Foto: Autorenarchiv Susanne Schleier „For us, Kiev Stingl was God!“ — Flake (Rammstein) in Rolling Stone Magazine 2017 Enfant terrible Kiev Stingl’s major label discography totals three records, on Philips, Metronome, and Teldec. More than any other German pop artist, Kiev Stingl embodies massive deviance. In 1982, he was arrested by the secret police of Madagascar; accused of assisting the CIA in a coup attempt, he was imprisoned in Antananarivo (Ambohibao) and narrowly escaped a death sentence. Upon release, he entered Teldec Studios in Hamburg to record new songs, accompanied only by Götz Humpf (City Preachers). Due to increasingly eccentric behaviour and a lack of commercial viability, producer Achim Reichel (The Rattles, A.R. & Machines) decided against releasing the recordings. The termination of the sessions marked the end of one of underground music’s most promising careers. Seven years later came Stingl‘s last album Grausam das Gold und jubelnd die Pest, which saw the participation of Alexander Hacke and FM Einheit (both of Einstürzende Neubauten) and was produced by Dieter Meier (Yello). Then Stingl disappeared from the scene.