Saturday, April 07, 2007

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.

Download

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.

Download

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.

Download

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"!

Download

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.

Download


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.

Download

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.

Download

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.

Download

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.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

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!!!

23 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, I'm the first here to thank you for this post ! I think I like your archives... Completely unknown gems (except the AD2, that I already had, a great one) with a lot of interesting things to ear.
Thanx, Garcolga, it's great !!!

Outerpsych

9:22 AM, April 07, 2007  
Blogger fuzztunnel said...

thanks--- been wondering about that Golem album for quite some time!

10:15 AM, April 07, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I really just can't keep up with all your posts, I'm still trying to absorb the last bundle! I think you must be pleased with all the comments you got before, this really does make the blog more interesting and I like reading them. I like Red Dirt the most so far and I found really amusing the comment about the band invading a friend's house after the gig, I can just picture the scene with the parents. Happy Easter vacation! - Julie

10:59 AM, April 07, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Love me 8 DAYS IN APRIL!!!

5:48 PM, April 07, 2007  
Blogger GarColga said...

Hi Outerpsych!

Hi fuzztunnel!

Hi Julie! Try to keep up willya?

Hi anonymous - man you need some new material.

5:56 PM, April 07, 2007  
Blogger Betelgeuse said...

Hi garcolga!i don't know that you are come back!i'm so glad!Why don't you visit my blog?you are really welcome!bye!

6:08 PM, April 07, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You've got great stuff posted in your archives!
Thanks garcolga.

10:37 PM, April 07, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Whoa! These are some SWEET jams!

8:45 PM, April 08, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is incredible stuff. The cream of the crop without a doubt. Ive been following this blog for quite a while but I missed necronomicon, golem and brave new world, cant wait to listen to them now.
Thanks,
Gordon

7:18 AM, April 10, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Message is a really great piece of easy listening music, as you was writing. Thus it's a pity that they didn't became famous.

6:53 AM, April 11, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Message simply blows me away! Thanks for htis one!

2:14 AM, April 12, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

goodo garcolga.. live kraan, yummy, country joe, definite space case music.. 'member a hippie friend put them on in his lounge first time i ever heard them, truly bent.. s'all been done before is what you gotta say to lotta today's music.. with the exception of the electronic natch, technology has its limitations.. though it's still funny people preferring analogues to digital for the warmer sound.. and a thanks for the siloah, for curiosity value, anyway.. not much of an admirer of those early amon duul albums to be honest, load of clatter is how they sound to me.. with the occasional wisp of melody lighting the proceedings, but a subtle tweak sometimes can make all the difference, witness, kalacakra.. holderlin's real nice band..their clowns one sounds a lot like genesis.. get tired of all that damned rock 'n roll sometimes, which is why they invented krautrock, i guess.. take care garcolga, you're still posting live ones.. anthony

3:27 PM, April 13, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Message,amezing stuff!Thank You,thank You and THANK YOU:)

Mirasleep

3:15 AM, April 14, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you for Tortilla Flat.
It"s a great jazzrock.

9:04 AM, June 14, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for sharing these two LPs of Hairy Chapter. I have been searching for them since a long time, but no luck until I came upon your blog. So thanks again.
After listening them a couple of times I think "Eyes" is rather lame (though not bad either). But "Can't get through" is really great and deserves its reputation as one of the masterpieces of German hard rock.

Thanks and greetings from Galiza!!

11:40 PM, June 25, 2007  
Blogger Residentevil2 said...

Thanks again great posts

7:00 AM, July 27, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thank you very much wonderful postage. "Gate Live" was really seeking for that material that here was not in the post in general.
thank you very much.
Taking advantage of this space would like to ask very earnestly that posted ditch
the series "Psychedelic Gems" that marvelously back the memory gigantic of the kraut no thrown in singles. I hope soon sees those preciousness posted here.
A great hug. PHSStudiosRJ_Brazil

10:13 AM, August 01, 2007  
Blogger micksguitar said...

thanx for all your hard work. believe me it is appreciated by many,even if most don't leave a comment.so i say it for most thanx very much. mick

9:58 PM, August 01, 2007  
Blogger likedeeler said...

Hola Garcolga, Düde Dürst is really great! And I picked up the Gäa - Auf der Bahn zum Uranus a while ago, also excellent. If you ever feel the need to rip the latter at high bitrate, let us know! All the best, Likedeeler

6:56 AM, August 05, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I understand the Golem album was possibly considered a forgery (a fake)???

Thanks for all those great postings.

4:33 AM, August 30, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Tortilla flat was a real suprise. Thank you!

9:07 AM, September 15, 2007  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Holy necro-comment,

It's alive - the Yeti link is anyway. Vielen Dank.

Happy New Year

(Guten Rutsch!)

6:26 AM, January 03, 2010  
Blogger GarColga said...

Guten Rutsch Anon!

6:57 AM, January 03, 2010  

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