FROM THE ARCHIVES!
Rescuing from obscurity some great krautrock that is buried way way back in the archives

Tortilla Flat - Fur Ein 3/4 Stündchen (1975)

I got this off cyberspace a while back, and it's a vinyl rip, as this has never been reissued. German band Tortilla Flat's only album is an instrumental exercise in superb jazz/rock composition combined with tight rhythms and driving rock guitar. Tortilla Flat were a six-piece with flute, electric and acoustic guitar, bass/fuzz bass, drums, percussion, and electric piano. The primary lead instrument here is the flute, with plenty of room given to the Rhodes piano and biting fuzz guitar, while the melodies are bouncy and playful. The seven tracks feature plenty of room for improvisational jamming over complex rhythms while the compositions are memorable and, at times, beautiful.

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Amon Düül II - Yeti (1970)

"Yeti" was Amon Düül II's second album and is among their best. This is Krautrock in all it's immense, epic, primal, psychedelic glory. Originally released as two LP's, this features side-long suites and long improvisations marked by a dense, thick sound with inventive instrumental interplay, massive guitar riffs, herculean bass lines and smoldering vocals, male and female. At first listen some of the long improvisations at the end may seem a little too long, but they grow on you.

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Krokodil - Solo Düde Dürst (1971)

This isn't really a Krokodil album, I guess the label used the name as a selling point. What it is, is a little-known solo project by Krokodil's drummer, Düde Dürst, joined by Krokodil's bass player and others. It's a remarkable drum-based opus, embellished by a wide variety of other instruments, with rock and fusion elements, featuring just two lengthy LP side-long instrumental suites. Highly creative and unique, I like this a lot. My rip @320.

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Brave New World - Impressions On Reading Aldous Huxley (1972)

This little-known gem of Krautrock is a one-shot deal by a group of musicians from Hamburg. Not all of them were German, there is one guy named O'Brien. Largely instrumental, the music has an other-worldly feel to it, and after a couple of atmospheric pieces it really picks up steam. Highlight is the 19 minute
"The End", which is dramatic and ambitious, with some of the coolest chord sequences ever. The piece combines so many aspects - drone jamming, male choirs, saxophone solos, tripped-out effects - that every listen is a new experience. An essential album for the krautrock fan. As it says in the liner notes, "Dig that over-amplified stylophone"!

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Nine Days' Wonder - Nine Days' Wonder (1970)

From the extreme end of the Krautrock spectrum, this is an essential album, though it may not be an easy listen for some. Obviously influenced by Frank Zappa, maybe King Crimson and others, the first release from these guys is marked by excellent musicianship, long free-jazz type passages, sudden tempo changes and complex time signatures.

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Golem - Orion Awakes (1973)

All indications are that Golem's "Orion Awakes" is considered an obscure classic of psychedelia from the German underground scene of the early seventies. Well I don't really know what to make of that. If I even had one microgram of a mind-altering substance in my body, I would be afraid to listen to this thing!. There are no long drawn-out spacy instrumental jams, no songs about love and peace, the emphasis is on trance-inducing, hammering, pulsing, pounding grooves. This is some real wild stuff and deserves a listen. Interestingly, this was produced by one Genesis P Orridge, later of Throbbing Gristle.

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Gäa - Alraunes Alptraum (1973)

Gäa was a suitably cosmic band of German deep-space voyagers who released one brilliant album (Auf Der Bahn Zum Uranus - On The Road To Uranus) to absolutely no acclaim, then broke up. "Alraunes Alptraum" (Mandrake's Nightmare) is a collection of unreleased material that is just as good I think as the stuff on their regular release. Gäa was the real deal, the real Krautrock deal. Enigmatic lyrics sung in German, spacy jams, quiet passages, crescendoes, climaxes, amazing instrumental interplay. If you are remotely interested in Krautrock, you should check this one out.

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Message - From Books And Dreams (1973)

OK some Krautrock! Message was an oddity in the German underground scene in that the band's roots were British. This was the band's follow-up to their excellent debut, "The Dawn Anew Is Coming", and combines a heavy British progressive style with the best of krautrock innovation. I hadn't listened to this for over a year probably until the other day, and I was kinda shocked how much I liked it! This is a real strong album, very energetic.

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Necronomicon - Tips Zum Selbstmord (1972)

More Krautrock! If the band's name doesn't give you a clue, the title translates to something like "How To Commit Suicide" I think, so you have some idea of what we're dealing with here. This is progressive rock that is raw, dark and sinister sounding. There are pleasant, melodic, acoustic bits rubbing shoulders with thundering, aggressive dark rock with some choirs chiming in here and there, all to great effect. Not for everybody, but worth checking out if you are interested in vintage progressive rock. Includes bonus tracks.

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Hairy Chapter - Eyes / Can't Get Through (1970-1971)

"Eyes" from 1970 and "Can't Get Through" from 1971 comprise Hairy Chapter's total recorded output, and both albums are on this disc. "Eyes" is competent psychedelic rock, but "Can't Get Through" recorded a year later with producer Dieter Dierks (later to find fame with The Scorpions) is possibly the best psychedelic album to come out of the early 70's German underground scene. If loud, endless, feedback-drenched guitar solos accompanied by lyrics sung in broken English ("Reality has got to die" according to singer Harry Unte) sounds like something you might be interested in, you need to hear this triumph of uninhibited guitar debauchery by a long-forgotten German band. Guitarist Harry Titlbach was a Teutonic Guitar God whose likes have not been seen since. As Dag Erik Asbjornsen said in his book "Cosmic Dreams at Play", Can't Get Through is "one of those screaming diz, dumbo IQ-reducing monsters that some people can never get enough of."

Part 1 Part 2

All these great albums were posted over a year ago! There's plenty more where these came from, back in the archives, you just gotta look!!!