WUNDERBAR / HEALTH DUB

Label: Playhouse – Playhouse 71, Playhouse – Play 71
Format: 12", 45 RPM Vinyl
Country: Germany
Released: March 17, 2003
Genre: Electronic, Funk / Soul, Pop
Style: Electro, Synth-pop, Leftfield

A – Christiane F. – Wunderbar
B – Christiana – Health Dub

A strange and luminous artifact born from myth, trauma, and the dancefloor.

Originally recorded in 1982, Wunderbar emerged from Christiane Felscherinow’s brief, dislocated encounter with pop stardom a moment suspended between the neon lights of New York and the shadows of Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo. Though she lent her voice, she had no control over the result the American-produced Wunderbar was released without her blessing, its synthetic brightness masking something more fragile underneath.

In response, she reimagined it back home in Berlin’s underground, joined by Alexander Hacke of Einstürzende Neubauten and FM Einheit, creating Health Dub a raw, haunted inversion of the original. Where Wunderbar plays like glossy delirium, Health Dub descends into a dark pulse of mechanized breathing and post-industrial tension.

Rediscovered and reissued in 2003 by Playhouse, both versions are preserved here  two sides of the same wound, refracted through time. The contrast between the American pop sheen and the Berlin leftfield grit captures a fractured cultural moment: innocence, exploitation, resistance.

A rare document of survival and self-definition Christiane F. sings not as an icon, but as a witness.