The De Stijl label seems to be having a spat of bad luck. A few years back, they released a disc by then unknown folk crooner Wooden Wand. A few years on, WAND or James Jackson Toth, or whatever he’s settled on today has a deal with Thurston Moore’s Ecstatic Peace and seems to be doing rather well apart from his last tour falling apart after his band left him on the road. But De Stijl was also set to release a Wavves disc earlier this year before Fat Possum apparently swooped in a took that glory away as well.

The impending release of an album by German band 39 Clocks, probably won’t remedy all of this, but perhaps due to the spate of German obsessed collectors trolling record bins today, this’ll be a hit thirty years after being put to tape.

39 Clocks have repeatedly been described only by referencing other musics. Some have referred to them as the German Velvet Underground. Not only is that pretty vapid sonically, the enormous influence the Velvets had on German music could be better represented by a number of other acts. In other places, 39 Clocks get tagged as a Nuggets style group. And while the band certainly listened to at least a few of those bands, the comparison doesn’t really stick. We’ll just ignore the blatant Question Mark and the Mysterians check on “78 Soldier Dead.”

The fact is that 39 Clocks took in aspects of all of those groups in addition to a healthful dose of early Kraftwerk, managed to coax it outta some cheap instruments and a silly sounding drum machine to arrive at what could be considered ‘their sound.’ To be fair though, “Rainy Night Insanity” with it’s komische beat, horn squalls and vacant vocal delivery comes closest to the Velvets. But not too close. The track could, in fact, just be some earlier kraut rock group as easily as these folks.

As a positive side effect of 39 Clocks not being able to have their sound nailed to one spot, this re-release should appeal to a pretty wide array of the music obsessed. Of course, that’s only really applicable to those who are into a noisy racket – but those folks come from all walks.

There’s not a great deal of information about the band via the lacking press release or even the internets. One site – HERE – has a first hand account of attending a few shows in addition to an in-depth discography. The site reveals that the band, before taking on the moniker of 39 Clocks, went by the name of the Killing Rats. Additionally, the two principal members of the band – Christian Henjes and Juergen Gleue – formed a DIY label called Psychotic Promotion.

But forget all the historical significance and relations to other bands, the fact that 39 Clocks always dressed in black and wore sunglasses. This is just stripped down music played by a few dudes that needed to get some aggression out. And it’s for that, that they should be remembered. So go cop this as soon as your pockets aren’t empty.