Along with the Harmonia Live 1974 cd that we're making Record Of The Week, the Water label has reissued the first four solo records of Harmonia, Kraftwerk, and Neu! veteran, Michael Rother. We're reviewing our two favorites here, the others we should get to on a later list.
We'd assume that the majority of AQ regulars are largely familiar with at least one of Michael Rother's projects. Whether it be his his work with Kraftwerk, Neu!, Cluster, or Harmonia, Rother's contributions to the last 30 plus years of music are innumerable. Still, his solo work that has been conspicuously absent from most write-ups and record shelves. Perhaps that's because the early '80s saw Rother in a bit of transition period from his Krautrock glory days to a point where he embraced New Age with arms wide open. Despite naysayers, New Age isn't necessarily a four letter word. Not necessarily. But fear not, while embracing New Age, Rother didn't -- or perhaps couldn't -- completely abandon his musical past. Thankfully, the fine people at Water have made the first four Rother albums available once again, lovingly remastered and repackaged with original art and new liner notes.
Like the three preceding releases, 1981's Fernwarme finds Rother accompanied by drummer Jaki Leibezeit of fellow uber-famous Krautrockerers Can. Unlike the first three solo albums, this one shows Rother returning much closer to his days with Harmonia than attempting to incorporate elements from anything like, say, Kitaro. In fact, despite the lead guitar of opening number "Silberstreif" relying heavily upon the "Do-Re-Mi" tune taught in grade school music class, Fernwarme is an excellent contribution to an incredibly impressive career, full of simple beauty, a warm embrace of blissed-out pop melodies. Jaki's lightly propulsive motorik shuffle is the heartbeat pulse that underpins the harmonized guitar lines spun by Rother, his harmonies at times making us think of Citay's most exquisite moments... elsewhere Rother delves into darkly droning keyboards, and Fernwarme starts to sound not unlike a much mellower Zombi. Very very nice, a highly recommended early '80s spacey prog kraut classic!!
A few weeks back, we made the newly unearthed and amazing Harmonia Live 1974 album our Record Of The Week, and also highlighted two of the four solo albums by Harmonia's Michael Rother that were also reissued at the same time. That's a lot of krautrock goodness to absorb at once, so we are just now getting around to listing those other two Rother solo discs, Flammende Herzen (1976) and Katzenmusik (1979), chronologically his first and third solo efforts. On both of these, as with the previous pair, Rother's beautifully harmonized, multitracked guitars and synths are joined by the incomparable, propulsive drumming of fellow krautrock hero Jaki Liebzeit of Can. And another legendary figure in the scene, Conny Plank, produces.
Flammende Herzen, which means Flaming Hearts in English, is a blissful concoction of motorik beats beneath Rother's trademark shimmering, soaring melodies. It's easy to see why it was a big hit when it was first released (apparently outselling all of Rother's albums with Neu! combined!). Truly gorgeous instrumental compositions that will brighten your day, being sources of both relaxation and energy... ok, that sounds a bit New Agey, doesn't it? But fans of the kosmische krautrock stuff should be comfortable with that, after all, there's a definite overlap, with Ashra, Tangerine Dream, Deuter, and Popol Vuh among others being krautrockers later to cross over to careers in the New Age field... and it's not like you have to get into a yoga pose to enjoy this album (though you could). Such nice music for a drive in the country, or lazing at home on a rainy afternoon, as well. Definitely a fine follow up to his work in Harmonia, tracks like "Feuerland" certainly not ignoring the r-o-c-k part of the krautrock equation in the process of being all spacey and hypnotic.
While we can solidly recommend Rother's solo debut, the other one under review here, Katzenmusik, is a bit iffier (though some folks actually consider it his masterpiece, cf. allmusic.com). On it, Rother moves more and more in that much-maligned New Age direction, mellowing out even further. The blue sky, fluffy white clouds, and arcing jet-trail of the cover photo are well-evoked by the music inside. Twelve untitled, again all-instrumental tracks, all very airy-fairy. Gently uplifting guitar confections ride along on the tick-tock of Jaki's drumming... It's quite nice all right, just without any edginess. If you love Rother, you'll probably want it, but get the others first.
These are both, again, nicely done reissues from the Water label, with the original art and new liner notes.
A few weeks back, we made the newly unearthed and amazing Harmonia Live 1974 album our Record Of The Week, and also highlighted two of the four solo albums by Harmonia's Michael Rother that were also reissued at the same time. That's a lot of krautrock goodness to absorb at once, so we are just now getting around to listing those other two Rother solo discs, Flammende Herzen (1976) and Katzenmusik (1979), chronologically his first and third solo efforts. On both of these, as with the previous pair, Rother's beautifully harmonized, multitracked guitars and synths are joined by the incomparable, propulsive drumming of fellow krautrock hero Jaki Liebzeit of Can. And another legendary figure in the scene, Conny Plank, produces.
Flammende Herzen, which means Flaming Hearts in English, is a blissful concoction of motorik beats beneath Rother's trademark shimmering, soaring melodies. It's easy to see why it was a big hit when it was first released (apparently outselling all of Rother's albums with Neu! combined!). Truly gorgeous instrumental compositions that will brighten your day, being sources of both relaxation and energy... ok, that sounds a bit New Agey, doesn't it? But fans of the kosmische krautrock stuff should be comfortable with that, after all, there's a definite overlap, with Ashra, Tangerine Dream, Deuter, and Popol Vuh among others being krautrockers later to cross over to careers in the New Age field... and it's not like you have to get into a yoga pose to enjoy this album (though you could). Such nice music for a drive in the country, or lazing at home on a rainy afternoon, as well. Definitely a fine follow up to his work in Harmonia, tracks like "Feuerland" certainly not ignoring the r-o-c-k part of the krautrock equation in the process of being all spacey and hypnotic.
While we can solidly recommend Rother's solo debut, the other one under review here, Katzenmusik, is a bit iffier (though some folks actually consider it his masterpiece, cf. allmusic.com). On it, Rother moves more and more in that much-maligned New Age direction, mellowing out even further. The blue sky, fluffy white clouds, and arcing jet-trail of the cover photo are well-evoked by the music inside. Twelve untitled, again all-instrumental tracks, all very airy-fairy. Gently uplifting guitar confections ride along on the tick-tock of Jaki's drumming... It's quite nice all right, just without any edginess. If you love Rother, you'll probably want it, but get the others first.
These are both, again, nicely done reissues from the Water label, with the original art and new liner notes.
Along with the Harmonia Live 1974 cd that we're making Record Of The Week, the Water label has reissued the first four solo records of Harmonia, Kraftwerk, and Neu! veteran, Michael Rother. We're reviewing our two favorites here, the others we should get to on a later list.
We'd assume that the majority of AQ regulars are largely familiar with at least one of Michael Rother's projects. Whether it be his his work with Kraftwerk, Neu!, Cluster, or Harmonia, Rother's contributions to the last 30 plus years of music are innumerable. Still, his solo work that has been conspicuously absent from most write-ups and record shelves. Perhaps that's because the early '80s saw Rother in a bit of transition period from his Krautrock glory days to a point where he embraced New Age with arms wide open. Despite naysayers, New Age isn't necessarily a four letter word. Not necessarily. But fear not, while embracing New Age, Rother didn't -- or perhaps couldn't -- completely abandon his musical past. Thankfully, the fine people at Water have made the first four Rother albums available once again, lovingly remastered and repackaged with original art and new liner notes.
Sterntaler is from 1977 and is Rother's second solo work recorded by Conny Plank and featuring Can's Jaki Liebezeit on drums. Similar in scope and feel to Cluster's more pastoral efforts, namely Sowiesoso, Rother's signature gliding guitar playing is recognizable throughout. Think Neu! light. And that's not a diss, although Andee thinks it sounds like an eighties movie montage or the background music in a timeshare video presentation. But you have to remember, Andee doesn't like Can either... And put in context that Rother's first solo album Flammende Herzen sold more than all Neu! records combined, we might understand why Rother would pursue this more New Age-ish direction. And if you're gonna listen to New Age, then stuff like Rother and fellow (former) krautrockers Ashra and Deuter is the way to go. In any event, Sterntaler definitely reaches to the heights of late-period krautrock a la Cluster and for curious fans is very worthy of your time. Lovely and recommended.
This is the third reissue of a recording by German guitarist/soundscaper Gunter Schickert that we've listed - and also the third that we've made a Record Of The Week. That ought to tell you a little something about just how much we like the music of Herr Schickert! Up until fairly recently, Schickert's work has been shrouded in obscurity, the original albums being super rare and hard to find, reissues equally scarce. But thankfully, just in the last couple of years, several legit, long-deserved reissues, appearing on the Bureau B and Important labels, have helped to make Schickert's mesmerizing music more widely known - and has hopefully established him where he belongs, as one of the crucial names in the classic krautrock pantheon, up there with contemporaries like Klaus Schulze, Manuel Gottsching, Achim Reichel, and Michael Rother. Certainly as far as we're concerned, he is! If you dig any of the aforementioned gentlemen, you should definitely get to know Gunter Schickert as well.
The previous two albums of his we've Record Of The Week-ed, 1974's Samtvogel and 1979's Uberfallig, are both all-time aQ faves. There's not much more to Schickert's small discography - but there is this, and it's another fave for sure. Originally released as a cassette tape in 1983, then reissued again on cassette in the '90s and on cd-r in the early 2000's by the Freeman brothers (of Auricle Magazine / Crack In The Cosmic Egg fame), the material on Kinder In Der Wildnis consists of disparate DIY recordings drawn from Schickert's archives, so it's a bit more varied than either of his earlier albums, though if you've heard those, you'll recognize right away that you're back in Schickert's sonic realm, one of organic field recording atmospheres and trance-inducing minimalist pulsations... but something about this is so much more nervy and dark. More "rocked out" too at times. Maybe it's the influence of the NDW, aka Neue Deutsche Welle (punk new wave music of Germany), but we're still talking krautrock.
Even though Schickert does EVERYTHING himself (guitar, tape, vocals, percussion, trumpet) it somehow sounds like a whole band, and that band sounds like Amon Duul II and Faust trapped together in a bunker, jamming endlessly in the middle of the night, the music dark and claustrophobic despite the environmental nature sounds that (as always) Schickert likes to weave into his recordings. There's the children's voices on here too (his daughter sings on the jittery title track) but that's in stark contrast to the druggy darkness of so much of this. Tracks like "Rabe In Der Nacht" and "Hollentanz" are a dense lo-fi mesh of percolating beats, wailing psych guitar, and sound FX. Bird twitter-y field recordings (and crazy crow-like cawing from Schickert himself, we assume) meet overdubbed layers of chanting vocal parts, including more animal-like cries, in the hallucinatory mix. Swirling drones of synth coalesce into hypnotic throbbing rhythms, over which lilting keyboard motifs hint at the likes of Goblin. Also significant is Schickert's sad, electronically-treated trumpet, heard ferinstance on "07.Mai", alongside pleasingly placid repetitive guitar, phasing effects, and field recordings of fireworks exploding (heard elsewhere on the record as well) that sound like sferic squiggles of electronic sound, buried in the mix along with disembodied unknown voices. The trumpet here foreshadows the future sounds of Supersilent, while the pulsating patterns of proto-glitch music also remind us of This Heat's Repeat.
Yep, it's a freakin' great record all right. Trippy and weird and psychically round the bend. In other words, super satisfying. How it stayed so far under the radar for so long is crazy. Big props to Bureau B for giving it a proper reissue now on both compact disc and vinyl for the very first time, with excellent artwork, liner notes, and even two bonus tracks (on the cd only).
The bonus tracks, fyi, are feeling a lot more NDW, Schickert employing a drum machine it sounds like, a bit dancey, still dark and damaged, looping layers of vocals coming and going amidst the beats. Could easily be something Dark Entries of Medical Records would be expected to reissue. Very cool, fans of Pyrolator / Der Plan will enjoy these as well as the rest of the album. But with or without the bonus tracks, Kinder In Der Wildnis is super recommended, in heavy rotation in the store right now, a record that with Schickert's other two solo albums makes for an impressive trifecta of unsung krautrock genius.
Years ago we fell in love with Gunter Schickert's Uberfalling, a 1980 late-krautrock guitarscape epic. The cd reissue of that is now sadly out of print, but we've recently been turned onto Schickert's first lp from 1974, Samtvogel, which at last has been reissued on vinyl courtesy of the Spanish Import label Wah Wah, who have also recently reissued Heldon, Vainica Doble, Inner Space and other international psych gems. Sure, they're a bit expensive, but everything we've heard from the label has been amazing, so they're pretty much worth it.
Especially this one, a three track epic of cavernous space guitar extrapolations and buried lysergic vocal incantations that sounds like an alternate soundtrack to Fantastic Planet. The first track, "Apricot Brandy" gently introduce us into Schickert's sound world, a spacy lyrical repetitive commune riff with murmured vocals and spindly multi-layered guitar percolations that gently float in an echo-y atmospheric chamber. The second track, "Kriegmaschinen, Fahrt Zur Holle" is nearly 17 minutes of space-echo, belltones and strange echo effects that slowly build into more intense repetitive and multi-layered motifs, sometimes urgent and cinematic, and other moments more billowy and sinuous, reminding us of Achim Reichel and Manuel Gottsching, and even obscure krautrock band Temple. The final twenty-one minute track, "Wald", brings the intensity to the fore, with a buzzing guitarscape that sounds like John Carpenter, but soon gives way to a more lilting spacey bubbling and exploratory improvisation before the intense riffs return and interject and subside in strange surges, finally dissipating in little clouds of helium. A beautiful piece of outsider kosmiche! Highly Recommended!
YES! We're big fans of lesser-known krautrock guitarist Gunter Schickert (who also did production work with Klaus Schulze, like, for Japan's Far East Family Band). As soon as we heard that his Uberfallig album was getting a new reissue, we knew it was going to have to be a Record Of The Week. We've been in love with this record forever, referencing it and Schickert plenty of times in other reviews when we want to cite something incredibly atmospheric and minimalistically trance inducing from deep in the krautrock zone. There was a previous cd edition of this we stocked years ago, but that's been out of print for ages. Now Germany's industrious Bureau B label have stepped in and added this rare late-krautrock masterpiece to their ongoing, essential series of reissues of essential kraut / kosmishe albums. And it's on both digipak cd *and* vinyl now as well!
Uberfallig was Schickert's second album, originally issued in 1979 on the Sky label, the follow up to his 1975 Brain debut Samtvogel. It's hard to believe somebody this good didn't record more, or with other people, but we're only aware of a couple later recordings that have ever surfaced. Here on Uberfallig, Schickert's exceptionally hypnotic space-echo guitar work, similar to Manuel Gottsching of Ashra, is matched by fascinating rhythmic pulsations, at times recalling prime Can-like velocities or the circular bubbliness of aQ faves AR & Machines, and some Pink Floyd Meddle era pastoral psych vibes as well. And it's mostly just Schickert (guitar, voice) and a few friends (drums and vocals) plus nature sounds, deftly deployed.
Opener "Puls" is worth the price of admission alone. It does indeed pulse, for nearly 16 epic minutes, building from calmly rhythmic beginnings to pure hypno-guitar bliss, mixed with subtle, splashy, sploshy field recordings - evoking the idea of Schickert and his drummer colleague Charles M. Heuer wading upstream in the wilds somewhere as their music plays. That begins the recurrent watery theme found on this album, an ever present liquid watery ambience, the sounds of wind and rain and surf and babbling brooks woven in among the "actual" instruments. The cover image of an intense looking Schickert suggests this too, his visage overlaid with what looks like the play of light on the surface of water.
The second cut, "In Der Zeit", is a shorter, folkier number, with more surf-sounds and bird calls and a gentle, hushed female vocal, accompanying Schickert's pleasant, repeating acoustic guitar motif. So nice.
Track three, "Apricot Brandy II", as some may guess from the name, is a sequel to the first track on Schickert's debut Samtvogel (wish we still had a reissue of that - maybe Bureau B will do something about that, too). Again with a watery intro, then the nervous ticking of drumsticks, heralding a quietly unfurling, slightly sinister and suspenseful 12 and a half minute, gently percolating proto-post-rock trip. We're hearing some Can circa Tago Mago, and Tortoise and Circle, too, especially with the murmuring vocals chanting "Apricot Brandy" amidst other drones and moans. It's all druggy and delicate, moody and mesmeric. Quite the tour de force, coming to a close with strange samples and lovely crackling.
If that wasn't enough, the album ends with even more haunting mesmer, the aptly titled, the 8+ minute long "Wanderer", slow and spooky at first, with more of that tick-tock drumming and watery splashes. It's got a twilight sound to it, so beautiful and mysterious and mesmeric, like this whole amazing, organic, echo-laden album.
Includes, along with credits and lyrics, new 2012 liner notes from Schickert's contemporary Asmus Tietchens, in both English and German, and also an interesting note from Schickert, explaining that some of this music was used on the soundtrack to a film about the gay community in New York called Brooklyn 11238, which we'd never have guessed...
While we'll state that this is reissue definitely something crucial for fans of Agitation Free, AR & Machines, Moebius & Rodelius, Michael Rother, You, Ashra, and latter-day krautrockers Village Of Savoonga, we should also make clear that this is NOT just for krautrock collector nerds - even if you've NEVER heard a krautrock record before, we'd still recommend this one, obscure as it is. It's that good.
A fantasy opera, based on Mervyn Peake's gothic novels, written by keyboardist Irmin Schmidt of krautrock legends Can. He utilizes everything from traditional operatic vocals to synthisized breakbeats to tell the story inspired by the great castle Gormenghast and its inhabitants.
Wow, it's definitely Christmas around here and how can we tell? Well, for one thing we got this amazing new soundtrack reissue that we never realized until now we have been looking for most of our adult life. It's on Crippled Dick Hot Wax, one of our fave reissue labels that we haven't heard from in years and had feared they disappeared for good. And it's another lost gem from the proto-Can universe of The Inner Space, the same early group incarnation that gave us the soundtrack to the unreleased surreal-politico film, Agilok and Blubbo!
One of our favorite Krautrock obscurities compilations from years and years ago was called Kraut Demons Kraut and two of the tracks were credited to The Can, but didn't sound like Can at all. These were pastoral and pretty with flutes and guitar, one featured very folky female vocals by Margareta Juvan called, "I'm Hiding My Nightingale", the other track was called "Kama Sutra" (billed here as "Indisches Panorama I"). We had always wondered where those recordings had come from, and how they related to Can. It wasn't until someone put this on in the store after we just got it in that it all came rushing back. Those songs were from a rare 1968 German erotic film by Kobi Jaegar called Kamasutra: Consumation Of Love and were arranged and performed by Irmin Schmidt & The Inner Space, whose then lineup of Jaki Leibeziet, Malcolm Mooney and Michael Karoli was essentially the same line-up of Can's debut full length, Monster Movie.
But much of this is different from the Can we know (though the Malcolm Mooney-sung "There Was A Man" points at what Can was to become, and Michael Karoli's simmering electric guitar lines are as signature as ever), it even sounds very different from the other Inner Space release, Agilok and Blubbo. That soundtrack was more exploratory, improvisational and experimental, while Kamasutra is much more focused and musically gorgeous. Lots of sitars, flutes, acoustic and electric guitars playing slow-burning compositions with loping repetitive rhythms. Occasionally rocking out a groove, but more often wandering through many pastoral raga-tinged extrapolations. This is the most psychedelically kosmiche recording we've ever heard from this outfit, which of course gives it our highest recommendation!
Once a member of Tangerine Dream and Kluster, Conrad Schnitzler evolved into one of the most distinctive artists within the Krautrock scene. Through such seminal albums as Ballet Statique and Con, Schnitzler developed an uncompromising aesthetic that blossomed beyond the cosmic expansiveness of his fellow psychedelic journeymen and into oblique experiments whose bleak results were the templates that inspired post-industrial expressionists such as MB, Giancarlo Toniutti, Arcane Device, and Cranioclast, not to forget about his impact on the works of Emeralds, Omit, and Oneohtrix Point Never.
10.10.84 is a document of one of Schnitzler's 'kassetten konzert', during which he played back a number of pre-recorded cassettes through upwards of six decks that he would sometimes suspend from a belt around his waste and broadcast through a megaphone wired to a metal helmet that he wore on his head. Given his studies with Joseph Beuys in the '60s, one could postulate that these performances might also warrant some theatrical gestures given the mobility of this set-up. For this konzert recorded in Berlin, Schnitzler overlays sweeping oscillations, clouds of static, and nervous electronic percolations, all of which hold a metallic sheen as if each of these sounds could sharpen knives intent on scraping out the collective inner ear canal of the audience. While the step sequencing of his more accessible works isn't all that present, scattershot firings of horror-laden synth notes burst throughout Schnitzler's signature use of heavily filtered electrical tones. Limited to 250 copies, of which we probably have the last ones.
An album that launched thousands of better known records, Ballet Statique is Conrad Schniztler's masterpiece. Schnitzler, of course, was a maverick in the Krautrock community, having been an original member of both Tangerine Dream and Kluster, and later developing an expressive language of tape collage and electronic synthesis which expanded upon his early studies with Joseph Beuys. His most influential works, however, came out in the late '70s following an almost serialist body of work based on the poetics of various colors through electronic sound, eventually leading to Ballet Statique. It was originally released with the title 'Con' back in 1978 through the Barclay funded Egg Records, Ballet Statique is a skeletal distillation of progressive electronics into a bleak hypnosis of rotating melodies, atonal slashes of synthetic noise, and proto-techno rhythmic propulsion. While this album has been reissued a few times since it's original release, the current infatuation with late '70s electronics - especially through the psychedelic and minimal-wave sensibilities - make this reissue especially timely. "Electric Garden" is one of those elegantly simple pieces of electronica with an abstracted, almost random melody guiding Schnitzler's rigid step sequence cast in a cosmic shower of delay ripples with bent electro-shock noises sliding up and down against his motorik drum machine. From a track like this, one can see where Aphex Twin would have been able to make such a profound break from rave culture with these head-spinning sequences. "Metall 1" is all space-dust and comet debris hung weightlessly through Schnitzler's ominous undulations of bright synthetic shimmers and lurching rumbles of metallic low-end, clearly the inspiration for pretty much everything that John Elliott of Emeralds has ever touched. The deep-space sonor pulses of "Black Nails" reprise the tone-bent noises Schnitzler produced on "Electric Garden," looking forward to the robotic bleakness of Monoton, Dome, and Omit. It's pretty shocking how good this record is, and how timeless it sounds, even with the current strain of '70s revivalism. So highly recommended, it's actually embarrassing that we've not written about this record sooner.
This rare album (only 500 copies of the LP were originally issued in 1974) is now finally reissued on cd! "Blau" (Blue) is the second solo effort from legendary krautrock electronics pioneer Conrad Schnitzler, following his amazing debut "Rot" (Red) and his
"Gelb" is an unreleased 1974 album produced by the iconoclastic electronic musician Conrad Schnitzler, who sought to demystify the academic strangle hold on electronic music in reducing all of the avant garde techniques and ideas into a simple interplay of tonal color. Often realized as overlapping electronic patterns, cyclical rhythms, and synthetic swooshes, Schnitzler's early '70s compositions appear now as the prototypes of a lot of modern day electronica, especially IDM, ambient, and techno. "Gelb" does sound a little dated, due to the less than perfect recording conditions and the limited palette of electronic sounds, but the sweeping, space-age surfaces of Schnitzler's electronic tones and jittery drum machine arpeggiations are as good as anything he released during that time. Vinyl only.
The last of the five 'color' releases is the Green one. The original LP consisted of two very long, elegantly minimal environmental pieces. "Der Reise Und Seine Frau" from 1976 features an endlessly wandering synth solo, meandering over a very distorted & churning drum machine loop without much development for 32 minutes. The synth patch is a very modest one, but pretty enough: Schnitzler for Mother. There's a lot more going on in 1980's "Bis Die Blaue Blume Bluht": interlocking, circular melodies looping endlessly over a percolating Wurlitzer rhythm for 20 minutes. A very tropical mood: imagine Kraftwerk's "Ananas Symphonie" without the Hawaiian slide guitar left looping for the night and you're halfway there. The original vinyl encouraged playback at both 33 and 45 rpm, so unsurprisingly the 14 minute bonus track is "Bis Die Blaue Blume Bluht / 45" -- although, surprisingly, the piece isn't simply pitched up, it's digitally time compressed to a faster tempo without actually changing its pitch, so you basically get a 35 minute version of the piece that picks up the pace about halfway through. Grun might seem a bit modest compared to the untamed worlds of Schwartz and Rot, but I have to admit that this pleasantly relentless album won me over by the end. (guest review by AQ pal Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker)
First, before we get into the review, we should mention that this double lp is housed in an oversized French paper hand silk-screened jacket. While it's a beautiful package, the combination of its oversized shape and the delicacy of the material means it's prone to damage in shipping, and of course all the copies we have received arrived a bit bent up. The label has no replacement covers so this is all we're going to get. We've taken a couple dollars off the price to compensate a bit, but those who are more fastidious about the shape of their vinyl sleeves, might want to steer clear of this, as we won't be able to replace them. Sorry about that!
But WOW!, this is a beautiful double lp live set from 1972 by the late experimental kosmiche composer, Conrad Schnitzler. Salvaged from decaying tapes of a performance for an art exhibition, the sounds on this are like a multifaceted sci-fi ballet. The coordination of individual electronic sounds operating in harmonic tandem of each other showcases a brilliant array of synthesis and restraint, while at the same time emanating a warm centrally vibrant core. For some reason in some of our minds we always have this impression that Conrad Schnitzler was the most abstract and cold of the German musicians of this period, but lately with each new reissue that becomes available, that impression is proven wrong time and time again. This is a gorgeous set, as essential as any of his key recordings from this era. And as usual, crazy limited, ONLY 1000 COPIES and at this point almost gone so act fast!
Here's an unexpected set of reissues: vinyl versions of two classic krautrock albums by electronica pioneer Conrad Schnitzler. They're legit, done from master tapes we're told.
"Rot" (Red) was Con's amazing 1973 solo debut. Intense science-fictional bleep-drone, with ironic titles like (side one) "Meditation" and even "Krautrock" (side two). It's totally dark (but a little silly too). The Plate Lunch cd reissue of this we used to stock is now out of print, so that makes this new LP version even more essential. Of course, this vinyl reissue is pressed on red wax, in a red sleeve.
Ten thousand cheers to Captain Trip Records for reissuing all five of Conrad Schnitzler's Color Albums. Originally available only in private pressings, and only sporadically available since then, this cycle included his first solo albums and his first forays into purely electronic music. Before these, Schnitzler had already been a founding member of Tangerine Dream and Kluster (who renamed themselves Cluster after Schnitzler's departure).
His first 'solo' album, Schwartz, is technically the third Kluster album, a trio improvisation by Schnitzler, Moebius and Roedelius -- and was actually reissued as such on cd in the '90s as Eruption. Similar in sound to the first two albums, we hear a variety of traditional instruments (cellos, drums, guitars, organs) played in the most rudimentary manner possible, treating them as raw sources that are then filtered, delayed, and otherwise processed into a bizarre and barely recognizable cavern of pure sound. There actually aren't any synthesizers on this record -- the sounds are all vaguely acoustic in nature, though transformed into something very alien. Whereas their first two albums were commissioned by a Church on the condition that the records also contain strangely religious spoken word texts, this album is purely instrumental -- but more than that, they just get much further out this time -- this is the best of their three records. Though not as compositionally refined as the astonishing Cluster '71 that Moebius and Roedelius would go on to create with Conny Plank, this gains points for audibly being a live performance. A very ahead of its time one at that -- bands are beginning to sound like these records again now, 35 years later -- if you've been spending quality time with Yellow Swans and Skaters cdr-rs recently, you will definitely dig this record from out of their mind Germans playing in a basement 35 years ago, and hitting the source.
This new edition adds a four minute soundcheck from a different trio -- Schnitzler, Freudigmann & Seidel. Otherwise it's identical to the 1997 CD reissue. (guest review by AQ pal Jon "Wobbly" Leidecker)
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Not really new, but I don't think we listed it before. Krautrock/electronica pioneer Schnitzler (original member of Kluster, with a long solo career) sets aside the synths and investigates actual piano sounds on this release. Of course, these compositions are not humanly playable--a computer has assisted with the process. Kind of an update on Conlon Nancarrow's player piano pieces, or doing for piano playing what drum and bass programming does for human drumming... Insane stuff, but not utterly chaotic--this is really melodic and quite musical. Schnitzler, indeed, remains a genius.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
The history behind this particular Conrad Schnitzler track is a little vague. Supposedly, Zug is also known as the "Red Cassette" which the German electronic pioneer self-released in 1973 (some say 1974). M=Minimal reissued one of the two 20 minute cuts from that tape as Zug, and fleshing out the rest of the vinyl with two remixes - one from glitched-dub expert Pole and another from Borngraber & Struver. Both of those remixes are reprised on this cd, but Ricardo Villalobos & Max Loderbauer are the artists who get the marquee treatment by having their names affixed to the title. A little strange, yes, but don't let the lack of parity dissuade you from this fine remix collection of one of the most influential electronic artists of the post-Krautrok era. Schnitzler's history has been well mapped here at aQuarius, so we'll merely mention his inspired involvement in Tangerine Dream and Kluster. Villalobos & Loderbauer recently wowed us with their abstract recontextualization of ECM chamber jazz. On the first remix here they adopt more of a motorik / minimalist techno vibe that fits with the taut rhythms that Schniztler embedded into that old tape; and the second spins Schnitzler's dystopian synth drones into a clattering decentered piece more reminiscent of the New Zealand outsider Omit (who really would make for a stellar artist for M=Minimal to reissue!). Pole's remix shifts the rhythm to the offbeat, plenty of percolating metallic tones and ghostly filigrees of digital debris; but the clear winner of all of these remixes is from the previously unknown duo of Borngraber & Struver, who snap the darkest, nastiest swells of Schnitzler's synth patches onto a techno-noir grid that reconnects the Detroit / Berlin axis of techno all over again through the mid-tempo 909 thump and locomotive samples. As good as the other three remixes are, Borngraber & Struver tap a vein most in keeping with Schnitzler's grim futurism. Totally worth the price of admission just for that one track!
NOW ALSO ON VINYL!
The history behind this particular Conrad Schnitzler track is a little vague. Supposedly, Zug is also known as the "Red Cassette" which the German electronic pioneer self-released in 1973 (some say 1974). M=Minimal recently reissued a collection of Zug remixes, a couple of which had already appeared on vinyl before; but now the excellent remixes from Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer get now appear on vinyl. Schnitzler's history has been well mapped here at aQuarius, so we'll merely mention his inspired involvement in Tangerine Dream and Kluster. Villalobos & Loderbauer recently wowed us with their abstract recontextualization of ECM chamber jazz. On the first remix here they adopt more of a motorik / minimalist techno vibe that fits with the taut rhythms that Schniztler embedded into that old tape; and the second spins Schnitzler's dystopian synth drones into a clattering decentered piece more reminiscent of the New Zealand outsider Omit (who really would make for a stellar artist for M=Minimal to reissue!). Download card included!
So often you might read about an album we carry here at Aquarius that sounds as if it were recorded in a bunker, a tomb, a sewer, a cave, a warehouse, or some other nasty, gritty space whose nastiness and grittiness seeps into the recording itself. As much as we would like for each of those times we make such allusions to be true, it's actually quite rare that musicians would record an album in such a location. Conrad Schnitzler and Wolfgang Seidel have done just that, as they brought a bunch of synthesizers down to an abandoned cellar at the Tempelhof Airport in Berlin to record this excellent set of Kosmische electronic blorp. Schnitzler, of course, is a Krautrock legend having worked with the earliest incarnations of Tangerine Dream and the first sessions in Kluster (before the K became a C), and moving on to producing some of the finest examples of claustrophobic proto-electronica from the Krautrock era (e.g. Con and Ballet Statique). Seidel had worked with Schnitzler in the aforementioned Kluster as well as Eruption way back in the day, with sporadic collaborations throughout the past couple of decades. It's impossible to tell who's doing what on this recording of oblique electronic mashings that are equally psychedelic and claustrophobic. Warbling structures of algorithmically complex patterns get torn apart with thrumming electronic noises, weird semi-melodic clunkery, and mad-scientist erratic behaviors. Consequenz 010B is a full 65 minutes in length, but it's limited to 250 copies of which we have limited stock.
We were so saddened by the recent passing of krautrock legend Conrad Schnitzler, a one-time member of both Tangerine Dream and Kluster, who then went on to create one of THEE most incredible bodies of solo work of perhaps any of the krautrockers. This record is not so much a proper Schnitzler record, as it is a strange sort of collaboration. It seems that Schnitzler was forever recording sounds from his many electronic synthesizers, creating an expansive music library, from which all of these sounds were taken. Borngraber and Struver, who run the M=Minimal label, were afforded the opportunity to go through Schnitzler's library, and create a series of new compositions, and Con-Struct is the result.
It's difficult to suss out how much of this is pure Schnitzler, and how much of it is Borngraber & Struver, but really it hardly matters, much of this definitely sounds like a Schnitzler record, the krautrock vibe is big, but there's also definitely a sort of minimal techno vibe, the record opens with a gorgeous stretch of deep buzzing pulses and percolating rhythms, the mood haunting and slightly sinister, all laced with swirls of electronics and thick swells of rumbling whir, before giving way to the following track, which has more of a Kompakt vibe to it. But even here, that minimal techno rhythm is wreathed in swirls of dark layered thrum, and mournful minor key melodies, the sound trancelike and cyclical, which is how most of the record plays out, each track essentially a simple looped arrangement, the core sound and rhythm repeated for the length of the track, while the various elements shift gradually, and all around it various sounds swirl and shimmer. Our only complaint really is that all of the tracks could have been stretched WAY out, and turned into epics even more trancey and hypnotic.
But overall, the mood is surprisingly dark and haunting, the occasional almost house-y rhythm or skittery groove, does little to take away from the record's darkly cast sonic shadows, the swirling low end, the rumbling drones, the thick bassy buzz, the melancholy melodies, it's pretty much the perfect slab of dark minimal rhythmic krautdrone mesmer.
You never know quite what you're going to get with a Klaus Schulze record. Well, you know you 're gonna get long and alienlike synthscapes, but you never know where or how Schulze's particular eccentricies are going to manifest themselves. Not sure if Blackdance was reissued out of chronological order or we are just reviewing it late but after having reviewed Irrlicht, Cyborg and Timewind, we jump back a year before Timewind to 1974. Maybe this makes sense because out of the four, Blackdance is the most different, it's slightly warmer, more playful and there is much more weird stuff happening. Of course the tracks are still epically long, but beneath the synth-drones we find a lot more rhythms, bongos and drums, acoustic guitars, a lot more propulsive phasing, electronic squiggles and just in general much more movement than the previously reviewed records. By the third track, we hear some Gregorian chanting before some pulsing and clicking rhythms appear to duel with the church-y organ cycles. But it's the two bonus tracks that set this release apart from the rest. "Foreplay" has a sci-fi epic-ness to it as it sounds like the arrival of a giant spaceship preparing to battle backed by choir like synth-voices and explosive rumblings. And the strangely titled "Synthies Have (No) Balls?" is full throttle heavy organ drone with pitch-shifted synth phases and spectacular drumming that is Schulze's most rocking outing we've heard yet. Pretty awesome!
Well, it's about fucking time. The quintessential space-drone-komische-psychedelic headtrip has finally been reissued. Cyborg is one of those albums like the first couple Os Mutantes albums or Comus' First Utterance or Amon Duul II's Yeti that should NEVER go out of print, yet due to negligence or contractual issues or what have you, there have occasionally been times where those sorts of record do disappear, which then forces us to hop up on our soap boxes and holler until somebody makes it right.
Curiously enough, Klaus Schulze began his musical escapades as a drummer, first in Ash Ra Tempel and then communing in the early incarnations of Tangerine Dream; but his solo work is solely electronic. Moogs, mellotrons, and all types of synthesizers became part of his increasing arsenal for his sprawling electronic compositions; but in many ways, Schulze's best work was composed through simpler means. Cyborg, like its equally impressive predecessor Irrlicht, is a relatively sparse affair of floating electronic patterns, tones, and drones, without really hiding Schulze's admiration of Wagner's compositional grandreur and weighty moods. In framing the album about technology infiltrating the human condition, Schulze alternates between a sense of wonder, heralded by technology's promise of progress, and a sense of horror, with technology absorbing humanity within that drive for progress, whatever that may mean. It's an emotionally dymanic yet ultimately sinister record, and one that clearly has influenced hundreds if not thousands of electronic musicians since it's original release back in 1973. Brian Eno, Pete Namlook, Omit, Wolfgang Voigt, and Troum would be the artists we could cite as being hugely influenced by Schulze's work.
With the reissue of Cyborg with its four sprawling tracks of electronic scintillation, Schulze has fleshed out this double cd with a fantastic bonus track that's well over 50 minutes long! Even without that hefty bonus track, Cyborg was brilliant back then, and it's still brilliant today.
Wow! We are so excited that this has been put back into print. Klaus Schulze has an extremely extensive back catalog, and sometimes it can feel a bit overwhelming as to how to navigate it and where you should begin. With Irrlicht once again available we say that answer becomes a little easier. This was his very first solo album which he recorded in 1972 shortly after he left his stint drumming for legendary Krautrockers Ash Ra Tempel (he was also was the drummer in the earliest and maybe greatest incarnation of Tangerine Dream.) After stepping away from the drum-kit Schulze found where he really was most comfortable, and that was behind his elaborate setup of keyboards. With the advent of the Moog, and his mastery of the organ, Schulze was interested in making a new kind of music. Electronic music that was oozing with atmosphere, tension and sensuality. When Schulze was making this record he was heavily under the influence of Musique Concrete along with some other things we are sure! He had a damaged amplifier at the time which would break out into internal feedback when he turned up its volume control. He also went to a large classical orchestra in Berlin where we was allowed to attend a rehearsal that he recorded and then played backwards throughout Irrlicht. For an artists who would go one to make so many more records this still stands as one of, if not his greatest (even though it actually pre-dates his adoption of the Moog synth as instrument of choice!). Along with Cluster, Eno and Kraftwerk, Schulze stands as one of the fathers of electronic music as we know it. What's also so amazing about this record is how you could imagine so many of our favorite black metal bands hearing this and it seeping its way into the more moody/damaged elements of their records. The eerie ambiance of many Burzum and Striborg records can be heard in the totally intense undertones of Irrlicht. Thanks in part to many of the limitations that he was facing back then, there is an eerie and majestic presence to this album. Sometimes beat up organs, messed up amplifiers, and youthful enthusiasm stand the test of time. Especially when the person behind the controls had this amazing knack for creating eerie, haunting otherworldly sounds.
This reissue comes in a nice digipack with liner notes in both German and English, some in the form of an interview with KS himself. And, there's a 24 minute long bonus track called "Dungeon"! It's not necessarily from the Irrlicht sessions, in fact no-one seems to know exactly when or where it's from (other than somwhere in Europe, early '70s), but it's agreed that it's more early Klaus Schulze dronework that needs to be heard...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Well, here is yet another monumental two cd Klaus Schulze reissue from Revisited who have previously reissued Irrlicht from 1972 and Cyborg from 1973. This time around we'll spare you Schulze's back story as you can read more about it in the above mentioned reviews.
Klaus Schulze's fifth album Timewind, his 1975 debut for Virgin Records has long been considered, in some circles, his masterwork. Yet quantifying Schulze's immense output in such a way is a difficult and slippery task. Surely signing to Virgin introduced him to a wider audience, but Timewind is hardly any more "accessible" than his prior output nor is it the kind of precedent to New Age music that you would expect from the label who released Tubular Bells. Dedicated to Richard Wagner, Timewind's two sidelong pieces further explore Schulze's fascination with starkly sensual and droning soundscapes, where icy synth pulsations converge with long tonal organ flights until these overlapping rhythms simultaneously gain and decrease in momentum becoming slowly bubbling Moog passages with shimmering electric washes. Like a windy barren landscape on some depopulated planet, Schulze's compositions read like epics of a post-human technological future. Included is a second bonus disc of two long unreleased tracks recorded around the same time and one recently recorded track that harkens back to a sound more affiliated with the late seventies output of Schulze's former band-mates in Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel, which means it's awesome!
Also available on (import only) vinyl!
It's pretty obvious why the folks at B-music (like DJs Andy Votel and Dom Thomas) dig these particular collectible exploito obscurities so much, and why they're so excited to be reissuing 'em in their new "Germanic Miner" series dedicated to "krautsider music"! What could be more B-musical than these two faux soundtracks concocted in the late sixties by a couple of creative German producers, operating at the weird, wacked out intersection of kitschy library music and freaky krautrock? One's a slice of slinky, sorta-scary "horrotica", the other a spaced out sci-fi fest for the Barbarella set. Both are delirious, demented party-pleasers.
The Vampires Of Dartmoore and their Dracula's Music Cabinet conjures a sexy frightmare of hip swinging, bloodsucking sounds. "Mord Im Ohio Express (Murder In The Ohio Express)" seems kinda surfy, but mostly this is about groovy porno lounge music, with smoky horns and jazzy percussion, interwoven with screams and creepy sound effects, moaning and groaning, dogs barking and something going boing boing boing... It's a very NON-academic application of musique concrete technique, noises worked into the songs, such as the rumbling explosions that punctuate "Eine Handvoll Nitro (A Handful Of Nitro)". The mix is fairly chaotic, stuff fading in and out, levels up and down. If this WAS a movie soundtrack, it would have been a pretty crazy movie. Tracks reference Hitchcock, Dr. Caligari, and Frankenstein's monster. And sex. Definitely sex.
Equally bizarre, if less R-rated, is the Science Fiction Dance Party. Again, it's groovy, jazzy, sometimes fuzzy "instro-hipster" style stuff, laced with loads of goofy outer space sound effects and rocketship radio drama theatrics. It sounds like music for a cocktail party and/or acid test on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. You can imagine Robbie the Robot getting down to this. Distorted alien and/or computer voices abound, song titles include "Visitors Of A.D. 2022", "The Whistling Astronaut", and "Hit Parade In The Light Year 25" (which doesn't even make sense, don't they know that light years are a measure of distance?). As well as whistling, there's some screams here too, as spacemen are presumably being zapped with rayguns, but the music remains jaunty. Even the song "Death Rays Out Of The Universe" is inexplicably upbeat. So, it's all very silly, but a lot of fun.
Both albums feature bonus tracks (2 previously unreleased "Petting Party" jams on Vampires, 4 extra tracks on Science Fiction that come back to earth to delve into disco and Eastern exotica instead). The slipcased cds of these are now domestic releases (we waited instead of getting the expensive imports) but the LP versions remain imports.
**SALE **SALE* *SALE**
Just realized that this '70s metal essential was now available at a bargain price - we've got 'em for only five bucks, while they last! From 1978, long before their MTV fame in the '80s, this was the last studio album by the Scorps to feature the guitar playing of Hendrix-obsessed genius-in-his-own-right Uli Jon Roth, and it features one of Uli's most classic compositions: "The Sails Of Charon", a truly majestic metal milestone. The whole album is a metal milestone, really, 'cause it's one on which you can actually hear "proto-metal" giving way to pure metal metal, the kind that would give rise to the NWOBHM, Metallica, speed metal, thrash, etc., etc., via straight up galloping metal steeds, like "Steamrock Fever" and "He's A Woman - She's A Man". The Scorps, who got their start in the '60s, are still sorta psychedelic on Taken By Force, but so heavy and dark and speedy and gothic. Groovy hippie acoustic strum slams into utter heavy howling headbanging epic riff mania all over the place here. Uli, "The Sails Of Charon" aside, is responsible for most of the hippie stuff, of course, contributing "Foxy Lady" like rocker "I've Got To Be Free" and the beautiful (with bongos!) "Your Light", some majestic jangle there all right. And having mentioned Uli, we should also mention vocalist Klaus Meine, whose performance here also kills, whether screaming his head off, or singing a delicate, tearful ballad (with strings) like album-closer "Born To Touch Your Feelings".
For the longest time, this was a difficult Scorpions disc to come by, we remember searching out expensive import copies, so if you're just picking it up now you're lucky to get it so cheap! And it'd be well worth it at thrice the price, or more, anyway. We can't really do it justice in this brief review. '70s Scorps rules!
Remastered, this edition including two bonus tracks, the cowbell-heavy "Suspender Love" and a live version of "Polar Nights" (but the latter's from Tokyo Tapes, so not such a bonus if you already have that).
Obscure reissues like this really make our day. This disc brings to light German brothers Eckhart und Wolf-J.'s experiments in instrumental electronic music circa 1971-73, a la early Kraftwerk, Kluster, Conrad Schnitzler, and the Silver Apples... Short, freeky pieces done with home-built synths in some Dusseldorf basement. Give me weirdo D.I.Y. krautrock electronics like this over the output of today's laptop dorks any day!
Few artists' music can guarantee to brighten your days and nights the way Atom Heart (and his numerous aliases) can. Any new release from this fella is received with a huge aQ grin! If you dug the recent Yellow Magic Fever tribute from the always deliriously delightful Senor Coconut and Los Negritos' Speed-Merengue Mega-Mix, you know what we're talking about and you definitely won't wanna miss these freshly reissued earlier Senor Coconut releases including this, his awesome Kraftwerk tribute! Even if you got 'em the first time around, heck, we're sure you know somebody who'd benefit from this festive treat!
Back in 2000, we had this to say about El Baile Aleman: Senor Coconut is actually the guy better known as techno/electronica artist Atom Heart. He's moved to Chile and gone all Latin and groovy on us. However, all the songs on this (high-) concept album are Kraftwerk covers! So this joins a long line of weird and wonderful tributes to Kraftwerk. Soon we'll be able to have a whole bin at Aquarius dedicated to such endeavors: the Balenescu Quartet one, the Terre Thaemlitz one, the one with all the Slovenian acts, the Japanese import one, the Miami Bass one, etc. etc. Anyways, so incredibly executed down to the tiniest detail, this one will sit at the top of the heap! Super duper fun.
Silberbart's one-off LP from 1971, with its non sequitur of a bleeding silver gnome on the cover, is one of those heavy krautrock rarities spoken of in hushed tones, in record-collector tomes like Cosmic Dreams At Play ("...legendary...extreme...") and the equally authoritative Crack In The Cosmic Egg ("...excellent...schizophrenic..."). It's desirable in part 'cause it's so darn obscure, yes. But also 'cause it IS heavy. In a loose and demented, frayed and jangled, utterly freakish way. The four tracks here (long ones, with great titles demonstrating Silberbart's psychedelic illogic: "Chub Chub Cherry", "Brain Brain", "God", "Head Tear Of The Drunken Sun") are crazy quilt of distorted guitar riffing, acid-fried songwriting, and unusually frantic, strangled vocals. The band's hippie power trio psych is played with an escaped lunatic's "what's next?" abandon, making for progged-out, crooked-grinning, drug-induced weirdness that deservedly garners comparisons to early Guru Guru.
Compact disc reissues of this have always been hard to come by. But we found a small supply and thought that there had to be some AQ customers who've always been curious about 4 Times Sound Razing...it's not exactly a work of genius but it's odd enough to please a few of you we wager!
Are you ready to don beads and burlap and grow out your hair and fly with the "Acid Eagle" on the "Aluminum Wind"?? If so, Siloah would love for you to join their musical quest for "Krishna's Golden Dope Shop" (yes, these phrases in quotes are all song titles from this record -- and let's not forget "Yellow Puppets Hanging In The Sky") which you can certainly do in your imagination at least by spinning this cd reissue of their self-titled LP from 1970. It's not a recent release but we were just able to get more and wanted to finally list it because it's just such a wonderful record of primitive, psychedelic Krautrock like we like it. Anyone who dug the Kalacakra album (also reissued on Garden Of Delights) or Paternoster ought to make Siloah's acquaintance! These German hippies' druggy jamming makes the original Amon Duul sound like American Idol contestants. Well, not really. But this is really wasted, lovely, LSD-damaged, communal soundmaking we can't imagine anyone could do better, ever, if at all. The Siloah vibe is eternal and unique. Mellow, mantric songs featuring hand percussion, guitar, flute, and electric bass, and high, muppety vocals singing tripped-out lyrics (as the awesome song titles already mentioned might indicate). This one's a fave of several AQ staffers, and we happen to know that it's also highly regarded by our friends in the Jewelled Antler collective who only wish they could get as high as these folks!!
While there is no shortage of vintage kraut worship going on these days, Germany's Kreidler are one of the groups who have been doing their country's rich '70s underground music scene proud, since they formed in the late '90s. In fact their last outing, Tank, might even be our favorite record from them yet. So when we found out that Kreidler's drummer Thomas Klein had a new solo project, we were super curious and excited.
And we're happy to report that Klein has delivered the goods, as this record is filled with a hypnotic and suspenseful tone which takes us to a dark underworld filled with tribal beats, dubbed out repetition, and kraut like precision and intensity. There is no doubt that Klein's playing comes out of the direct lineage to the krautrock forefathers that so influenced the sound of Kreidler, and his drumming in particular. We think of Jaki Liebezeit (Can), Mani Neumeier (Guru Guru), and Klaus Dinger (Neu). But we could also see this record really appealing to everyone who has been going crazy for all the great John Carpenter/Goblin worship that's been coming out lately like Zombi, Majeure, Umberto, and Jonas Reinhardt. One of those records that gets people asking what is playing whenever we have it blasted on the stereo in the store. So good!
The Andy Votel-affilated Finders Keepers label rarely, if ever, disappoints. They've brought us "Welsh Rare Beat", Jean-Claude Vannier, The Yamasuki Singers, etc., etc. Yep, Finders Keepers dig the crates like nobody's business, coming up with some incredible, unheralded psych/prog/funk gems to reissue. That brings us to Gluckskugel, a very interesting n' entertaining first-time-on-cd collection of music by Germany's Bruno Spoerri, whom we're told is an electronic, musique-concrete composer with Can connections. He certainly made a whole bunch of far-out, fun sounds in the '70s, ranging from rejected TV themes to experimental film soundtracks to industry demos, as documented here. Weird, wild, kinda kitschy! Sometimes augmenting his arsenal of electronics and tape loopings are live jazz/funk musicians, resulting in plenty of percolating, analog-synth laden grooves that recall the work of Goblin or John Carpenter (without the fright factor). Or, Spoerri would work alone at home with his musical gizmos, producing, for instance, the aptly titled "Drillin'" from 1971, using an early-model Japanese drum machine to great effect (and to the annoyance of his family). This comes packaged with cool photos and track-by-track liner notes by Spoerri himself, who promises that more unreleased music of similar vintage might be forthcoming, if he can find the tapes!
Pretty sure that most of the times we've listed a disc by our favorite Finnish post/prog/space rock band Circle we've made reference to rhythmic krautrock masters Can somewhere in our review. Circle and Can both cast similar spells of hypnosis upon the listener, and Can certainly are one of Circle's ancestral inspirations. So it was perhaps destined that members of Circle would someday, somehow collaborate with someone from Can. And it happened. In 2003, at the Jyrock Festival in Finland, former Can vocalist Damo Suzuki (the singer on such classic Can LPs as Ege Bamyasi, Tago Mago and Future Days), who has been travelling the globe for many years now, playing with various impromptu units of young, Can-lovin' musicians under the rubric of Damo Suzuki's Network, shared the stage with three from Circle: Jyrki Laiho (Circle, Hot Guitars, Stalwart, etc.) on guitar, Jussi Lehtisalo (Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, Ektroverde, etc.) on bass, and Mika Ratto (Circle, Ektroverde, Ratto Ja Lethisalo, etc.) on drums. Guitarist Jorge Ledezma from the Chicago based band Defender was also on hand, presumably 'cause he was touring with Damo. In a fifty one minute, continuous improvised performance these guys provide a churning, freaked out, darkly cosmic backing for Damo's echoed and energetic yet spaced-out vocal exhortations. Of course, there was no way that Circle mainman Jussi wouldn't want to document this event for posterity, so now here we have the cd on Jussi's Ektro label entitled 3 Dead People After The Performance. Hope that's not really true, though I'm sure that there are indeed people in this world that would at least die happy after seeing their heroes perfoming together!
Tangerine Dream's second album from 1971. While it is a bit spacier and more synth-based than predecessor "Electronic Meditation", it's structurally much the same as the first, with lots of moody dark improv drones weaving and building into mad psychedelic rock jams. Mostly the change apparent here is that various synths and organs move to the fore while guitars, flute and drums hang out in the back, only dominating the sound in the loudest, rocking passages. This domestic reissue includes a bonus track, "Ultima Thule Part 1", an epic rocking single the group released in 1971. This one's also remastered, w/ slipcase, & liner notes from noted krauthead Julian Cope.
Armed with a Radio Shack's worth of new electronic toys, including the then new Mellotron, Tangerine Dream begins to sound a weensy bit closer to their eventual state of synthesizedness. But I stress the word "weensy" here, as Atem (1973) finds Tangerine Dream still well ensconced in the same psychedelic free-rock realm as their previous three albums (Electronic Meditation, Alpha Centauri, and Zeit). Bizzare vocal effects aside, a smattering of guitar and percussion are all that remain of the acoustic age of Tangerine Dream -- flute having been replaced by Edgar Froese's Mellotron replication of them. Along with Froese's new beast, the group's new artillery included a couple EMS VCS3 Synthesizers for Baumann and Franke. The resulting sound is even more atmospheric and whispy than ever. The title track, a twenty minute meandering opus, is perhaps the most similar to their earlier sound, with its pounding drums steadily increasing in volume and speed during the first part of the piece. But even there the percussion is no match for the enslaught of multiple organs and synthesizers with their ever building chords which drown out the drums before settling into a dark, ethereal soundscape. "Fauni-Gena" is almost like Tangerine Dream's take on Pink Floyd's "Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict", but heavier on the synths. The last track -- "Wahn" -- is probably the greatest anomaly in Tangerine Dream's ouvre, in which the trio practice their extended vocal techniques, laden with echo and accompanied by frenzied percussion and synths. This domestic reissue, like the others, comes remastered, with a slip case and liner-notes (though this time not by Julilan Cope, but by one Paul Russell.)
For those who still associate Tangerine Dream with sequencer dependent proto-nu-age music, here are a few domestic reissues of their crucial early albums which should dispel any further mistaken assumptions. Originally released in 1970, Tangerine Dream's first album "Electronic Meditation" is a totally way-out-there psychedelic tour de force featuring mainstay Edgar Froese, plus Klaus Schulze and Conrad Schnitzler -- kind of a krautrock supergroup though they didn't know it at the time! From improvised dark drones of amplified cello, electric guitar, flute, organ and drums to blasts of freak out noise to psychedelic fuzzed-out freak-out rock jams. Electronic Meditation is equal parts Algarnas Tradgrad and early Kraftwerk. Remastered, w/ slipcase, & liner notes from krauthead Julian Cope. Definitely a krautrock classic.
Fewer things could bring more delight for us kraut and space prog heads than a 2cd anthology of Tangerine Dream rarities compiled by Edgar Froese, and for such an affordable price! Froese, the one mainstay of the band through 13 different lineups (the band including in their ranks at one time both Conrad Schnitzler and Klaus Schulze), has provided a compelling overview of the musical evolution of the band from their psychedelic roots to their later period as electronic film score stalwarts and everywhere in between.
The double disc set begins way back before TD, with their 1967 pre-incarnation 7" single as The Ones, a band more rooted in the sixties psychedelic rock of Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead than the spacey sounds they embraced later on. But the real highlight of this set is the inclusion of TD's rare first 7" single from 1971, "Ultima Thule", an epic two part space rock excursion that begins in stratospheric Hawkwind territory in part one, but in part two takes a Magma like instrumental prog trajectory, that prefigures the minimal electronic direction the band would take through records like Electronic Meditation, Zeit and Alpha Centauri. The rest of disc one explores these sci-fi themed gaseous realms of gorgeous brooding ambience.
Disc two covers the bands' later, mostly early eighties output, which saw the band more as composers of action film music with a definte increase in rhythms and sequencers, but still with a spacey electronic edge. While John Carpenter may get all the credit as progenitor of all the latter day eighties arpeggiated synth worshippers like Jonas Reinhardt, Majeure, James Ferraro, and Umberto, Tangerine Dream was equally influential in this regard. A lot of the later period Tangerine Dream output can be sometimes cheesy, but the careful curation of this compilation shows there were also plenty of gems as well. This may prove to rethink the general attitude that TD had completely lost the plot, when they started turning to film score commissions, and rhythmic dance music in the eighties and nineties.
With one or two exceptions, most of this music here, as far as we can tell, has not been released on any of their major records, but there is little information to tell if these tracks ever saw proper release at all. So this is a very worthy exploration for the newly curious as well as for seasoned fans. Highly Recommended!!!!
Tangerine Dream's third album, originally released as a double LP in 1972. Zeit is probably the most subdued album of Tangerine Dream's early career. Apparently Edgar Froese canned bandmate Steve Schroyder after the release of Alpha Centauri, citing one too many "freak outs" which apparently rubbed the mellow Froese's fur the wrong direction (according to the liner notes here, Schroyder ended up joining the much more freak out friendly Ash Ra Temple upon his departure from Tangerine Dream.) Not surprisingly, Zeit is a much MELLOWER album than the band's previous two releases -- and even mellower than their fourth album, Atem. The album begins with the slowly morphing droning of a cello quartet, augmented by Froese on moog. It's probably the single most non-God Speed You Black Emperor recording that we get people asking "Is this God Speed You Black Emperor?" when we play it. It just goes to show how, almost thirty years after its initial release, Zeit still sounds fresh as the day it was recorded. Even the bubbling moog synth centered "Origin Of Supernatural Probabilities" has none of the cheesy proto-nuage trappings of Tangerine Dream's later works. Heavy on atmosphere and almost devoid of melody, the four album side songs that make up Zeit are some of the darkest -- and arguably, best -- material recorded by Tangerine Dream. And, like all the others in thise reissue series, this one comes remastered with a handsome slip cover and liner notes (which mostly consist of a blow by blow account of the album's contents that you can read along to as you listen and either agree, disagree, or agree to disagree with the author over their accuracy) by Paul Russell.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
3 krautrock albums (from groups you may want to first sample on the "Unknown Deutschland" comps, see below) that were supposedly issued in the 70s in tiny editions of, like, 50 copies or something. The Pyramid album sole track is a mysterious 35-minutes of spacy drone with mellotron, moogs, and Tibetan bells. The Nazgul cd, our favorite of the three, is from 1975 and features 4 long tracks of droning ambience that's easily as good as any current space rock outfit could put together; i.e. Magnog, Labradford or anything else on Kranky. Bonus weirdness: the bandmembers are named Frodo, Gandalf, and Pippin.
