This back half has loose elements of what would become industrial. It's crazy.
Tschaka
Excuse me, hold up on this one. I don't care what this is but I'm obsessed. It's experimental and has loose elements of early industrial on it. It really does feel influenced by something else and isn't anything like any Feeling B song ever. I wonder often what he was thinking of when working on it or what influenced this idea. Ambient and experimental stuff like that did have popularity back then with a much wider audience than now.
Space Race
This is the short different mixed version. - It's this bafflingly good instrumental track. I can't explain it. Listening to his work is pleasurable. It has a feel and I don't know what this song even is really. Yet I do like it and may be the best thing on this album conceptually. I use this song to time my showers + skincare routine as background noise sometimes. Is this even punk anymore? What are they even doing in the early 90s? They seem directionless and splintered between two ideas of what to be doing. Somehow Space Race is like "neither" and some other left field thing. It's really good though. It makes sense to me because Paul said he would have liked to do soundtracks and scoring if he were to do any 'solo' thing. This song sort of reflects this potential.
Wieder keine Zeit
I like this version way more than the 'original' basis used to form it. That version is good enough though too. Oh my god, yes a hundred times to this version. This is when they were incorporating pieces of noise punk sounds. Thank you Flake for this blessing by having this song on some obscure tapes. This is the direction they should have taken with the emerging harder scene since we're at the cusp of grunge, before derailed with medieval noise. Very very distorted, transistor electrical fork-in-the-socket guitar, trashed mix, totally noise and the most insane song they got sonically.
Paul guitar highlights
Dumdum Geschoß
Give me the instrumental to this so I can listen to Paul do all that for a while. Some harder elements in the guitar riff but otherwise the rest of the song is standard. This song is loud by the way. Like, my god I swear the music is louder than the vocal tracks. Is his guitar track at the top damn layer of the mix? This is up my alley. I want this. Whatever this chaos is.
Izrael
Oh my god? oh my god. This song has no right being this good and is starting to cross into noise punk again. I am howling at how underrated and good this one is. The first time I heard this one lives in my mind because of the impression. I was sitting mindlessly playing the albums in the background and then I got to this one. And the lead into that riff, then it hits, I was like; okay Paul, you got me immediately to drop everything, turn my head to the screen in surprise, and to pay attention closely. Why is this song everything all at once?? Lyrically, nobody knows what this is either. This is a loose cover of a Polish reggae song. Hence Paul can't pronounce anything or made parts up. The composition does indeed use the same riff but is executed so differently. It's incredible what a shift in the harmonics and pace can do to a simple sound. Man goes to Jarocin once and this is what happens to him.
Me, in my mental fanfics: I don't like him until he's at least 32 minimum. Too young. Nah.
Me also: Okay you know what I can go to the late 80s just for this song live. One time. No blond allowed.
Lied von der unruhevollen Jugend
Listen!! I need everyone to please stop listening to the 2001 cover version from Russia. That's not even a good version. The original > 2001. Half the guitar work and drum appeal is missing. Being someone who loves the original's guitar, 2001 is not cutting it. I don't think even having the raw recording not in a bootleg recorder would fix that for me either. The formal official version is superior in every way. The guitar on the original is 10/10 and you gotta do the real thing.
Die Pest
When you get past this intro that lulls you falsely, you will be greeted with more than enough guitar sounds from who you want. It's rather unique to even hear him in this composition style. I don't even know how this is punk anymore, either. It sounds more like somewhere lost in late 70s classic rock. (It's because of the fuzz distortion.) Go to 1:30 and 3:05. Believe in me. This is why I am telling you, to understand Paul's guitar sound you have to go back to Feeling B and just "get" it.
Veris Ducis
Ditto above. It's the most unique state of Paul's guitar you could ever hear. I like how 'grand' this song feels thematically, although it should probably be ~1.5 minutes shorter. This one and Die Pest feel like sister songs with a similar feeling. Go to 4:30. Trust me. If you think he can't play or compose a solo, oh please. Yes he can.
Aljoscha's Medieval detour
Hammersong
This is a stronger song on this album for many reasons pertaining melody and pacing. I would start here and if you can handle it, continue the album. So, the wall coming down resulted in Paul picking up many metal album CDs and going, "I'mma do that but my way" and somehow there's 10 layers of folk Medieval stapled on top of that. (That's my headcanon anyway. Because it sounds like this is what happened.) Welcome to this album carrying too many genres. It's metal riffs, kitsch folk, bagpipes, classic rock, experimental, and punk at once. Paul sounds like a metal guitarist who got lost somewhere in World Music at the CD store. I don't know what's going on anymore. This song is almost instrumental and few vocals. This may have something to do with Aljoscha being ill during the entire recording and unable to fully contribute.
Tod des Florio
Tod des Florio is being carried on a guitarist's back somehow. An issue faced by the Medieval concept is that it can cause songs to sound "the same" in a bad way. When go through the album in full, you begin to notice this flaw where you suddenly realize it's a new track yet doesn't feel so. You will realize your brain is like, 'put the guitar parts back on' whenever he stops. Paul's riff in this song is the "chorus" and that's why you want and demand him to go back so badly. Aljoscha wasn't able to do full vocals! It's like Tod des Florio is a song that's upside down or... hear me out: this is how metal songs work by prioritizing the riff 😉 That's a repeated problem. Many of the songs are composed to be instrumental first, riff first; vocals neglected or secondary or barely featured. Part of this is the Aljoscha participation issue, another part is obviously how Paul is changing his views on composition. (He has completely overhauled this amp character tone in this album. It's very very bass-y and layered in the mix.) And that is why I keep saying the third album is torn between two directions and cannot fulfill either.
Rumba Rai
Somewhere around this song, you will finally throw your hands up in the air and yell, "steal the masters to these songs. we need to turn the fiddles OFF right now." You have gone too far forcing this meme upon us. This song is a better version of Rumba Rumba. I have no idea why they allowed both tracks to be on the album. This is what producers are for lol.
Bonus: live recordings
Pike Club Berlin 9 November 1989
The live version of Izrael is at the end at 50:30. I am OBSESSED with it ever since this was put online last year. Happy one year anniversary to this tape. I didn't know this song could get better. The lyrics appear to be improvised and made over entirely. Since there's likely no chance they could properly memorize Polish lyrics. It sounds like some sick Scratch Acid / Jesus Lizard song when live like this. This is seriously breaching noise punk on so many levels.
Live full cassette rip
Here's more live cuts with timestamps in the description. Now this is how you're supposed to listen to punk live music. On crazy cassette rips with no coherent mixing and a hiss static sound like god intended.
