Laokoongruppe – consisting of the one and only, Karl Schwamberger. The Vienna living upper Austrian, brought up surrounded by alpine lakes, Anton Bruckner symphonies, brass bands and country jazz. All of these awe-inspiring and gloriously dilapidated influences have remained close to his heart and resound clearly in the rasping poignancy of his catchy Lo-Fi-Pop debut album Walzerkönig. Walzerkönig – the foundation of the album lies in Karl Schwamberger’s thorough background knowledge of wildly different music traditions ranging from classical to alpine and American folk music, various jazz and pop, through to techno, experimental electronic and god knows what else. With all these influences many aging, dead and living friends appear in the grooves, between the notes and the lines: Mozart and Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Albert Ayler, Will Oldham, Karl Kraus, Thomas Bernhard ... all of them join together to form the applied art of Walzerkönig. Laokoongruppe sings passionately about his magnificent country and it’s wonderful people, good music, idyllic politics, national security, good deeds, buttered bread, mountains, lakes, cowboy hats and hiking boots. A heavy atmosphere of resigned contentedness and purposeful aimlessness winds its way throughout the album directing the listener into irresistible swaying of trancelike rapture. In order to avoid any misunderstandings, the irony is only found in its most useful form, romance, which slowly seeps into the dance floor leaving any elements of cabaret firmly outside in the cold. And what about the name? It is just a coincidence or if you like maybe it refers to the Austrian mental condition or rather the ever more desperate western world in general. Walzerkönig - that is a masterpiece of German-language pop music with clearly local colouring: is to be heard in Hamburg, Berlin and Zurich, but can come in this form however only from Austria. “The next big pop miracle from Austria.” (Der Standard)