Ah-ha! The first D.A.F. record! And boy, was it quite a surprise to hear this one. D.A.F. began in 1978 as a post-krautrock outfit from Dusseldorf, with Robert Gorl, Kurt "Pyrolator" Dahlke, Wolfgang Spelmans, Michael Kemner, and Gabi Delgado originally calling themselves You; but with another German band snatching up the name and releasing the mighty fine album Electric Day in the same year, they decided upon Deutsch-Amerikanischen Freundschaft as the new name. A couple of band members were not all too pleased with Gabi Delgado's vocals and lyrics, and he was promptly sacked after their first attempt in the studio. Delgado returned to the band a year later when a few of his detractors left, and he became the iconic frontman for the stripped down D.A.F. with Robert Gorl. That incarnation of D.A.F. spawned an aggressive synth-punk sound that dominated the more abrasive side of new wave throughout the '80s; but this instrumental, motorik album is an entirely different beast. While electronics do make some interesting punctuations to the D.A.F. sound, they were fundamentally a damaged art-rock band with a rhythm section well versed in the classic Can, Neu!, and early Kraftwerk records from earlier in the decade, but they also exploded with slashing guitars, pummelling basslines, and an aggressive angularity that responded to the American contemporaries like DNA and Pere Ubu. Could this influence from American degenerate art-rock be an explanation for the name of the band? In any case, threads of this first D.A.F. record certainly look forward to the likes of Sonic Youth and Circle. The album is a collection of 22 untitled extracts from what seemed to be an exhausting recording session of constantly accelerating rhythmic marches with jagged-toothed guitar riffs that get pretty heavy and churning at times (even reminding us of instru-metallers Gore!), with plenty of interludes of amplifier feedback and spark-plug noise bursts. Part krautrock, part no-wave and new-wave, all rad. Not what we would have expected from their first album, but this is totally an excellent record!
Recorded live in Seattle, WA, last October near the end of an all too brief west coast tour, this is an artfully packaged double cd of improv conjured by former Can vocalist Damo Suzuki, his former Can-mate Michael Karoli, Mandjau Fati, Thomas Hopf, and Alex Schonert. Additional sounds and textures created by Mark Spybey (Zoviet France, Dead Voices on Air, Download) and Dustin Donaldson (I Am Spoonbender). Nine lengthy tracks including a version of CAN's "Mother Sky".
We've heard tell of record for a long time, but this is the first occasion that a cd reissue has wound up in our bins. It's about time 'cause it is indeed a pretty cool little album! Multi-instrumentalist Wolfgang Dauner was an innovative German jazz musician who in the late '60s started to move into more experimental and "krautrock" territory. The Oimels, originally released in 1969, was supposedly his attempt at a "pop" album...
It starts off with the funky, quirky instrumental "Oh, Baby, I Don't Love You Anymore", wherein ivories are tickled, flutes are flaunted, and there's some silly serious stabs of fuzz guitar from Siggi Schwab (an MPS label vet that you've heard before if you're familiar with the Vampyros Lesbos soundtrack!). Reminds us a bit of that bizarre exploito-kraut "party album" by Staff Carpenborg & The Electric Corona we reviewed a couple years ago. Neat enough, should appeal to the same folks digging those "In-Kraut" and "Instro-Hipsters" compilations... but with an extra dose of something. Uh, LSD?
Sitar twang is added to the next track, the faux-Eastern hippy jam "Take Off Your Clothes To Feel The Setting Sun", the vocals blissfully, mantrically suggesting that one disrobe as per the song title. That's followed by another bright n' slinky lounge instrumental, "My Man's Gone Now", that would have Austin Powers sayin' "Groovy, baby" and whooping it up. So far, so good... a groovy jazzy album yeah, with some freaky pop leanings, but a psychedelic krautrock classic? Well then you hit the positively CRAZED track four, "Come On In On In" and you realize that The Oimels are seriously trippin'. It's a hard one to describe, totally unhinged, almost hyperactively punked-up like The Monks, with chaotic chanting vocals and infectious rhythmic glee. Wow, wild! Ok, now we're convinced. And as the album continues, the freakiness does too. It's such a weird blend of smooth jazz grooves and psychedelic spasms. Dauner and his Quintet were definitely on to something (or on something) with their sound. Some of the other surprises in store for listeners include a swingin' version of "Greensleeves", and, to end the record, a pretty amazing cover of "A Day In The Life" by the Beatles. The elegiac mood of the original is maintained, enhanced even, yet also subverted with insane atonal fuzz-jazz soloing.
We're now definitely interested in hearing Dauner's other progressive jazz and fusion albums of the era, if we can find 'em...
Search back into the Aquarius archives, and you'll come across reviews of records that we loved with just a phrase or a sentence, giving a few choice references and adjectives. Oh, how the times have changed. Way back when, we summed up Der Plan's classic weirdo kraut new wave record with the following pithy statement: "A head on collision between the Residents and Conny Plank." Still very true to this day, although an expansion of that description is most definitely in order. Der Plan hailed from Dusseldorf, and Geri Reig was their first record, emerging in 1980 as a particularly bizarre version of the Neue Deutsche Welle (New German Wave) sound. It seemed that every single German punk and NDW band would twist and mutate some sickly sweet ballad into something monstrous and perverse. Even Neubauten did a cover of Serge Gainsbourg's "Je T'Aime" on their first record; but polkas, waltzes, and cabaret numbers seemed to the prime target for the venom, bile, and ill-thoughts of the youth from back in the day, and Der Plan had authored a good number of these cheeky tunes, with atonal blooping electronics, plinkety-plonk melodies, and disjointed scratchy vocalizations. As a result, the Residents are still an apt reference for most of Geri Reig, although perhaps the equally bizarre, although less known Die Todliche Doris should also be referenced as well. For all of Der Plan's weird disposition, they would also craft a percolatingly brilliant minimal wave track here and there, as heard in the man-machine sequencing on "Commerce Exterieur Mondial Sentimentale" and the future-shock arpeggiations of "Adrenalin Lasst Das Blut Kochen." A classic record from the NDW period, now available once again thanks to the fine folks at Medical Records!
Album number two by Der Plan came out originally in 1981, and it follows the art-pop quirkiness of the band's Geri Reig album with a slightly more conventional approach to their Neue Deutsche Welle songs. Just slightly, though. For the most part, the overt references to the vernacular of Germanic pop music (waltzes, polka, cabaret, etc.) are dropped for more of a primitive electro sound, with plenty of clipped rhythms, flanging electronic sequences, mutant funk anti-grooviness, and occasional vocoder-treated vocals. Der Plan takes delight in rendering each and every sound in a deliberate staccato choppiness, with electronic and vocal melodies often in naked opposition to each other, while the rhythms are loose skeletons that hardly anybody could dance to. The album features 17 tracks, and many more ideas running through all of those cuts, mucking up the streamlined new wave surfaces within disjointed, Residents inspired asynchronicity, and there's even a couple of early plunderphonic experiments popping up, such as "Kleine Schlager Revue" which mashes up saccharine German pop ditties with a smutty sex-recording lifted from some porno flexi-disc, and the grimmer "Wat's Dat?" snipping bits of commercials and breathy exhortations and melding them onto teletype synth modulations. Like Geri Reig, Normalette Surprise is back in print on vinyl... but probably not for long, as Medical Records only released 550 of these!
Out of all the classic New Age artists, the one that gets a definite pass around here is Deuter. Though many of his later records (Nada Himalaya excluded) venture into the cheesier areas of the new age genre, his early records are great examples of German kosmiche music and are just as good as Popol Vuh, Cluster and Agitation Free. For instance, Aum, which we just got in to list for the first time (though it's not a new reissue). Aum was recorded in 1972 and released a year after his debut record, D. While D was more about tape effects and studio experiments, Aum is his first obvious venture into a more spiritually based musical practice. Sounds of storms and birds, guitars and flutes open up the disc in what could be a track by South American psych-folk groups Satwa or Congregacion (or even Citay or The Alps!). But the following tracks venture into a quiet but pensive meditation of tablas, and warbling bass, simmering sitar drones and subtle chanting. The track "Sattwa" is a sitar and piano interaction while "Surat Shabda" is a trance-y exploration using ethnic percussion instruments. But the longest and prettiest track is "Susani", an eight minute delayed electric guitar excursion around a few rhythmically repeating chords over low minor key vocal drones and far off ocean swells that burn off into a fading hum. It's definitely one of those limbo records, mining a deeper territory of minimalist composition with psychedelic effects that would eventually be marketed as New Age. But this is long before that genre got ruined, and any fan of the bands mentioned above should check this out for sure!
Years ago when we listed the compact disc reissue of this Krautrock classic, the home-recorded 1971 debut from eccentric electronics specialist (and soon to be New Age pioneer) Georg Deuter, we called it quite brilliant, a hallucinatory affair of studio experiments, tape effects, and guitar explorations, that we recommended for fans of both early Kraftwerk, and most of the Kranky contingent. Still do, now that it's back on (unfortunately expensive) vinyl. Certainly, it's THEE Deuter album to get (though we also like some others he has done). If you dig the back cover photo of a barefoot, mustachioed Deuter (wearing those round John Lennon style shades), crouched in front of some reel-to-reel tape gear, playing the bongos, you'll probably also dig the sounds on this album, from the Eastern drone of "Krishna Eating Fish And Chips" to the underwater ambience of "Atlantis"! This record is not not nearly as blissed-out as Deuter's later output, with many sequences that attack with jarring yet hypnotic intensity, reminding us a lot of another kraut fave, A.R. & Machines.
This was given to me as a gift, from a friend who shares the same love of the deep dark ominous drone as we do, and before he let me unwrap it, he had all of these provisos: ignore the horrible cover, promise to listen to it before you pass judgment, ignore the fact that it's on New Earth records and that it says "Music For Meditation" on the cover, ignore the rainbow logo and the cheesy landscape, ignore the blurbs on the back cover, basically, try to ignore everything BUT the music. I did, and I'm so glad I did. So now we must do the same for you, faithful AQ customer. Listen to the sound samples, close your eyes and let these gorgeous mystical drones carry you off.
Some of you may know of Deuter before he went all 'new age' -- he was responsible for D, an awesome early '70s Krautrock document of studio experimentation, tape effects, and guitar explorations. While this is a completely different beast, and may have been intended for a whole different audience, it's actually quite stunning. This definitely holds up to any of our favorite dronelords, Chalk, Coleclough, Mirror, in fact this is another one of those releases that if it were some super limited homemade cd-r imported from Finland packaged with twigs and some wire, people would be freaking out BIG TIME! So let's just pretend that this IS some weird obscure drone cd-r, that way we can skip all the bullshit and totally dig in to this divine droney drift.
Made completely from the sounds of Tibetan bells, bowls and chimes, these two tracks (skip the third track, a two minute recording of a burbling stream) are lengthy gorgeous meditational drifts, a deep sea of overlapping tones, shimmering resonance, slowly drifting ovetones, beating gently against each other, creating a dense swirl of microscopic colors and warm subtle shadings. Nearly fifty minutes of divine drone, simultaneously dark and ominous, bright and dreamy, close listening reveals layer after layer of hidden almost-melodies, super subtle mysterious sonic events, a divine dreamworld of deep drifting ambience. So totally and utterly amazing. Pretty awesome that one of our favorite new drone records is not a cd-r from Finland, but a cd from a German ex-hippie new age guru living in New Mexico. Fuck yeah!
We can probably count the major female figures of Krautrock on one hand. Most of them like Rosi Mueller of Ash Ra Tempel, Renate Knaup from Amon Duul II, Djong Yun from Popol Vuh, or Sabine Merbach from Gila were either singers or muses for their male-led bands. And don't even mention Clara Mondshine, which was a pseudonym for Walter Bachauer, a very real actual man. But even among those women, you don't find too many female krautrock composers. Actually, we really couldn't think of any, offhand. Can you? If so, please enlighten!
Thankfully, the brand new reissue label, Medical Records, who has bolted out the gate running with not only one but two amazing (and amazingly limited!) vinyl-only reissues, sets the record straight! The other reissue, Alexander Robotnick, reviewed elsewhere on this list, is a weirdo Italo-disco / French electro classic we've known about for awhile and we're super psyched to see finally reissued. But this one, Deutsche Wertarbeit , the solo project of Dorothea Raukes, is altogether completely new to us and what a fantastic discovery it is!
Released on Sky Records in 1981, Deutsche Wertarbeit was Raukes' first solo effort after years of being the singer for a German Progressive band we're not familiar with called Streetmark, who started in 1968, and released 4 lps between 1976 and 1981. Two of those were also released on Sky Records and one of them was even recorded in collaboration with Wolfgang Riechmann, the same year he was murdered. What? Really? Why didn't we know of this already? Just goes to show, there are still many treasures to be unearthed.
And if you dug Wolfgang Riechmann's Wunderbar reissue, that we raved about awhile back, or Klaus Schultze, Tangerine Dream, Cluster, Peter Baumann, or even some of the later Manuel Gottsching recordings such as New Age of Earth, then add Deutsche Wertarbeit to the essential kosmiche synthscape canon. But while she definitely fits in with those artists, she carves out her own defining sound of warm minimal hypnotic rhythms and vocoder voicings that display a joyous exhuberance you don't see as much in artists like Schultze or Baumann. In fact this would fit in well with the stuff on that Dirty Space Disco comp, as it sounds like a mystical combination of Vangelis and Popol Vuh, expansive and cosmic, upliftingly propulsive while keeping it all beautifully reigned in.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES, each 180 gram colored vinyl and hand-numbered. We're not sure how long we'll have these, so don't wait too long. Highest Recommendation!!!!!!
From the same studio that produced the amazing prog rock blowout that was the Cannabis India record from last list, comes this amazing flute led free jazz freakout from the Dieter Bihlmaier Selection, and as you probably know full well by now, we're suckers for the flute, especially when it's in the context of some fierce prog or far out jazz, as is the case here, a stripped down trio of just flute, bass and drums, recorded in 1973, this finds the band lean and mean, and so fierce, yet melodic and moody, groovy and jazzy and dreamy, slipping from fluttery drift to full on frenzy, Bihlmaier is an incredible player, expressive and all over the place, pure tones give way to stuttery breathy bursts, wild melodic runs, all tangled up with the bad ass rhythm section who lay down some seriously krautrocky jazz rhythms, locked in tight, mesmerizing and hypnotic, letting the flute do its thing over the top, but occasionally rising up and meeting the flute head on, the instruments doing a dense and dangerous dance, swirling, whirling and wild. The drums and bass get their time in the spotlight, but it's definitely all about the flute, and how the three mesh, even when they're all going full bore, which is much of the time. Hard to get your head around how three guys can be playing so wildly and so free, and yet the sounds can all fit together so perfectly. Heavy and heady and definitely far out, one of our new favorite jazz discoveries. Dying to find out what other amazing stuff SWR has tucked away in their vaults...
For those who've only just surfaced from the daze imposed upon them by the sonics of Doktor Kettu's previous three cd-rs, well the Doktor is back and your therapy can continue! For those new to Doktor Kettu, be aware that the Doktor's drug of choice involves hazy electric guitars and stumbling drums improvising organically, like some Fushit-Thuja hybrid, to make a punny and obscure reference. From Finland, the mysterious Doktor is a group that may or may not include members of AQ-faves Circle. What we do know is that so far DK discs have been the sole output of the Super Metsa cd-r label, partly run by Circle's Jussi Lehtisalo. All five cd-rs so far seem like installments from some massive on-going jam still happening right now in a dingy Finnish basement, or perhaps outdoors under the ever-dark winter sky. Their music is the murky drone of armored seagulls, flying over electric waves of distortion and hiss.
High Revolution features three long tracks, all in the lo-fi, low-key freakout mode we've come to expect. Lonely caverns are slowly filled with an unknown gas. Distant apes play with sticks and then pass out. Jurassic cries emerge from deep beneath rocks and stones. Moss talks to moss. In similar fashion, I Really Like Diamonds consists of but one track ("Severed Minds") stretching out for 43 minutes -- and don't ask why a one-track album has a different title than the track itself. Like a lot of things to do with this band, we have the feeling that it's a Finnish drug thing you wouldn't understand. Each disc limited to 100 copies, fyi.
For those who've only just surfaced from the daze imposed upon them by the sonics of Doktor Kettu's previous three cd-rs, well the Doktor is back and your therapy can continue! For those new to Doktor Kettu, be aware that the Doktor's drug of choice involves hazy electric guitars and stumbling drums improvising organically, like some Fushit-Thuja hybrid, to make a punny and obscure reference. From Finland, the mysterious Doktor is a group that may or may not include members of AQ-faves Circle. What we do know is that so far DK discs have been the sole output of the Super Metsa cd-r label, partly run by Circle's Jussi Lehtisalo. All five cd-rs so far seem like installments from some massive on-going jam still happening right now in a dingy Finnish basement, or perhaps outdoors under the ever-dark winter sky. Their music is the murky drone of armored seagulls, flying over electric waves of distortion and hiss.
High Revolution features three long tracks, all in the lo-fi, low-key freakout mode we've come to expect. Lonely caverns are slowly filled with an unknown gas. Distant apes play with sticks and then pass out. Jurassic cries emerge from deep beneath rocks and stones. Moss talks to moss. In similar fashion, I Really Like Diamonds consists of but one track ("Severed Minds") stretching out for 43 minutes -- and don't ask why a one-track album has a different title than the track itself. Like a lot of things to do with this band, we have the feeling that it's a Finnish drug thing you wouldn't understand. Each disc limited to 100 copies, fyi.
Here's a pretty cool, jazz-damaged, percussion-heavy Krautrock obscurity that we just got hip to, thanks to this recent cd reissue on Garden Of Delights. As you might expect from something called Drum Circus from 1971, this has a definite hippy attitude, full of Om-drones and space-jazz piano and cosmic Eastern raga moves. It's a bit like Alice Coltrane meets Lothar And The Hand People meets early (pre-robotic) Kraftwerk. On the 21+ minute title track you'll groove to martial drums, unison chanting of mystical slogans, ominous organs...what's not to like? I mean, this has got both free-jazz freakouts and ranting incantations -- with lotsa lyrics by none other than Timothy Leary! And Drum Circus then get into some '70s Miles Davis styled funk on the aptly titled "Groove Rock". There's even some nice melodic elements too -- Andee thinks the male singer on "All Things" sounds like Roger Daltrey. But overall though, this will probably appeal more to say, folks partial to recent Boredoms output than to fans of The Who...
The weird thing about this wonderfully weird collaboration, between NYC's premier avant free folk tribalists and legendary German progrock/krautrock combo Embryo, is that it doesn't sound all that different from what we might have expected a new NNCK record to sound like. Not sure what that says, either the two groups were absolutely perfectly in sync, or NNCK are masterful channellers of classic Krautrock jams, or NNCK stole everything they know from Embryo and their sonic brethren, or Embryo are the true masters, aligning themselves with the manic primal tribal sound of NNCK's percussive rituals. Hardly mattters, whichever way you slice it, this record is stunning. Dense and lush, and packed solid with strange and wonderfuls sounds, tribal rhythms, chimes, woodblocks, drum kit, hand drums, hand claps, all sorts of buzzing strings, what sounds like sitars and harpsichords and autoharps, woodwinds, flutes and recorders, and vocals, an impossible array of chanting and moaning, gargling, mumbling, humming, whistling and singing in tongues. Dreamy super melodic grooves give way to full on Wicker Man pagan insanity which further gives way to some clattery free jazz minimalism but always returning to that transcendental tribalism we just can't get enough of. If Embryo add anything to the mix, it's a warmth and melodicism that sometimes seems to be missing from a a lot of the more abstract NNNCK jams. Folks who dug NNCK's recent Qvaris will most certainly find this to their liking as it sounds like a much more dense, much more melodic, much more vibrant exploration and expansion of the songs on that record. And we LOVED that record, so that should tell you something! The more we listen to these songs, the more we think it might not be such a bad idea for this NNCK / Embryo hybrid to just BE the new NNCK, those No Neck guys ought to just ask those Embryo guys to join the band, what the hell, the more the merrier, and judging from this one time jam, the thought of these guys moving forward aas a single unit, and actively exploring the realms of inner and outer musical space, is almost too much for us to handle.
Lion Productions' extremely welcome krautrock reissue campaign continues! This reish is another from one of scenemaker Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser's labels, Pilz (after one by Guru Guru originally on his OHR label and Sergius Golowin's album on Kosmic Kuriere), and is appropriately trippy. Indeed, it's a minor masterpiece of cosmic-folk that no less an authority than Dag Erik Asbjornsen's encyclopedic krautrock tome Cosmic Dreams At Play calls "absolutely essential".
Emtidi were a hippy duo, Maik Hirschfeldt from Germany and Dolly Holmes from Canada, supposedly brought together by their participation in the Berlin production of Hair (not the first time we've heard such a story about artists from that era!). Emtidi made just two albums in their brief career, a self-titled, not-so-cosmic acoustic folk debut in 1971 (which has also recently been reissued by the way) and then THIS one.
1972's Saat is so special in part because they labored over it in the studio with well-known producer Dieter Dierks, creating a multi-tracked, synth-floating, electronically treated environment to support Dolly's airy and delicate vocals. Her sweet singing reminds us of UK folksters like Sallyangie and Pentangle, while the spaced out music is far freakier (generally placid, but including some acid rock guitar eruptions).
Maik plays vibraphone, synthesizer, bass, flute, guitar, percussion, and also contributes rougher, accented vocals, dueting with Dolly on several of the tracks, taking lead himself on the German-language closer "Die Reise". Dolly, as well as singing so beautifully, plays keyboards, Mellotron, organ and piano. And Dierks also performs on several instruments as well, including more Mellotron.
The album's centerpiece is the blissed out shimmer of the nearly 12 minute "Touch The Sun" but the cosmic journey actually begins with a walk in the park, on opening track "Walkin' In The Park". The combination of mellow, effected guitars/keys and the gentle vocals of Dolly (joined by Maik partway along) belies the stoned humor of the lyrics, something to the effect of: "There's a sign here... keep off... don't sit on the grass, it's too cold for your ass"! Though they do sound quite earnest about it.
As with all Lion reissues, this one boasts a thick cd booklet, with original album graphics, extensive liner notes, and a discography of the Pilz label.
The combination of Brian Eno and Cluster proved to be a golden match. The sounds they delicately created together have been echoed again and again in the three decades since their collaborations. A feeling of both effortlessness and a total awareness of the space and sounds they were building radiates throughout the recording. You can hear the tinkering hands of Moebius and Rodelius giving elements of warped spaced out bliss. Eno approaching the songs in a magic space somewhere between Before & After Science and Another Green World. When his vocals appear they just begin to melt and dissolve into your ears. For sure the best backwards vocal delivery we've ever heard can be found on the track "Tzima N'arki". There is such a sublime feeling of melting on this record. These three knew how to meld warmth with an motherly feeling that takes you into golden horizons, mesmerizing twilight and an afterglow that you just want to surrender yourself to. Originally released in '78, once again Water has done the fine service of bringing it back to a world that's more ready for these sounds then ever.
Hey, cool! A reissue of the third, and we think probably best, album from these hard rockin' krautrockers (krauty hard rockers?), originally released on US label Billingsgate in 1974 (and recorded on the South Side of Chicago, while they were on tour in the States). The band were of course German, but vocalist/guitarist Cliff Jackson was a Brit. So, some internationally-connected krautrock here. It's also krautrock on the proto-metal side of things, for fans of the progressive heaviness of Captain Beyond, Lucifer's Friend, Leaf Hound, Toad, Cargo, and suchlike. And while Epitaph's choogle is not always super dooper heavy, 'cause they have a sweetly melodic popsyke side to 'em too, it's definitely (twin) guitar oriented, the two lead players getting a bit Allmans-y here, also reminding us of Wishbone Ash. Good stuff, often quite mesmerizing, when the guitars get to chiming and intertwinin', as they so often do on tracks like the rollicking, ripping "Tequila Shuffle", the Zep-leaning "Woman", and album-ending nine minute heavy riffing prog workout "Fresh Air".
This reissue is nicely packaged, and features a bunch of previously unreleased bonus tracks: 3 from 1976's 'The Lost Tapes', and 4 live one from a year 2000 reunion concert, including a drum solo!
First off, in the long tradition of bands with people's names, Erna Schmidt is a band, not a person.
Okay. Now that that's sorted, Erna Schmidt were a German band signed to the Ohr label, that never managed to release an lp due to the untimely departure of their flute player. But live they were a terror, with songs stretching past the 45 minute mark and often completely improvised, furious and rocking, but also melodic and dreamy. This disc really captures all that. Recorded live during the years 69-71, this definitely captures the raw intensity of their stage show and the sound quality is really great. Meandering epics that run the gamut from ethereal melodic folkishness to stampeding freaked out psych rock, to groovy boogie breakdowns. Heavy on the flute, heavy on the guitar solos, and some truly kick ass drumming.
And here's the third Eroc album, originally released in 1979 but containing odds and ends of music recorded by Eroc with or without his band Grobschnitt from as far back as 1969. There's some bonus tracks added on to this cd reish that date from 2001-2004 as well, and actually they fit right in amazingly enough!
Compared to Eroc 2, a lot more 'listenable' (less crazy German jabbering!), Another cool one from this new AQ krautrock fave.
This is a Krautrock masterpiece!!! This cd reissue of the 1975 debut release by Eroc has totally floored us. Eroc's the solo project of Joachim Heinz Ehrig, who was the drummer in Grobschnitt. He used his solo project as a way to explore electronics, cutups and sound collage all surrounding totally beautiful & harmonic instrumental pieces. Of the albums he made under the Eroc moniker this is the one that shimmers with the most beauty while still showing his crazy range and unpredictability. From the blissed out to the bizarre, Eroc 1 is one of those records that you can't believe you've never heard before, and one that once heard will surely go down as one of your favorite psych/kraut/prog gems of the '70s.
Every time this plays in the store, someone in the back inevitably comes up front to see what the heck is playing. And often they begin to think that if this keeps up, they just might just have a new favorite record. Striking the perfect balance between experimentation and melody, Eroc melded the use of modular synthesizers, tape, overdubs, sound generators, guitars and percussion into an incredibly forward thinking, densely layered, crazily original sound. There is a golden sonic glow reminiscent of the best moments of Cluster / Harmonia, every track is fantastic and original, each one drives us wild, and the four bonus tracks on this collection are just as good as any of the tracks on the album proper! You can hear the early blueprints of so many musical movements that would take shape in the decades following Eroc's 1975 debut. Moments of dreaminess that foreshadow Durutti Column, glimmering electronics that anyone on Morr Music would kill for, and an integration of so many elements that sonically predate groups like Fridge by decades! We can imagine Andy Votel (Prog Is Not A 4 Letter Word, Finders Keepers) freaking out over this album much like Julian Cope who sang this disc's praises on his Head Heritage website.
And certainly all of us here at AQ have discovered a record that is pretty much a shoe-in for many of our all time favorite lists!
The Brain reissue series on Revisited continues to bring us the crazy krautrock goodies! Of course, having already raved about the first solo album from the drummer for theatrical prog loonies Grobschnitt, Joachim Ehrig aka Eroc, we were exceedingly curious about this second one. Ja, Eroc 1 was a HUGE hit 'round here. After all, we called it a "krautrock masterpiece" and compared it to all sorts of favorite things, from Harmonia to Fridge! So, what's the deal with Eroc 2, originally released a year later in 1976? The cut-up confusionality that was a deliberate, delightful part of Eroc's debut is continued here, but taken to further extremes, which makes this more of a DIFFICULT spin at times. It's more bizarre, with the curiosity factor up and the overall listenability factor slightly down.
Like Eroc 1, this has its share of moody, melodic, synth-laden instrumental bliss-outs for the Cluster fans in the house. Eroc 2's electronics also venture into carefree, Bavarian dances for Liederhosen wearing' hippies. And then there's a bunch of paranoiac freakouts to give Faust a run for their money! In a word: Quirky. Heck, downright weird. But it's krautrock, that's what we came for. The mood of the music displays good and bad vibes both -- and a sense of humor, we're pretty sure (though our lack of German makes it tough know just what's a joke). There's a healthy amount of talking (auf Deutsch) all over this album. Singing too. Though there's lots of purely instrumental parts as well. But with 30 tracks (13 of 'em bonus cuts!), some of them dense epics, many others brief under-a-minute interludes of insanity, the puzzling and the pleasing are in rough proportion. Amidst Eroc's wonderful spacey, synthy, psychedelic music, you'll hear all sorts of stuff. Children's voices. Babbling outbursts. Electronic squiggles -- and the sound of maniacal sawing? Oh and orgasmic (male) moaning... Perhaps it's all some sort of concept album and all this makes sense, tied together in some strange narrative. Or, they're all nonsense non sequiturs, anyway? We don't know, but are amused/intrigued/entertained. Definitely, get Eroc 1 first, but check this out too. If you like your krautrock to be uber krauty, full of surreal surprises and jokes you won't get, you'll probably dig this. Like Eroc 1, this consists of stuff recorded in Eroc's home studio, growing out of tapes intended to augment Grobschnitt's live shows. Both records turned into personal LP-length visions well worthy to stand alone.
Can't wait to hear Eroc 3, which is supposedly also been reissued or will be soon...
1971 strikes again. Holy moly, the planets must have been extra-aligned that year. Here's a krautrock classic from '71 that kinda fell through the cracks (though not the cracks in the cosmic egg). Well, it's certainly been lauded by some but we'd never heard it before now, anyway. In fact, this is its first time on cd, apparently, and we're glad to have it! Wild stuff here, a trip indeed, starting off with a serious dose of crazed, freakout action for synth and drums entitled "Thursday Morning Sunrise". Seriously psychedelic jamming jazz weirdness, like Sun Ra gone heavy. The synth squiggles and squeaks, growls and grumbles, and drums tumble and splatter, for almost 12 minutes. Some sunrise! But if you think that this is gonna be an album of improvised, uh, "drug jazz" (which it is, in part), you'll be surprised by what's to come on this disc... lovely acoustic guitar melodies ("Mellodrama Nr. 2 A"), faux-Eastern bliss-out vibes ("Raga"), and spoken word beat poetry set amidst angelic vocal arrangements ("Lady Blue")... like we said, a trip! But then again, all this eclectic awesomeness - from moody jazz to ethnic groove to fuzzy acid rock instrumentals - isn't all that unexpected in a krautrock band, especially one featuring members of Embryo and Exmagma, as well as mastermind Wolfgang Dauner (of The Oimels fame). They deliver the goods with a great deal of groove and gusto, making music both beautiful and bizarre... it could be the soundtrack to some avantgarde psychedelic art film from the '70s, like a Jodorowsky epic. Despite the not-so-cheap import price, this is a recommended reissue, done right. Snazzy, colorful cover, remastered sound (from original masters), 3 lengthy & quite excellent bonus tracks, liner notes... the works!
Previously unreleased 3rd (double) album from cult krautrock trio Exmagma (no relation to French prog masters Magma). Recorded in 1975 at Conny Plank's studio, this excellently-produced opus somehow eluded release for over thirty years. Now finally here it is, with vintage artwork, informative liner notes, and most importantly, 17 tracks, 69 minutes of quirkily wacky krautrock that had lain dormant for far too long. If you've heard either of their first two albums (the self-titled from '73 or Goldball from '74, both of which were once available together on a single cd reissue that's now sadly out of print) then you know they're a freaky band, a bit like Guru Guru but with more jazz-fusion stuff going on. This is still pretty jazzy but more rock than before -- with more singing too. Definitely betrays the influence of Captain Beefheart (with the track "Torpedo Tits" perhaps coming uncomfortably close to Frank Zappa lyrical territory) but also that of Miles Davis as well. A lost krautrock effort that we'd wager doesn't sound like too much else in your cd collection, with hard, angular grooves, druggy concepts, zany rock, confusional hippie humor, and journeyman jazz chops -- for a gonzo Frankenstein of an album only Exmagma would dare design and build.
Back in stock, now way cheaper than before!
Ok, let's get the first question everybody has about this band out of the way: they've got nothing to do with our favorite Seventies proggers, Magma from France. The trio Exmagma was also from the '70s, but from Germany (featuring an expatriate African-American drummer though) and are known as Exmagma simply because they had originally called themselves Magma, until they found out about the French group and changed the name! Some understandable confusion resulted, we're told, because Exmagma's second record Goldball was only released on a French label...and the "real" Magma kinda sound more German than French what with their Wagner influence. Anyway, THIS band was more of an acid rock meets (free) jazz fusion kind of thing. Freaky, wild, and groovy. Laid back weirdness, some sax, lots of electric organ and piano, doublenecked bass/guitar...Mostly instrumental, with only some very rare Faust-like vocal parts. This disc contains their two albums, both recorded by Krautrock production maestro Conny Plank, with the first self-titled one from '73 being perhaps the more far-out and abstract, while 1974's Goldball more solidly grooved. Maybe. However, both LPs are "drug jazz" classics. Also, on the cover to Goldball (reproduced in miniature here) the band sports the craziest bellbottoms we've ever seen...they're on stilts under them I guess!
We were sent a whole batch of cd-r's from this mysterious group Expo '70, and all the various cd-r covers were designed to look like old seventies krautrock or free jazz records. Which definitely grabbed our attention. Plus they're called Expo '70, so while we weren't exactly sure what to expect, we were definitely thinking it was bound to be good. And boy were we right. This is good. Great in fact. But that wasn't all, the faux vintage covers and the band name ended up being seriously indicative of the sounds within. Gorgeous drifting ethereal krautrocky ambience is what Expo '70 is all about, and eyes closed, you'd be hard pressed to not think this was some Ash Ra Tempel disc or some long lost A.R. and The Machines lp. Crafted entirely from guitars, sitar and Moog, each track here is some sort of lengthy, mesmerizingingly blissed out minimal drone jam. Guitar figures are looped into hypnotic cycles, over shimmery whirls of fuzzy sound and distant drones, the looped riffs slowly shifting and gently changing shape. It's almost like some sort of new age space rock Steve Reich. Swirling FX surround warm deep guitar tones floating weightless in a glistening expanse of muted color and twinkling sonic sparkles. So completely blissful and dreamlike and captivating. One of our favorite new discoveries.
Fans of far out krautrock, deep dark drone, and outerspace guitar exploration will be in absolute heaven, or at the very least in some darkened room, in a trance, drifting off to some druggy dreamy other dimension...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Another gorgeous slab of spaced out krautrocky ambience from Expo' 70, this one a live, completely improvised performance back in 2004, with the band expanded to a trio. And if folks' reaction to the first three Expo 70's releases is anything to go by, then these will be flying out of here in no time as well.
For those yet to discover the sublime joys of Expo '70, these guys (usually just one guy, Justin Wright) traffic in glistening dreamlike kosmiche drift. A krautrock that is less about propulsion and rhythm and more about texture and ambience, think Ash Ra Tempel, AR & The Machines, Tangerine Dream, Eno, Popol Vuh. Guitars aren't strummed and picked, they are sort of allowed to unwind, long glistening strands of reverberating buzz unfurl and float into the hazy ether. Synthesizers unleash a similarly disembodied sonic vibe, soft clouds of fuzzy whir and distant chordal warmth. Very much the sonic equivalent to drifting down a warm summer stream, on your back, watching the clouds drift by, the trees on the shore shimmer and sway. Or maybe more accurately, floating in the vacuum of space, everything weightless, untethered and drifting lazily through the inky blackness. The light of stars and suns bends and twists, slowly cycling through the visible spectrum, disobeying all laws of physics, wrapping you in a thick swirl of sonic brilliance. This music has to be the work of some immortal group of dronelords, sitting in their multidimensional fortress, atop some mysterious lost mountain, who in their infinite wisdom, allow their dreamlike drones and angelic ambience to fall from the sky and settle over us like a light dusting of snow...
- MPEG stream: I
- MPEG stream: II
Wacked-out French-not-French pop? Avant-dub? Post-punk for the anarchically happy? All of those are applicable and more for the bizarro-world citizens of Family Fodder. This was less of a band, and more of a ridiculously loose collective that spun around principal songwriter Alig Pearce and chanteuse Dominique Levillain, with a genealogical tree that is confoundingly complex. We CAN say that both Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward (of This Heat) passed through the quickly revolving door of Family Fodder with the Flying Lizards' David Cunningham also offering his disjointed madness; but there were probably dozens of different players who dotted each record. Those two projects - This Heat and the Flying Lizards - could be referenced for sure as a shorthand equation of what Family Fodder was up to; but there was also plenty of situationist stabs at jubilantly rendered black humor and boisterous sarcasm that rippled through the tumbling weirdo-punk joy of Family Fodder's music. Sparks meets Stereolab might be another non-entirely-off-the-mark description.
Monkey Banana Kitchen was the band's first full album (following a string of singles including several head-scratching / loving homages to Debbie Harry's rumored hermaphrodism - yeah, how about that for a topic of a poptune?!). The album's jittery punk-dub songwriting has its roots in the British classics of Public Image Limited and the Clash, although the anthemic pop-hook has been tossed out the window in favor of a glossalaic patter of semi-coherent lyrics. The triumphantly kaleidoscopic "Savoir Faire" operates in the same art-pop lineage of Stereolab, with Family Fodder being freakishly unfettered in their exuberance where Stereolab would play it ultra cool behind their Moogs and Gauloise cigarettes. Then, there are the deep-dub tracks of "Organ Grinder" and "Bass Adds Bass" which could have easily get confused for anything by The Slits or New Age Steppers. Sprinkled throughout the album are a series of short slapstick pieces of spring-loaded vaudevillian tunes and elliptical dada / slapstick lyrics: "Darling, reason's in the monkeyhouse with a banana in the kitchen."
Fantastic stuff!
Wacked-out French-not-French pop? Avant-dub? Post-punk for the anarchically happy? All of those are applicable and more for the bizarro-world citizens of Family Fodder. This was less of a band, and more of a ridiculously loose collective that spun around principal songwriter Alig Pearce and chanteuse Dominique Levillain, with a genealogical tree that is confoundingly complex. We CAN say that both Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward (of This Heat) passed through the quickly revolving door of Family Fodder with the Flying Lizards' David Cunningham also offering his disjointed madness; but there were probably dozens of different players who dotted each record. Those two projects - This Heat and the Flying Lizards - could be referenced for sure as a shorthand equation of what Family Fodder was up to; but there was also plenty of situationist stabs at jubilantly rendered black humor and boisterous sarcasm that rippled through the tumbling weirdo-punk joy of Family Fodder's music. Sparks meets Stereolab might be another non-entirely-off-the-mark description.
Monkey Banana Kitchen was the band's first full album (following a string of singles including several head-scratching / loving homages about Debbie Harry's rumored hermaphrodism - yeah, how about that for a topic of a poptune?!). The album's jittery punk-dub songwriting has its roots in the British classics of Public Image Limited and the Clash, although the anthemic pop-hook has been tossed out the window in favor of a glossalaic patter of semi-coherent lyrics. The triumphantly kaleidoscopic "Savoir Faire" operates in the same art-pop lineage of Stereolab, with Family Fodder being freakishly unfettered in their exuberance where Stereolab would play it ultra cool behind their Moogs and Gauloise cigarettes. Then, there are the deep-dub tracks of "Organ Grinder" and "Bass Adds Bass" which could have easily get confused for anything by The Slits or New Age Steppers. Sprinkled throughout the album are a series of short slapstick pieces of spring-loaded vaudevillian tunes and elliptical dada / slapstick lyrics: "Darling, reason's in the monkeyhouse with a banana in the kitchen." The compact disc is fleshed out with the tracks from the Schizophrenia Party EP plus a couple of singles (sadly none about Debbie Harry). The highlight of these tracks (for some of us) is the ridiculously over-the-top "Dinosaur Sex" - a totally stupid / brilliant rock-opera / punk-dub number that parodies Broadway musicals in an engorged number about, ah, fucking like a dinosaur!!
Wacked-out French-not-French pop? Avant-dub? Post-punk for the anarchically happy? All of those are applicable and more for the bizarro-world citizens of Family Fodder. This was less of a band, and more of a ridiculously loose collective that spun around principal songwriter Alig Pearce and chanteuse Dominique Levillain, with a genealogical tree that is confoundingly complex. We CAN say that both Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward (of This Heat) passed through the quickly revolving door of Family Fodder with the Flying Lizards' David Cunningham also offering his disjointed madness; but there were probably dozens of different players who dotted each record. Those two projects - This Heat and the Flying Lizards - could be referenced for sure as a shorthand equation of what Family Fodder was up to; but there was also plenty of situationist stabs at jubilantly rendered black humor and boisterous sarcasm that rippled through the tumbling weirdo-punk joy of Family Fodder's music. Sparks meets Stereolab might be another non-entirely-off-the-mark description.
This lp contains all the tracks from the Schizophrenia Party EP plus a couple of singles (sadly none about Debbie Harry). The highlight to these tracks (for some of us) is the ridiculously over-the-top "Dinosaur Sex" - a totally stupid / brilliant rock-opera / punk-dub number that parodies Broadway musicals in an engorged number about, ah, fucking like a dinosaur!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
SWANK DOUBLE VINYL REISSUE FOR THESE KRAUTROCK LEGENDS!
This compiles the posthumous Faust odds-n-ends LPs Munic & Elsewhere and The Last LP. But of course, Faust is all about odds-n-ends. That's kinda their whole aesthetic. Not the first Faust record to buy, but definitely worthy of purchase.
Recommended completes their reissues of all the early Faust material with "71 Minutes of Faust". Essentially the same as the previous reissue known as "71 Minutes of Faust" this compiles the posthumous Faust odds-n-ends LPs "Munic & Elsewhere" and "The
Probably if you're a rabid Faust fan (aren't you?) you've already got this, the disc of rarities that was previously only obtainable through purchase of the entire Faust box set. But in case you didn't get the box, the individual discs are now being released piecemeal for your snacking enjoyment, with this one being the disc that people are going to get the most excited about, for obvious reasons. The album starts off with a 22 minute track recorded at the BBC in 1973 of Faust performing a medley of "The Lurcher", "Krautrock" and "Do So". Though the disc is named the "BBC Sessions", the rest of the tracks here appear to all have been recorded at Faust's Wumme studio, and with the exception of "We Are the Hallo Men" which was originally released on Munic & Elsewhere (though Recommended still persists on claiming that it was originally on The Last LP) most of these cuts are previously unreleased. Included are some nice tape experiments like "(360)" which is a mix of various stereo (possibly binaural) recordings like the Faust boys playing ping pong, plus some alternate versions of songs from So Far and Munic & Elsewhere including "So Far" and "Meer". It's all totally worthwhile, classic krautrock from one of the best bands ever. If you're new to Faust, you'll want to start with one of their proper albums (or heck, just get the whole box) but folks who already have IV, So Far and the rest should definitely invest in the BBC Sessions.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Legendary krautrock band Faust's 30th anniversary is being celebrated with not free pinball and fireworks, but remixes... The remix cd ep that preceeded this was ok, if unneccessary. Here's the full remix album, with one of that Soft Cell guy's mixes from the ep, plus mixes from other mostly Euro electronica folks (Kreidler, Howie B., Surgeon, Funkstorung among them). Dead Voices On
We've been wanting to correct a glaring omission from our site for some time now. Well, its not so much an omission as it's an overdue update on a very old review; one that was made when our reviews served only as shelf-talkers in the store instead of entryways into the vast online catalog of our website. And now with an affordable reissue with a bonus disc of rare BBC radio sessions and alternate versions, the time is right to reappraise this mighty, weird, and awesome jewel of classic krautrock greatness that is Faust IV.
Essential as any krautrock album we can name, including Can's Tago Mago or Future Days, Amon Duul II's Yeti, or Neu! 1, Cluster, Kraftwerk etc. It's also the record that coined the term "krautrock" which is the title of the nearly 12 minute opening track, a thick pulsating rumble of motorik groove that out-Neu's Neu!. But things definitely get stranger after that with bizarre forays into reggae, pretty ballads, prog, pop and free jazz. Yet for all the weirdness, this is the record to get if you've never heard Faust before as it's their most accessible and structured. Not nearly as kaleidoscopic and avant as, So Far or Faust Tapes, and even with the genre-hopping, the songs all seem to belong together. "The Sad Skinhead" has got to be the most left-field excursion into reggae we've heard, complete with marimba passages and echoing vocals, while "Jennifer" has to be about the prettiest song ever made. Each song linked together by odd passages of detuned piano, far away screams and noisy stews of synth warbles and feedback stabs. "Giggly Smile" obviously influenced Battles recent debut Mirrors, as strange effected vocals accompany groovy prog excursions that abruptly shift tempos into one of our favorite rocking moments ever put to tape before suddenly ending, launching into the sublime folk groove of "Lauft... Heisst Das Es Lauft Oder Es Kommt Bald... Lauft". And it just keeps getting better and better.
The bonus disc features many alternate versions of the songs including a much longer version of "Just A Second (Starts Like That!)", plus rare BBC radio sessions of two songs "The Lurcher" and "Do So" and one previously unreleased piece, called appropriately "Piano Piece".
This is definitely one of those records, where we wish we could just invoke some physical force to reach out and grab you through the computer by the shoulders and just scream "Buy this already!!!!!!"
Ahh, the German sense of humor. Once, while flying somewhere, my German neighbor told me a "German joke"... it turned out to be in actuality a philosophical puzzle, and not very funny. For some reason, German jokes and joking around has this heavy sillyness that I love. It's never actually all that "funny" per se, but so so endearing!
That said, this Faust dvd opens with some 8mm footage from the 70s. The band is in their hometown of Wumme, Germany and approached by a giant panda bear who read about the band in a newspaper while tanning on the beach. It's a very strange, probably very stoned interaction set to a Faust song. Not that funny really, but totally endearing. Cause it's Faust! One of the most abstract of core Krautrock bands.
But then that's it!!! I mean, as far as actual visual documentation from the band during the 1970s. The remaining classic Faust tracks on here are set to horrendous, freshman-year-art-student video collage made recently by Faust's Zappi Diermaier as interpretations of the songs' original themes. Every track and "film" is a nauseating combination and so incredibly confusing to us. Even more puzling is why Zappi decided to add additional accompaniment to some of the audio tracks.
Man. As extremely devout Faust fans, we have to say, "WTF?!" Is there no other footage of the band -- either playing concerts, or interviews, or any photos, or then even commentary?
There's also an audio cd included that has no Faust songs, but new tracks by Zappi that are from a dvd of his solo stuff coming out in the future. Writing all this down is making us feel like we need to cry or something. Wish there was more FAUST to SEE. We don't know what Zappi was thinking. Sure do hope that all the feedback (like this) from fans will inspire the band to get something together for an actual document-worthy dvd at some point in the future.
That little nugget of Faust and the polar bear, boy. That's something special. Can't imagine what we'd do with a whole dvd full of that sorta stuff! Meanwhile, all we can do is keep on sitting around listening to Faust IV over and over again.
Forget for a second that this is a Faust album. What if it was just some unknown new band, some cd-r we got in the mail, some limited edition cassette release? Heck we've tried that thought experiment, and we'd be all over it! Telling you that it's a mysteriously murky, throbbing psychedelic freak-scene, fraught with krautrocky rhythms and tense textures. Sorta reminds us of a mix of Blues Control and Wooden Shjips... or White Hills and Expo 70... there's a druggy '60s garage vibe, industrial electronic atmosphere, blissful moodiness, and clockwork Circle-like propulsivity, all crammed into one crazy counter-intuitive whole, raw and live! Everything in the way of organ drones, harmonica blurt, echoing voices, shuffling drums, and serious dosage of searing psych-rock geetar found here were all taken from various European performances in 2006, later mixed and edited at fauststudio. We'd assume most of the tracks are pretty much unique to this disc...
Yeah, we'd be pretty into it if it was some new group! Does the fact it's a new disc by krautrock legends Faust, released by Circle's Ektro label, make it any cooler? It doesn't need to. Though if that's what it takes to get you to check it out, that's ok. Conversely, if you were like, oh just another umpteenth Faust reunion album, don't be like that. First off, Faust rule. Even today. Sure, this isn't the original line up. In fact, it's not even the ONLY current line up! Apparently, in the grand tradition of, uh, Saxon and others, there's now more than one version of Faust, each featuring different original band members, going around touring under the name. Weird. Not sure if this fractured factioning is an agreed-upon thing (to cover more ground?) or if they're in competition. Hopefully the former! It would be sad to hear that there's litigation pending.
So anyway, THIS Faust consists of Jan Wolbrandt on drums, Michael Stoll on bass (and flute), Lars Paukstat on percussion and vocals, Steven Wray Lobdell on guitar, and Hans Joachim Irmler on organ, keyboards and vocals. That's a good line up all right, they've got Lobdell in the band after all! Hence the dosage of searing psych-rock geetar previously mentioned...
Recommended, as one of the two very different and very cool live albums newly issued by Ektro that we're reviewing this list (the other one is by '80s strong-man metaller Thor, believe it or not!). Hmmm. Faust + Thor, does that sort of = Circle??
(And note, there's another new live Faust 2cd that we have in stock and hope to review soon, Od Serca Do Duszy, that's the work of the OTHER active Faust unit, featuring Jean-Herve Peron, Zappi Diermaier, and Amaury Cambuzat.)
And here's the other new live album from the what is also in fact the *other* Faust (mentioned a couple of lists back when we reviewed Faust's Kleine Welt cd on the Ektro label). Od Serca Do Duszy was recorded in Krakow, Poland at the wonderfully named Loch Ness Club on November 15th, 2006, by a Faust "power trio" lineup consisting of Zappi Diermaier (drums, metals, tools), Jean-Herve Peron (voice, guitars, horns) and Amaury Cambuzat (guitars, keys, voice). Note that this is an entirely different lineup than the one responsible for Kleine Welt, also recorded on tour in 2006. We'd like to think that Faust has splintered into these two different touring groups (both featuring original '70s members as well as new blood from the band's initial reunion era in the '90s) in an amicable fashion, but we don't really know. Maybe they hate each other. But we also wonder if it's just 'cause their individual schedules didn't work out to all play together, or so they could cover more ground, or 'cause they had different interests in terms of what songs should go into the band's current set?
For Diermaier/Peron/Cambuzat, that means doing some of Faust's famous old songs like "A Bit Of A Pain" and "The Sad Skinhead" alongside newer stuff and full-on improv jams. We figure that if you were AT the show, you'd want to hear a few of those old favorites. But listening to this at home, it's probably the new material that will actually be most of interest... although hearing how they mutate and reinterpret their own "hits" is cool too.
Anyway, either way, this excellently-recorded, lengthy live set is one for Faust fans, and also those into the likes of Acid Mothers Temple, really anyone looking for experimental explorations of clattery murk, with feedbacky psychedelic guitar, quasi-industrial improv chaos, plodding drums, and noisy textures! The raucous Krakow crowd certainly is into it, stoking Faust into further frenzies, including shouted vocals (in French?) among them some yelling about "George Washington!" and "George Bush!"... it must have been a memorable night. Disc two begins with two tracks (20 minutes) of pure, heavy-duty improv, which the band follow with a fairly wild rendition of their classic "It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl" to make even the old time fans happy... and then for their encore, for good measure, they launch into "Schempal Buddha", an urgent and repetitive number that fans will recognize from The Faust Tapes album.
"We've always liked the idea of releasing records which lacked conventional 'finish' in terms of production...the music should sound like bootlegs, as if recorded by someone who passed a group rehearsing or jamming and then cut the recorded material wildly together." That's a quote from Faust mentor/manager Uwe Nettelbeck circa 1973, reprinted in the liner notes to this aptly-titled odds n' ends collection, a collage of pieces recorded by the idiosyncratic krautrock legends over the past thirty years. It helps explain the sounds here, as well as the aesthetic behind their classic "Faust Tapes" album (which this echoes) and much else of their output. The material presented here will fade from stuff recorded in the early days at their communal studio directly into things put down on tape by the reunited/retrofitted incarnation of Faust just last year -- sometimes within the very same track! Mostly this is early '70s stuff, but there's a few '80s derived recordings and material from the currently active Faust line-up. It's all pretty great. Unreleased archival alternate versions of familiar Faust favorites, forgotten experiments, live bits and pieces -- wild psych guitar/effect noise fests, Stoogesy jamming, droning electronics, sweet strumming folk, jazz freakouts -- all this is woven together in a truly kaleidoscopic krautrock "patchwork" indeed. Very Faust-ian. Uwe's quote describes this perfectly.
Soft Cell remixes Faust?? That's right, the legendary, eccentric krautrockers Faust hit the dancefloor with the help of Soft Cell's David Ball (and one Ingo Vauk as well). The track "Wir Brauchen Dich #6", taken from Faust's last (and quite excellent)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
One of the BEST RECORDS EVER. That's right. And I don't think we're really going out on a limb with that claim. Certainly one of the best krautrock records ever (as are pretty much all the Faust albums, actually). This, Faust's second album, originally released in 1972, has been reissued numerous times over the years, for a while as an expensive Japanese import only, then in the crucial Wumme Years box set, and most recently by Collector's Choice as a two-on-one with Faust's self-titled debut. We still stock that for the budget-minded amongst you, but since this is such a classic, we figure some folks will want this newer, nicely digipacked reish all by its own. Unlike the two-fer, the cd booklet here includes all the full-color images (one illustration per song) that came as art prints with the original vinyl. And as well, there's new liner notes and vintage photos in there as well. Nice.
But let's get back to this best records ever business, for those that weren't already nodding in agreement. It's the missing link between The Velvet Underground and The Boredoms, we're telling you. Just listen to the mantric opener "It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl" and tell us they weren't influenced by the VU... yet taking things way further into the trance-zone, pioneering the minimal post-rock sounds of many popular indie bands today... Circle ferinstance! And for sure the Boredoms. Also, without Faust, chances are, no This Heat. No Nurse With Wound. Yep they were pioneers all right. And still sound plenty fresh 'n weird today. So Far reigns in the sound collage craziness of their selt-titled debut, tightening up into actual song-form-iness, even getting into some pleasantly lyrical poppiness... but always ready to do something violently eccentric. "Daddy, take the banana!"
