Popular Culture Review Vol. 16, No. 1, Spring 2005 | Page 102

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Popular Culture Review
Gothic twist. This study will explore L’ame Immortelle’s adaptation of three of
Trakl’s poems and show how the band sharpens the poet’s critical message and
cultural pessimism.
The band is a trio consisting of Thomas Rainer (vocals, lyrics, and
music), Sonja Kraushofer (vocals), and Hannes Medwenitsch (music). They
have become renowned for a special mixture of light and dark classical ballads
about love and loss that are followed by dark electronic tracks; many songs are
danceable. The band was founded in 1996 in Vienna after Thomas Rainer (bom
in 1979) had become dissatisfied with his old group of friends. He describes his
dissatisfaction as follows:
Meine damaligen Freunde dachten anders, fuhlten anders, oder
konnten einfach nicht zu ihren Gefiihlen stehen. Es war
angesagt, den harten Mann zu markieren. Romantik und Liebe
wurden als nicht vorhanden abgetan. Ich sah auch niemals
einen meiner Freunde weinen. Niemals ein Ausbruch von
Emotionen, niemals ein Funke dessen, was unser Leben
eigentlich lebenswert macht. [My friends in those days,
thought, felt differently, or, just couldn’t admit to their
feelings. You had to play the strong man. Romanticism and
love were dismissed as non-existing. I also never saw one of
my friends cry. Never an outbreak of emotions, never a spark
of what actually makes our life worth living.] (73)
Looking for new perspectives, Rainer dressed in black and went to a
Gothic party. There, he was surprised to find: “Es wurde nicht uber Alkohol,
FuBball oder andere belanglose Sachen gesprochen, man diskutierte,
philosophierte und aus dem Hintergrund schallten mir unbekannte Klange
entgegen.” [One didn’t talk about alcohol, soccer or other trivial things, one
discussed, philosophized, and from the background I heard sounds that were
unknown to me]. (73) At a similar party, Rainer, who for many years had taken
lessons in piano, bass guitar and vocals, met Hannes Medwenitsch and they
decided to make Gothic music. For their band they chose the French name:
L’ame Immortelle (The immortal soul), choice that Rainer explains: “Sie wohnt
nicht in jedem von uns. Die Seele muss sich ihre Unsterblichkeit im Laufe des
Lebens verdienen” (It doesn’t live in every one of us. The soul has to deserve its
immortality during life) (Petrunova). In 1997, soon after Rainer’s former
classmate Sonja Kraushofer had joined the band as a singer, they issued their
first demo tape, Lieder, die wie Wunden bluten (Songs that bleed like Wounds,
title is a quotation from Trakl). Almost overnight, the work of the band became
renowned in the Goth scene.
Around 1909, when he was about 22 years old, Trakl wrote “Nachtlied”
(Night song), a poem about feelings of loneliness and alienation: