Manuel Göttsching – "E2-E4" (Inteam GmbH – ID 20.004) 1984

Look backwards from any point in time up to 1970,and some clever dick will always find a long lost Krautrock classic waiting to be hauled up the flag poll as the inventor of any number of Influential,Seminal, or any amount of flattering  superlatives applied to heavily lauded albums such as this,which obviously was Trance before Trance.

Then again, sift backwards trough the marshlands of Kraut,and we can find tracks like the nine adorning this, on most of those Gate-folded Kosmische classics, like Klaus Schulz, Tangerine Dream, ,and various Ex-members of Tangerine Dream, like Klaus Schulz. In fact TD  could and should also be extremely guilty for thousands of British Ravers idiot dancing the week away in some obscure Cow field in Essex,near an exit off the M25 (aka The Magic Roundabout), back in 1988 before the UK Government made it highly illegal. What the Cows did during this process is a mystery, but there was a rumour that a Frisian and an Aberdeen Angus were seen dancing to the moozic, E'd Up, in front of the DJ on one occasion at least .

The difference between Manuel Göttsching and Edgar Froese is that Manuel had a drum machine, and Eddie didn't. Therefore  Göttsching Göt the prize....he,by logical elimination, was guilty of being Trance before Trance.Whether that's anything to brag about is another matter altogether. 

Tracklist:

1.Ruhige Nervosität 13:00
2.Gemäßigter Aufbruch 10:00
3....Und Mittelspiel 7:00
4.Ansatz 1:00
5.Damen-Eleganza 5:00
6.Ehrenvoller Kampf 3:00
7.Hoheit Weicht (Nicht Ohne Schwung...) 9:00
8....Und Souveränität 3:00
9.Remis 3:00

DOWNLOAD this opening gambit for chess and house music HERE!

Paul Kelday – "Dreamscape" (Self released C-46) 1984

This self released C-46 by late great electronic hermit Paul Kelday is called "Dreamscape",which is not a wholly unexpected  experience as it consists of two darkly ambient Dreamscapes on different halves of the width of a cassette tape.

Dunno what i've said before about Kelday's widely distributed yet totally obscure work, but there is plenty of it on here....just do a search,as i'm sure you're aware of,or click here.

There exists a photo here and there of the man himself, and on at least one of them Paul is a dead ringer for David Koresh.......I always try to get a link in for Dave from time to time. However, I would much prefer the Wacko's from Waco got down to some Paul Kelday inspired dark ambient rather than the soft rustbelt metal that Dave 'call me Jesus' Koresh prefered as his medium for spreading the gospel, never mind cajoling his harem of  Mary's to spread their legs and lose their virginity yet again, in an industrial scale bout of parthenogenesis ...usually watched proudly by the ranches' (why do they always live in Ranches?) own stable of quietly weeping cuckolded Joseph's.

Koresh

Kelday

That said, at great risk to my health....there were survivors,and they think i'm an asshole apparently.

If this was made by some long-haired West-German in 1971, it would have attained legendary status by now....still, not too late.....unless you're David Koresh

This is also available on YouTube by the way.

Tracklist:

A1 Reality Fades Away
B1 Dreamscape

DOWNLOAD without losing teeth,falling or walking in the street without any trousers on HERE!

Null & Fred Frith – "Null & Fred Frith" (Nux Organization – NUX-21) 1991

If you can't get Brian Eno for your cred cornering collaboration,the next best thing is to procure the ,cheaper,talents of one Fred Frith late of everyone's favourite post-prog art-rock combo, Henry Cow.He has a natural oblique strategies gland inside his front Brain,and can play at least one instrument,if desired;so no need for Eno's famed pack of cards to ever leave the draw.....unless David Bowie wanted them of course...what David wants David gets.....or steals.

Frith brings a more subtle approach to the noise,and side A sounds more like yer Free Improvisation kind of Noise, a noise with nuances if you will?

Woah...side B goes unexpectedly subtle,verging on the Eno's ambient period,with its floaty textures and Atmospheric noodlings.

Who needs Eno anyway?

Tracklist:

Side A : 20000V Live (27:43)

Side B : Heavens Breath (15:32)

DOWNLOAD my life after beans on toast HERE!

Ashra – "New Age Of Earth" (Virgin – V 2080) 1977

 Now that everybody has posted "E2-E4 as a tribute to the recently dead Krautrock guitar hero Manuel Gottsching,and claimed it as the year zero of Trance....whatever the fuck Trance is? Sounds like House music to me; the genres of which I have no clue or indeed interest. The chess referenced record in question,apart from being rather boring,is just standard Berlin-School type kosmiche with the swirly bits taken out,to a hypnotic drum box beat......is it the drum box that they think started the madness that remains virtually unchanged for the preceding thirty years.This was what happened to nature after the pre-cambrian period,fast evolution then stasis.The dinosaurs remained unchanged for 10's of millions of years,just like House music variants; Gottschings ambient musings are the pre-cambrian oceans of electronics,but "E2-E4" is the dinosaur.

Most of Gottching's pre-cambrian guitar virtuosity is already available elsewhere on this blog,so as my tribute I have selected this shimmering ambient rock flotation tank muzak outing by Manuel as Ashra, dropping the Tempel part,and also dropping the band. Which is fitting as now all the original line-up of Ash Ra Tempel have now departed consciousness.

The cover looks unerringly like one of the world trade centers relocated to the outskirts of Auschwitz,beaming its truth like an enormous obelisk created by the alien god figure who began this experiment billions of years ago to discover the answer to the ultimate question. This rather disappointed 'God' has just begun to realise that it was all just a complete waste of telly-time. It was all predicted in the BBC comedy series "Hitchikers Guide To The Galaxy".......of course it's 42, innit....its the best answer I've ever heard.......and this LP is just north of 42 minutes long! If that ain't proof i dunno what is...

Anyway Manuel knows the answer, or lack of one, by now,if consciousness exists post-mortem for long enough to know this....probably something really boring like eternal nothing ,ness,more nothing than the nothing we think nothing is right now...ness. And the only way this big Nothing gets to actually BE Nothing, is if creatures like Homo-erectus part four have evolved to actually see and measure the nothing-ness before they blow themselves up;

Nothingness does indeed need defining boundaries before it can be defined....but, does that make it a something?

In fact even referring to nothing as nothing makes it a something.Even thinking about it proves it exists,as quantum reactions only happen when no-one's looking.

So is the only answer mankind can ever offer be 'God',the nothing that pretends its something,but only in the minds of men....homo-erectus.

Tracklist:

1.Sunrain 7:26

2.Ocean Of Tenderness 12:36

3.Deep Distance 5:46

4.Nightdust 21:52

DOWNLOAD this new age of death HERE!

Mark Shreeve – "No Holes Barred" (Church Road Records - MCCR6) 1986

 

From the less precious end of the recent deaths in music trophy cabinet, comes one of the more 'successful' prime movers in the UK Electronic Underground of the early eighties; as epitomised by such labels as Colin Potters Integrated Circuit Records.

Mark Shreeve left world stage around the end of August this year,but again no one told me!? He features quite extensively in these pages,mainly for his DIY cred rather than his late period plinky plonky electronic Space rock and Jean MIchel Jarre-isms.

This self-released cassette shows us Marks jauntier side,with some largely inadvisable Prog Rock humour risk of recording Farts and Belches;as Roger Waters and Ron Geesin had an annoying penchant for.

Yes, Mark had just bought an Emulator Mark 1 in 1986, and there were certainly No Holes Barred for the prog novelty title track, where Mr Shreeve's Digestive Tract gets an unwelcome credit. Yeah, we all did it as soon as we got our old skool samplers out of their box? The Burp was utilised intermediately,with that generous 0.8 seconds of sampling time at the lowest Bit-Rate ......oh how we laughed....but at least we didn't sample the Dog,as Simon Cowell did early in his career disguised as "Wonder Dog",and his 1982 hit "Ruff Mix"...geddit? 

Although Cowell had access to £20,000 quids worth of Fairlight Aampling System to totally waste.....unlike Paul Hardcastles N.N.N.N.N.Nineteen,not?

Sad to say that Shreeve's "No Holes Barred" never cracked the top ten,unlike the previously mentioned atrocities did.

Personally I had to make do with my Commodore 64,equipped with a jolly expensive Sampling module attached at the back for my first sampling experience,which was, you guessed it, sampling a Burp!

Who needed a Fairlight in 1984 when you had this?...notice how none of the kids on the cover are sampling Farts or Burps.....obviously Posh Kids.

 

This was repeated several years later with a purchase of an Ensonique Mirage.You can't beat the old ones can you?

Well, there was one more Hole for Mark to use, unbarred to everyone, and that was his Grave.In which he now rests his plinky plonky fingers,and has given us all some much deserved peace.

I do however notice, that quite a few of these tracks do seem to harbor an unhealthy obsession with,...gulp... Death, 'the proud brother' as Criswell of 'Plan Nine from Outer Space' fame used to call it....a lot.

Shreeves' early work is rather good actually,if you like Tangerine Dream that is.

Tracklist:

A1 M.A.D. 4:33
A2 Crash Head (Early Mix) 4:05
A3 High Frontier 4:52
A4 Edge Of Darkness (Early Mix) 5:35
A5 Bandit 3:38
B1 Widowmaker 3:51
B2 One Last Cold Kiss 3:52
B3 Angel Of Death (Live) 11:08
B4 No Holes Barred 1:47

DOWNLOAD through the hole of this HERE!

Paul Kelday – "One Dimensional" (UFO Mongo – UFOMONGO 007) 2006

'Big in Sweden' isn't usually a subject that is risen in many conversations,and it doesn't even really apply to Paul Kelday;but, he seems to have an audience in the land of ABBA,Ikea and Volvo's,no matter how small. There have been a couple of post disappearance compilations of Paul's work that have materialised in the Swedish part of the Scandinavian peninsula. This "One Dimensional" release being one of them,but,uniquely for Kelday,it's on vinyl,.....300 copies of it.

Most of the material has only been available on tapes before but exists here in different mixes than previously released,and a few of them are even exclusive.Whoopee-doo.

I guess Lp's are as close to one dimension as you're gonna get in music enregistration.The other side is not visible,so doesn't exist until you turn it over,and viewed edge on, its just a black line hanging in a defined space.....unless its pressed on coloured vinyl,or as some clever dicks have certainly done before, on invisible vinyl.Place the disc out of sight,and the only clue of its existence is if it's playing,emitting a collection of waves.The nature of a wave is such that it can exist in more than one place at any given time and are invisible,detected by the Brain which then creates its own music based on the waves it receives.As we are all related,we hear the same thing ,which we have lumbered with the tag of "music".Whether lizards or virus's have this ability is up for debate,but one thing is certain,Music doesn't exist without the listener,and,the mammalian brain.

They're Big in Sweden I gather.....mammalian brains?

Tracklist:

A1 One Dimensional 4:01
A2 Emerge From Nothingness 4:44
A3 Short Stay In The Garden Of Optimism 3:45
A4 Plight Of The Butterfly Of Peace In The Web Of Hatred 3:00
A5 Doomsday 3:06
A6 Comet 3:15
A7 One Dimensional (Outro) 2:02
B1 Dehumanization Process 2:59
B2 Gorgon 5:11
B3 Trance 4:02
B4 Cry For The Moon 5:05
B5 Untill The End Of Time 3:38
B6 Bonus Track 0:54

DOWNLOAD sound waves for the mammalian brain HERE!

Paul Kelday – "Odznsodz" (Börft Records – Börft057) 1992

Another Paul Kelday compilation,with a couple of tracks you may have heard before upon it's hallowed ferric oxide.  They fade in,fade out,having no beginning nor end.Quite like the endless dark abyss that surrounds us.Paul drags us gently within several parcecs  of the end of Infinity....which is a loooong way...especially near the end.You think you can see it, but then it gets further away.Always out of reach.What exists beyond the end of the multi-verse? Logic dictates that there has to be Nothing,but Nothing must also therefore be something with defined boundaries,beyond which lies something that is less than Zero,where even nothing can't exist.Beyond that is Paul Kelday? Probably not,but I had to write something,rather than 'Nothing'.Which only exists if you're looking at it,between its quotation marks,just as music only exists if you're listening to it,beyond which lies the Nub. "All of this wouldn't exist if we weren't here to see it,or in this case Listen to it."...for the brighter ones amongst you,that's called the Anthropic Principle" and a fine argument against Intelligent design. Just as the Misanthropic Principle is a fine argument against the continuation of Human 'civilisation'...again,subject to opinion and Quotation marks.One day we will all fade out,just as we faded in...like a Paul Kelday track in fact.

DOWNLOAD tracks previously released on various cassette compilations across Infinity HERE!

Paul Kelday – "Rings Of Jupiter: A Retrospective" (S.J Organisation – S.J ORG 013) 1987

That looks like a badly Xeroxed image of the Earth rather than failed sun, and essentially Ring-less. gas giant, Jupiter. Hmmm? ....No Rings!?......Unlike Uranus (Haha..I had to aqueeze it in somewhere? So to speak phnar! phnar!)

I did mention in the previous Kelday post, that he has now left the building,and had taken up residency at Sun Ra's gaff among the resplendent rings of Saturn;but it now seems maybe I was wrong?

This French compilation of Kelday's work,compiled by the man himself,is a fitting epitaph indeed.Showcasing his unassuming cosmic abstractions like a warped copy of Tangerine Dream's Alpha-Centuri as reflected in a funhouse mirror.Lovingly benefiting from a severe lack of anything digital,except for human fingers pressing keys and twisting knobs.

Tracklist:

A1 Rings Of Jupiter (from PSI 1981)
A2 New Age Mutants (unreleased 1983)
A3 Short Stay In The Garden Of Optimism (from the compilation New Babel 1983)
B1 In The Air (from Centuries 1981)
B2 Birth Of Planestesimals  (from Another Time, Another Place 1982)
B3 Technofear (from the compilation "Organic Mind Workshop" 1984)

DOWNLOAD from Uranus HERE!

Paul Kelday – "Centuries" (Music For Midgets – M.F.M.12) 1982

As one received a rare comment on a previous Paul Kelday post bemoaning the fact that as cosmic Paul's soul has now joined Sun Ra's orbiting one of the gas giants beyond the asteroid belt......no jokes about the gases of Uranus pleeze!....that most of his vast catalog of recordings will now never see the light again, or will be compacted into liquid hydrogen at Saturn's core rained on by regular showers of naturally occurring diamonds. And indeed Paul was a diamond,who spent the latter years of his life hiding away from society in general, and indeed giving up music altogether,leaving us with the disturbing suggestion that he may have binned all his tapes.

So,here's one that he didn't bin,and,more importantly, one I haven't posted before,called "Centuries",which surfaced on both Music For Midgets, and Integrated Circuit Records around the cusp of 1981/82.

Klassic Kelday,doing classic early Tangerine Dream meets the BBC Radiophonic Workshop....all captured on a Philips Ultra ferro C-60 bottom of the shelf cassette.

Tracklist:

A1 Legopolis (Nov. 81)
A2 Shadows In The Recesses Of The Subconscious (Dec. 81)
A3 Necessitarianism (Feb. 82)
A4 In The Air (Feb. 82)
B Centuries (Dec. 81)

DOWNLOAD without taking centuries HERE!

Pôle – "Inside The Dream" (Pôle Records – PÔLE 0002) 1975

Just a reminder that we got in this mess because I got distracted by the rare phenomenon of faux-kraut music.That's Frenchmen who wanted to be musically German,like an Alsatian plebiscite of music.

Ahhh,The "Plebiscite".....otherwise know as a Referendum, is that olde skool dictator's  trick  from days of yaw when the "people"......,you know, that visibly invisible thronging mass of silly fools, led by a small room full of sinister bastards.......get to vote on something ridiculous or give away their meager freedoms in the name of fake democracy.The most recent attempts being Brexit, the Annexation of the Crimea,and the next one in Donetsk taking place in a few short weeks time backed up by Sleepy Joe.All following strictly the path taken for the Anschluss, and the,for want of a better word, 'Referendum' in Alsace Lorraine in the thirties,which,if you didn't know,as is the case with an increasing number of the Silly,had something to do with a sinister chap with a Charlie Chaplin mustache with the initials A,and H.Not necessarily in that order.

Back in the 70's,a few Frenchmen wanted to be musically German,and maybe more if they were based in Strasbourg,once officially part of the Third Reich thanks to the famous "Plebiscite" voted for by....let's face it...a bunch of 'Plebs'who didn't know any better.They still exist today,backed up by an angry legion of Bigots or Gammon's.Boy are they Fuuuuuming!

Pôle, and Pôle records wanted to be a Gallic Cluster,or Cerveau (French for Brain) Records.

It's a brave attempt to achieve what every Frenchy wants deep down, a Gaulish Cosmos,and this is the music to make it a reality,well, at least for forty minutes or so.Somewhere between Asterix the Gaulish,Charles De Gaulish and Gall Stones. Nurse with Wound likes it anyway,which is normally enough to send any sane record nerd scrambling through the Krautrock crates at the nearest record Fayre.

Pôle records released a few good albums,and then ,typical for France, the boss man Paul Putti,sold it and used the proceeds to start a rather popular Mucky Magazine for a less sophisticated form of wanker than Record Nerds. If only Putti had combined the two he would have cleaned up; and no need for a handy box of kleenex or a dirty old sock either. Its well known that Prog Rock fans never have girlfriends,so he missed out on that one.

It's a good album anyway....now where's that old sock!?

DOWNLOAD your pole HERE!
 

Ose – "Adonia" (Egg – 90 277) 1978

French Prog Kosmiche Project enacted by music journalist and multi-instrumentalist Hervé Picart, joined by two members of Heldon(Richard Pinhas & Francois Augar).Which in other words means Journalist makes Heldon album and claims it for himself!?

There's only one idea worse than music projects by music journalists,that's music projects by actors, both superseded by musicians who act in movies,the list of shame being too endless to mention here.

Picart thought he could sidestep these commandments carved in volcanic stone from the do's and don'ts of Rock,and given to Moses,

who,must have forgot to bring them down from the mountain.Instead bringing stone tablets obviously donated by Satan that banged on about such rubbish as not coveting your mate's missus, honoring your idiotic parents,worshiping your false rock gods and making Graven Images of your favourite pop stars.What a bunch of crap was that shit!? Add to that "Thou Shalt Not kill thyself", and Strictly "No Wanking",then you've got yourself one heap of unsustainable bollocks that is sure to plunge the planet into the long cycle of endless war and self-destructive madness that we are witnessing today.It's all your fault you see,says the Big Bad Daddy in the sky.

The tablets for Rock music were left at the summit,so no-one got to hear such home truths as No Keyboards....ever,No Backing Singers,all Brass Sections are pure EVIL,Never...Repeat NEVER let your Drummer write any songs, split up if you get to Stadium Level,and if you have to take class A drugs,make sure you overdose halfway through making the second album.Not forgetting that Reforming is a capital offence punishable by a fatal stoning from a drunken mob of adulterers.

All those may seem like quoting the bleeding obvious,but you'd be surprised how stupid Human Musicians can be.

Hervé here, conveniently forgot the hardened rule,as composed by Satan himself, that should any actors, Journalists,or classically trained pop musicians venture into the no man's land of having a go themselves,that they should be sentenced to an eternity in Heaven with Jesus and dozens of other goody goody's telling you that you can't kill yourself because you're already Dead! No Escape.

As it 'appens, if I had a mind to blow,it would have been by this soaring piece of Heldon plus,electronic space rock. Cultivated by racks of Oberheim Expanders, Moog's and ARP's of all descriptions,glued together by Pinhas's trademark frippery with the old six string.

Yeah, Picart plays his version of Heldon guitar too,but the album wouldn't have missed him even if Satan had banished him to Heaven for Breaking several of the 11 commandments of Rock'n'Roll.Serves him right for having two jobs....another rule sitting on the subs bench of rock rights and wrongs.

Tracklist:

A1 Approche Sur A 16:00
A2 Orgasmachine 3:45
B1 29 h 08 mn 6:55
B2 L'Aube Jumelle 9:48
B3 Retour Sur Adonia 3:34

DOWNLOAD this blatant challenge to a higher power HERE!

Hydravion – "Hydravion" (Cobra – COB 37012) 1977

 

Let's start off with a review i saw of this on Discogs:

"Terrible dull, empty and meaningless album. No real melody, there's not a single musical moment. All is more like rudimentary experimentation in "progressive" style. No instrumental, nor "song" writing abilities are shown despite of being progressive music. Compared to any other similar spacey contemporaries (as to a similar empty Heldon) it's absolutely a wasting of time. Go and find houndreds better in the genre."

After reading that, you just know that this album has to be brilliant?

I like my music empty and meaningless, so what? After all doesn't that describe existence itself? There's a meaning to the meaninglessness....ness. More than there is to existence at least.

There's something of the 'La Dusseldorf' about this French Krautband. I thought La Dusseldorf were joking when I first heard them, and Hydravion most certainly are NOT joking.It also reminds one of those Soviet Union official disco bands that cropped up on state label Melodija from time to time....and I certainly know they weren't joking either.Joking could get you into serious trouble in the Communist Bloc.

Of course the French notoriously cannot laugh at themselves,they can laugh at disableds or Belgians,but NEVER, at themselves; so it figures that this electro-prog trio mean every dull swirling note and therefore is,predictably french,and more than a noggin pretentiously, 'ART'.

Yes, it's empty,there's no melody, no songs, but it's space rock made for surfing the event horizon of the super massive black hole in the centre of the music industry.

Wanna piss of that aging Punk with the Joy Division T-Shirt next door?....then play this at toe curling volume,followed by La Dusseldorf and then Argo's "Discophonia". Guaranteed to push the aging Punk neighbour over the edge, and totally fuck off the poor chap who wrote that dreadfully conservative review above.

I guess Hydravion is French for a Flying Boat,which,if there was to be another great flood sent down by our loving creator,then a flying Ark would be a great way to get around and rescue all the species left on the planet while we waited for the water to drain away.Luckily no need to save two of every fish,and controversially, no gays allowed! Even no Gay Chimps allowed,unless a third chimp is recruited as a surrogate chimp for future births to repopulate the devastated planet.I suppose the sea level would have to exceed the top of Mount Everest,so that would make the oceans at lease 29000 feet deeper than it was before we were all taught a lesson.I assume we would all starve to death after the water levels somehow drained away,so what was the point in creating us anyway....more meaningless...ness? No-one will be volunteering to be the new Noah either in the "Me Too" era, as he's usually biblically required to have sex with his daughters.....unless God hasn't kept up with the times....Again!?

That, essentially is what this album almost certainly Isn't about;but, as it's meaningless one can always insert any meaning you can feel comfortable with,and that takes imagination.A quality few human beings possess in these daft ol' days innit?

Tracklist

A1 Metropolitain 3:36
A2 Triste Fin 10:24
B1 L'Hydravion D'Argent 6:36
B2 Etude En Do 4:45
B3 J'ai Pas Le Temps 7:05

DOWNLOAD the flying boat of doom HERE!

Spacecraft – "Paradoxe" (Self-Released) 1978

It looks Kraut,sounds Kraut,feels Kraut,but it's French.....ish......naturally there's a English guy involved.In fact an English Gentleman from no lesser electro-rock outfit than Bill Nelson's Red Noise,namely the eye-wateringly famous, John Livengood...yes THAT John Livengood..This has gotta be good then....LivenGOOD at least?

Yeah, I've never heard of him either,but google has.

The Paradoxe is that this is one of those records who would be quietly inserted into the post-2001 Krautrock sections in your local CD emporium,keeping it hushed that they were mostly Frogs ,but in the vinyl days they would have been lost in the dreaded vacuum of the miscellaneous category. Its not German but it's Kraut era Space rock-a-like,aka la Musique Kosmiche. It's a mixture of influences,worn boldly on their wizards' sleeves,including such obscurities as Early Tangerine Dream from their Alpha Centuri era, the BBC Radiophonic workshop,and Early Electronics.

As for 1978,the market would have been rather limited for shifting units of this kind of hippie nonsense.But thanks to the small-mindedness of the 1970's buying public,these treasures are left to fester like musical dinosaur footprints in the muddy waters of re-issue detecting.

French Prog and all it's tendrils,are often lazily dismissed as German,or just European.....of course the Brits don't consider themselves at all as European,and refer to mainland Europe as "The Continent".This is also applied strenuously to music; "Ahhh, That's European",they'd announce,meaning "Continental"....and also ,most probably..."Rubbish".

As a young lad,I too harbored this assumption that anything 'Continental'was ,by definition, automatically Rubbish....I mean look at ABBA....total Eurotrash nonsense with rhymes and ear piercing double tracked vocals. This attitude changed,when I realised that DAF were in fact, German.A fact given away because they sang in German,rather that English with cheesy foreign accent style so beloved by all Eurovision acts....and they (DAF) were,shockingly,.....Good?! Then Sounds started writing about CAN,which opened a whole new world for me...overlooking the terrible sartorial styles in evidence, favored by the main protagonists .Something the whole musical world outside of the Anglo-Saxon world has still to figure out.Even DAF looked like a couple of sweaty S+M rubberclad rentboys .There was Kraftwerk I suppose,very smart looking gents,if a tad silly on the we are Robots front....and normally anyone French turned out to be Belgian.Generally The Benelux mob could qualify as UK overseas territory musically,so they qualify as exempt.

Then once discovered,every Kraut/French prog record is consumed and hailed has the best thing since sliced Roggenmischbrot.

That is until you've heard them a few too many times,and ten years later realise that 90% of it is in fact shite after all.Even CAN i find rather dull theses days....or is that....titter,smirk,laff.....Amon Dull?

Alas, Spacecraft I have heard but twice, so I don't think this is shite yet.....come back in ten years and it certainly will be so.

Tracklist

A1 Lumière De Lune 3:51
A2 Cosmic Wheel 10:55
A3 Chromatique One's 5:18
B1 Harabizant 9:35
B2 Ananda 2:35
B3 Surface 7:20

DOWNLOAD from outer spacecraftwerk HERE!

Wolfgang Riechmann – "Wunderbar" (Sky Records – sky 017) 1978

After encountering Harald Grosskopf's rather good "Synthesist" album,I noticed there was another German in full makeup with expertly groomed lacquered blue hair....also in the "Euro-Rock" section of Revolver Records.....This is not the image one had came to expect from Germans in pop. Terrible, long fly-away hair, afghan coats and unkempt handlebar mustaches were just a few of the minor indiscretions against fashion that I had noticed,particularly among members of CAN .This chap, Reichmann could have been in Duran Duran.

Expecting some disco Kosmiche mash-up, I wasn't put off by the BBC Testcard music of the opening and title track.....strictly not Wunderbar at all.

However,as I had just spent the best part of four quid for it I persevered, and ultimately found it riechly rewarding.Full of analogue wunders and sweeping seascapes to satisfy any disillusioned punk rockers into the realms of relaxation .

Dunno about the Blue Lipstick though....each to his own i guess?

There's always gotta be a downside to every story,and Wolfies' is no exception,as he got fatally stabbed by a  random nutjob shortly after this record was released. Destiny dictated that he would never make a follow-up,and due to his medical condition.....he was dead....he never did start that difficult second solo album;so there's no opportunity for my Third Riechmann LP joke...shame....Unless they have synth's in heaven,or in hell for that matter. 

Both places being purely fictional, I doubt it,but at least a lot of early twentieth century Germans got out of certain eternal torture and melted away into oblivion.

Tracklist:

1.Wunderbar 5:40
2.Abendlicht 4:21
3.Weltweit 7:00
4.Silberland 7:41
5.Himmelblau 8:38
6.Traumzeit 1:11

DOWNLOAD the first riech mann HERE!

Rolf Trostel – "Inselmusik" (Rolf Trostel Records– RP 1098) 1981

Like most German musicians in the 1968 to1982 era, Rolf looks like he has someone else's hair. He would also like us to know which synthesisers he's using;boldly printed on the rear of the cover below the Track listing.He's got a PPG wave,which may or may not be the same PPG Wave that Midge Ure used to play the 'Bell Sequence on the Band Aid "Feed The World single.One of the many crimes against art and culture perpetrated by this short scottish monster..

However, having said that, if the charity single for the starving had been made by Rolf Trostel the Ethiopians would have probably gave all the money back and organised a concert for us poor bastards in the west to save us from life threatening rubbish like Kajagoogoo and their equivalentia.(just made that word up by the way).

I'm told that Rolf was, and probably still is, a Peter Baumann solo fan,and that this self-released LP sounds exactly like the least hippie looking one from Tangerine Dream.

On this evidence I may check out some Baumann....or maybe not.

Therefore, this qualifies as Berlin School,so if you dig this school type,you may wanna check out Rolf and his one man army keeping Baumann Berlin School alive.....well,as in  alive forty years ago.Good for chill-out rooms at some 'orrible dance auditorium in Ibiza, or  a moratorium actually in Berlin itself.

This album could feature in the intermission of my fantasy gig at a renovated Hitler's Bunker in an alternative reality.Supporting Joy Division and PiL mark one,...wait a minute, wasn't that the line-up for the Futurama Festival, September 1979 in Leeds UK?...obviously minus Rolf Trostel of course.We were so spoilt back then.

Nowadays you'd have to fight off Coldplay and Radiohead,desperate to get the opening night in the Bunker on there swollen CV's....only to find that The Arctic Monkeys had beaten them to the punch. These certainly are shit times brother!

DOWNLOAD rolf's schooldaze in berlin HERE!

A La Ping Pong – "Phase II - Go Go Pongs" (A La Ping Pong Self-released– 66.22784) 1981

A La Ping Pong did second album shocker!? (Get the first one here).

German sits on chair and noodles along, ambiently, with his guitar to a backing that now includes humans...yes, he has friends. He still sounds like that infamous law firm Oldfield,Fripp,and Oldfield ,but at least he had the good sense to pack all this self-released album malarkey in for a couple of decades.

Yes indeed, like the rest of the 'rediscovered' music wave at the turn of the millennium, even Klaus Bloch (Herr Ping Pong himself) was exhumed from a comfortable retirement to show us why olden days music is soooo much better that the derivative shit of today's WHY? generation.

To coin a phrase,Yesterdays derivative shit is far far better than today's derivative shit; I think you'll find that statement  stands up to scrutiny in laboratory conditions.

I've always liked a black and white album sleeve,and also strongly believe that every member of a band should be firmly seated,especially the bloody guitarist.Maybe Klaus couldn't stand up at all? I dunno, the only pictures I've seen of him has him seated.Normally surrounded by technology.

Please excuse me,but to increase the hit-rate for this article I have to add the tiresome noun "KRAUTROCK" to the recipe......it's very popular among those who would like to seem obscure but really aren't;but i must admit, A La Ping Pong is certainly obscure,but its qualifications to actually be called "KRAUTROCK" are somewhat tenuous apart from the fact that Klaus is certainly a German.Not that that changes anything.There are American groups who get called "KRAUTROCK"....dunno what's going on there,but at least i got to insert the keyword three times.

Google will be going mad for these pages.

Tracklist:

A1 Go 7:02
A2 Go Go Pongs 9:09
A3 Farbenspiel 4:09
B1 Hamburg - Ankara 6:02
B2 Hvalpsund Impressionen 6:29
B3 Klänge Wie Sand Am Meer 3:52222
B4 Strandgut 6:13

DOWNLOAD more from the ping pong book of kung fu HERE!

A La Ping Pong – "Extrem Musik A La Ping Pong Phase I" (A La Ping Pong Self-Released – RP 1078) 1980

I could have sworn I was listening to Fripp and Eno,turns out it was another long lost "Krautrock" DIY meisterwerk by some hippy untermensch called Klaus Bloch, who manages to sound like Mike Oldfield, Robert Fripp, Mike Oldfield, Manuel Gottsching and Mike Oldfield jamming to some Eno rejected tape loops.

There's inverted comma's around the Krautrock accusation I foolishly made, for that unfortunate moniker doesn't apply to the Cluster side of all things Kosmische.The rock stuff belongs firmly with horrible nonsense like Amon Dull 2(sic), Ash Ra Tempel and Guru Guru ...read my ground-breaking in depth slagging of Krautrock , "Mommy What's a Krautrock?"HERE! ....ah, so now I don't have to repeat myself,so let us begin.

One aspect of the Anglo-rock scene that hippies in West Germany really wished they sounded like,apart from Soft Machine was Space Rock,namely Pink Floyd.It meant that you didn't have to learn to play your instrument,and with the help of a tape-echo you could bang out a self-financed LP of ambient space rock quicker than you could say Max Planck.The trouble with that was, that by 1980,the Floyd had moved on to doing dystopian musicals instead.So i guess there was still a market of disaffected 30 year olds still hankering' for "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun" part...er..well ask Max Planck.

Good musick for your flotation tank,or for meditating to an Alan Watts lecture for some much needed back-up.I'm always a sucker for a black and white album cover.

BOLLOCKS!....I can feel a DIY Kosmiche episode coming on.Must take my medication!.....fuck it,I love paying backhanded compliments to Germans,and mentioning the war;so be prepared for some weird German loners with boners and synthesizers,inserting their jack-plugs into analogue echo machines.

Tracklist:

A1.a Fanfaren
A1.b Waidmannsheil? 9:02
A2 Nordlaut I 8:45
A3 Edelweiß Für.... 2:57
B1 Nordlaut III 3:51
B2 Morgenstern-Abendstern 14:38
B3 Zartbitter 2:24

DOWNLOAD ping pong fooey HERE

Jane Buerk - "...sings Enculé and her other Hits" (Year Zero Records YEAR049) 2020

 Jane Buerk,the erstwhile clavist of France's premier improv Rock combo, ZOG, says Enculé to the world in her unique experimental electronic style,with her first solo album on Year Zero Records.

Feel Jane's pissed off side in the medium of electronic sound. No sequencers,or polyphonic keyboards on here...she hates that shit! Don't even think about mentioning MIDI.... she could get violent! Recorded in enhanced MONO, using just the knob twiddling magic of a single oscillator Korg MS10. No one gets out of here alive and Jane's gonna remind you....in sound! Tracklist: 1. Je m’aime, oui......vous non plus (3:52) 2. Clyde and Bonnie (05:52) 3. (2020)(Année Non-Érotique) (04:43) 4. Docteur Jane Et Madame Buerk! (05:31) 5. Ford Mondeo (07:19) 6. Intials J.B. (03:40) 7. New York,Lincolnshire (04:02) 8. Des Connards pour un requiem (07:44) 9. Le Couleur Café est fermé (04:16) 10. La La La Sucette (03:50) 11. Ballade de Admiral Nelson (06:41) 12. Enculé (03:26)

(All tracks imrovised by Nadine Aleman as Jane Buerk).

DOWNLOAD the hits of Jane Buerk HERE!...or she'll hit YOU!

OR

You can stream it HERE!

Phool - "Phosphorous" - (Year Zero Records - YEAR046) 2020

What's next for you fools?...Ahhhh...another new Year Zero Records release......hows about some gentle post-rock improv by Leicester band 'Phool'? Which includes a Scout Of Uzbekistan on drums
Indulge your stressed out lugholes with these soothing flotation tank rock sounds,as in rock without the 'rock' part. Minimally underplayed,so don't expect any face-melting guitar solo's, jazzy drum fills, or any slap bass, this just envelopes you like a creeping mist of that made-up as you go along stuff that some dare to call,... "improvisation",except this version of improvisation doesn't involve 'Showing Off'.
Strictly instrumental, it also saves one from that terrifying blight of the 21st century.....Singing!
Mark,Helen and Francis (Phool) are rare examples of musicians who obviously had lots of attention as children, which is in itself jolly refreshing.

Don't worry i'll stop being nice in the next post.

Tracklist:

1. Disaster (part 2)
2. Bandage Aid
3. Disaster (part 1)
4. McWerter McWerter
5. Are One Oh
6. Dizzy Diva
7. Cheese Cob and a Dog

DOWNLOAD or feel rather phoolish HERE!

OR

You can stream it HERE!

Basil Kirchin - "Worlds Within Worlds" (Columbia ‎– SCX 6463) 1971

Looking like the Wolfman for need of a better description, Basil was a much overlooked innovator in the world of improvised music and tape composition. "Worlds Within Worlds" contains so many ideas,constantly shifting direction,that it sounds like a frustrated experimental musician's attempt at compressing all his ideas into this rare moment where he was allowed to express himself.
Any album where the sounds sources are credited to:
1 Gorilla
2 Hornbills
4 Flamingos
Various amplified insects, animals, birds, jets, and other engines. Sounds of the docks in Hull, Yorkshire... and the autistic children of the community of Schurmatt, Switzerland.

Augmented by one (uncredited)Derek Bailey, and Evan Parker,who were basically, the UK Improv Jazz underground.

Erroneously labelled the 'Father of Ambient'retrospectively,and a major influence of the 'other' 'father of Ambient', Brian Eno,Nurse With Wound was also an obvious recipient of the Kirchin influence. Basil made his living playing in jazz bands from the early forties and writing sweet tunes for the 60's and 70's UK Film Industry.

Let off the leash by EMI in 1971, Basil poured aall his ideas into this two part album,which is a whirlpool of found sounds,tape effects, field recordings,spontaneous improv,and jazz.Certainly a unique album,which was released in two parts...the first in 1971, and the second part, with the same title but different tracks, in 1974.....complete with ENO sleevenotes.

I've stuck them together, so you get the uninterrupted version,as originally intended.A bargain bin favourite,it never sold enough to justify the EMI conglomerate to allow the same mistake twice,so Baz stuck to film,and library music,but always continued experimenting off duty.The results of which are still being regularly released on the Trunk label.In,how we brits say,"Continental Europe", our Basil would have been made a professor at the national academy of Music...but he would have had to have a haircut,get some glasses,and wear a suit.You're either 'pop' or you're 'Not' in the UK.

It does say 'File Under Popular' on the rear cover?....hmmmm I'd love to see the face of someone in 1971 who took a blind punt on this?!

Tracklist:

1.Part I - Integration (Non-Racial)
2.Part II - The Human Element
3.Part III - Emergence
4.Part IV - Evolution

DOWNLOAD basils world into your world HERE!