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 – "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!

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!

Kosmose – "Kosmic Music From The Black Country" (Sub Rosa – SRV394) 1973-78/2015

Straight from the "Black Country" in the dark ages of the mid-seventies came Kosmose's kraut-a-like improvisations; but for us English, the Black Country means grim hell-holes such as Stoke-on-Trent,the home of D-Beat punk,like Discharge and GBH. If you were caught listening to some Belgian Kosmiche music anywhere in the black country of the UK, you'd have been beaten up and called a "PUFF!" in no uncertain terms.There was no sanctuary,and everyone usually bore an uncanny resemblance to Quasimodo's uglier brother,and that was just the women(I know i've used that joke before, but it's a good one!).Although that observation was based on a particularly grim section of Stoke City fans I have encountered on many an occasion,so I may be wrong....even though Robbie Williams grew up there,if grow up is the right word in relation to Mr Williams......he was a Port Vale fan,from the weirder side of town,so one never got to visit vale park too often as they rarely appeared in the higher divisions during my Hooligan career.

One therefore assumes that "The Black Country" in this incidence is none other than Belgium.The place that is the butt of the dumbest jokes in France,by the dumbest Frenchmen,where it is understood that Belgians are stupid,and the French are far superior. This misnomer is made even more ridiculous when one realises that it should be the other way around.....especially when it comes to Beer, Chocolate,and...music.Even the famous 'French' singers turn out to be actually Belgians in disguise, like Johnny Hallyday,Jacques Brel and Plastic Bertrand; or collaborating Nazi Whores like Edith Piaf. Quite like Canadians were in the USA,with such luminaries as Leonard Cohen,Joni Mitchell, and Neil Young to name but three...although I have it on the strictest confidence that Joni Mitchell was NOT,and indeed, NEVER WAS a Nazi Whore!

Of course Belgium's golden years were still to come half a decade after 1973.It was left to the French to make the prog,which preceded a steady decline into the laughing stock of western Europe they are now.Magma excluded.

However, these archive tapes of what must have been Belgium's premier Prog band,prove that kraut-style prog was alive and vibrant north of the Maginot line.

In a country as compact and bijou as Belgium,which was twice used as a short cut to get at the British Expeditionary Force, it was the synth and drum machine that propelled the local populous into the 'very good file' of early eighties pop music.Forming a solid buffer zone,for once, between Germany and France.A battle of the Belge that the Belge actually won. Helped vastly by the actions of one Alain Neffe,founder of DIY cassette culture label Insane Music.

Neffe was also indeed a founder member of Kosmose,and deserves some kind of medal (The Golden Cassette) for the excellent resurrection job he made of these dusty old tapes.

The music is a heady mix of kraut style kosmiche,free jazz,with hints of CAN and most other things Krauty.Absorbed through a semi-permeable membrane by the musical process of Kosmosis,which one assumes is what the gist of the band name is?

Tracklist:

The Second Untitled Track / B.93.1 6:40
The Third Untitled Track / B.30.4 9:30
The Fourth Untitled Track / B64 4:20
The Fifth Untitled Track / B.40.9 5:45
The Ninetieth Untitled Track / 10 Reverb 9:00
The Tenth Untitled Track / 30.2 9:10
The Eleventh Untitled Track / 31.1 8:40
The Sixth Untitled Track / B.80.3 13:30
The Seventh Untitled Track / B.101.2 22:40
The Twelfth Untitled Track / 102.3 28:00
The Eighth Untitled Track / KS 18:56

DOWNLOAD by kosmosis 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!

Harald Grosskopf – "Synthesist" (Sky Records – Sky 043) 1980

 

Much in demand drummer of Wallenstein, Harald Grosskopf.......without using google translate,I'd like that to translate that as Fat Head?......indeed, Harald Fathead drummed for nearly everyone who did't matter during the Krautrock era ,and for some who used to matter,and,inexplicably, for similar ex-drumming 'synthesists' such as Klaus Schulz.

As with most 'drummer boys, they are all haunted by this need to prove themselves as overlooked musical genius's.Not having one of their songs accepted onto the band's playlist is a major cause of departing Drummers everywhere.They really are just guys who hang around with musicians...with the odd,or very odd exception.

The only other drummer who got painted silver story i know of, was when Tony, Geezer,and Ozzy, painted a drunkenly comatose Bill Ward,drummer of Black Sabbath, Silver;An alcohol and cocaine fueled stunt that ended in hospitalisation for the poor lad.Narrowly escaping death it seems. Boys will be boys as they say?

As for Harald, he had no such excuse for painting himself silver. I can't think of any Krautrock hell-raisers who would have done it to him,especially not in Wallenstein,so i can only guess that the silly sod did it to himself"!?

Were there any Krautrocking wild men? Would be interested if any of you lot know of any......and i don't mean any German's who deliberately failed their maths exams,like Krazy Klaus, or crossed a road without looking and listening.

Notorious German sensibleness is a hard thing to pin down.I guess its to do with all that American financed post war reconstruction, that led to the economic miracle.Whereas the British had to make do with living in bombed out shiteholes like Birmingham on rations,after the country was bankrupted by saving the planet from tyranny and having to pay back the massive loans to the USA....our allies?...who then preceded to give the repayments back to Germany!..but at least the British empire was destroyed,and that was the US's main objective.After all,a famous american order to their Air farce was NOT to bomb any Ford motor company property,as they were churning out trucks for the Third Reich at the time. Plenty American companies made it harder to defeat the Nazi's by continuing to do business with them.The best one was IBM's early mechanical office tools that helped them kill more Jews. (I assume thet Sandy Hook guy will take objection to this in the comments?)

So after being fucked over and left to fester in squalor by the Americans naturally the disaffected youth of Britain would go slightly over the top when it came to revelry.The result of a real repression that was only matched by The German Democratic Republic, who Germanically remained sensible due to being followed everywhere they congregated by the Stasi...i suppose that experience gave the world Rammstein,whether that's should be celebrated is another matter entirely.It did after all inspire the Columbine massacre......a very clever under handed form of revenge on an old enemy I suggest?

When Kraut rock was first becoming fashionable, I spied Harald's silver fizzog in the "Euro-Rock" section of Revolver Records,in the even more exotic,but grey, surroundings of Leicester Marketplace.

The distant cries of "Tater's 10p a pahnd"(pound/lb's)...come 'n' feel these tater's darlin,Onleh 8p a pahnd for you love!"...piercing through the thick odorous haze of rotting banana's made this album a must purchase,then back home on the bus.

It turned out to be better than that CAN album I got the week before (Soon Over Babaluma ,£3.99), full of all the thick Berlin school analogue sumptuousness of bubbling sequencers,melting mellotrons,and sweeping string synthesizers any young person could wish for,but with a commercial edge;and its still good today kids.

Never heard of him again,so I long suspected that he had again painted himself silver and this time succumbed to the call of the Boatman...or the Baumann ?

Tracklist:

1.So Weit, So Gut 5:24
2.B. Aldrian 4:51
3.Emphasis 4:55
4.Synthesist 7:34
5.1847 - Earth 6:43
6.Trauma 6:37
7.Transcendental Overdrive 5:03
8.Tai Ki 4:09

DOWNLOAD howling harald's attempt at being taken seriously 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

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Ask Dr. Stoopid - "Mommy, What's a Krautrock?"

 I'm trying to keep myself amused during my Co-vid confinement,and also combat a spell of apathy about blogging.....so......having watched three and a half seasons of "Ren and Stimpy"(the greatest TV show ever made!?),my mind is sufficiently out-there/damaged to ask Dr. Stoopid what Krautrock really is shall we?

Dr. Stoopid says:

"Basically, Krautrock was a low grade version of 'Prog Rock', but for people who couldn't play musical instruments.....and specifically for anyone who lived in West Germany who couldn't play a musical instrument;even more specifically,anyone who lived in West Germany who couldn't play a musical instrument between 1969 and 1975.

The main Krautrockers,who actually 'Rocked',and these fellows were in a minority, were Ash Ra Tempel,Amon Düül II.....but NOT Amon Düül I,who were psychedelic hippy primitivists......and Guru Guru. These chaps were the rock element of it all,preferring Jimi Hendrix-style freak outs to wanting to be Pink Floyd at the UFO in 1967. Of course, no real musical talent is needed to play an impression of Jimi Hendrix,who was an innovator on the six strings rather than a fantastic technician.

The large majority of German hippies wanted to be Pink Floyd,who weren't too hot on the musician front themselves. The Syd Barratt Live era from 1966 to 68 was a huge inspiration on the 'Freak Out' front,where the boundaries of Rock traditionalism were completely broken down into free-form freak rock. Then the next era of Pink Floyd,post Syd, was even more influential on the nascent Kraut Rockers.They used syths,and floaty effects.The Space Rock era Floyd.

Being Outsiders, the Krautrockers were, by default, given free reign artistically,because they thought nobody beyond our mates are gonna be interested in this shit? Surely? Never mind buy the records?

How wrong were they?

They didn't count on the endless ingenuity of 'The Record Collector' to create a market to inflate the prices,creedence and obcurity of any second rate genre to boost their kudos in this musical version of Trainspotting.In this world, Obscurity and rarity ruled over musical excellence or innovation. The same thing happened to Soul music in the cess-pits of north western England in the seventies with 'Northern Soul'.....which was really the 'Crap Soul' that nobody bought.These things were rare for a reason,and for the vast majority of Krautrock it was the same.

Naturally there was some genuinely great and innovative music to be dug up, like Neu!,Can,Cluster and,maybe, Faust,but, com'on,most were poor facsimiles of Anglo-prog.There was even a Krautrock band who wasn't even German; the Canterbury style bunch of Brits called Nektar,who incidentally could actually play their instruments.

The best stuff to come out of the Krautrock era was the electronic stuff,which should really be referred to, not as rock,but Das Kosmiche Musik, or, space rock with out the rock bit.Again this didn't require any great musical expertise,but ownership of a vast bank of modular synthesisers, and a couple of Terry Riley LP's.We're talking Popol Vuh, Cluster,and Tangerine Dream here fella's.....and it is only Fella's who listen to this stuff.The ladies are less inclined to listen to anything that may enhance their stature in the tribe,and go for mostly stuff they actually like.

It's debatable whether Tangerine Dream should actually be associated with the rest of Krautrock/Kosmiche musik,as they seemed to exist apart from all that,and would have made the charts in the UK no matter what. As for Kraftwerk,they binned off Krautrock altogether to nobley try and invent some futuristic Pop that also charted in the UK. CAN also existed in that hinterland of accessibility that overlapped Roxy Music territory minus the songs.

For me, there was only one Kraut act that sounded like nothing else that went before,and that was ,of course, Neu!.This was one of those 'What The Fuck Was That' moments that are all too rare in the rock'n'roll era.

Doesn't that drummer play the same pattern on all of the tracks?...er...Yes. Where were the fills,the paradiddles,the 7/5 time signatures? This was NOT Prog!

Probably the greatest influence Krautrock had was not the music, it was the inclusivity of the musicianship.Wait a minute I can play Bass like Holgar Czukay,play drums like Klaus Dinger,and guitar like that bloke from Guru Guru, said the impressionable youth of 1973,having just pilfered the 'European Rock' section of the local record store.

The Euro Rock section was still there in 1978 when i first bought into the Krautrock legend,after endlessly hearing my Post-Punk hero's name-dropping CAN and Neu.Sadly "Tago-Mago" wasn't there, so I got the terrible "Soon Over Babaluma",which was, let's face it...Shit.Although,there will certainly be comments alluding to the opposite. Luckily I fell upon an original pressing of "Neu 1",on Brain Records, in a subterranean hippy record store in Leicester called "The Very Bazaar",from which i spent most of my dole money in in the early eighties. The Euro-Rock section was in Revolver in Leicester market place,which was renouned for its genre spanning sections;the other notorious section in Revolver was the "New Wave" section,where you could find anything from The Drones to The Door and The Window residing there.

When David Bowie was looking for Idea's, as he was inclined to do,often mistaking 'looking' for 'Stealing',he was pointed in the direction of The Motorik section(as in the Neu/Motorik Beat) of the Krautrock genre by fellow 'Ideas' harvester,and fellow non-musician,Brian Eno,or 'Eno', as his mother calls him (Eno,yer dinner's ready!).So...er... Eno,with sidekicks Bowie and Pop (iggy),would hang-out with Harmonia,Cluster,Conny Plank,and the Dingers casually usurping their style for a series of rather unremarkable albums to enhance Bowies legend,including the terminally awful "The Idiot" by Iggy Pop...who wants us to know he,or David's read some Dostoevsky.Luckily,as no-one had heard of Neu or Harmonia in the Anglo-Saxon arena,or even in Germany for that matter;this watered down Motorik influenced Kosmiche Pop was attributed to the Great David,who to his credit would often drop these groups names subtly,to the deaf ears of the Anglo-American public.

Most of it is,like every other genre,over-rated and dross, valued for its obscurity over content. Leave a copy of the admittedly rather good,"Golem" by Sand on your coffee table,and you'll score many obscurity points with the envious eyes that your geek friend Eamonn would cast upon it...That's the Eamonn who changed his name to Aemonn Düül in tribute to his favourite Band.Then of course, there was his quieter namesake, Aemonn Düül Too,who was Aemonn Düül One's shadow world. If these people don't exist there is a need to invent them.

So to close this contentious article on German musik at the start of the seventies,its a Geek tradition to have a Top Five list innit?

1. Neu - "Neu!"

2. CAN - "Ege Bamyasi"

3. Cluster - "Zukerzeit"

4. Harmonia - "Musik Von Harmonia"

5. Guru Guru - "UFO"

All pretty obvious selections,but Obscurity in itself is not a guide izzit?

I assume you've all got these albums? Si I'll provide a download of Sand's "Golem" album......which you've probably all got as well,but its more obscure than my Top Five,and is therefore more 'Krautrock as a result.

Epilogue:

Ok, Yeah Jaki Liebzeit was an incredible drummer,and NO, Einsturzende Neubauten was not a Krautrock band,even if they did steal banging metal junk and using engines from Faust.That's immitation not innovation.And no Ash Ra (Tempel) didn't invent Trance."

Sand  ‎– "Golem" (1974)

Tracklist:

1.Helicopter 13:40
2.The Old Loggerhead 8:20
3.May Rain 4:30
4.On The Corner 4:30
5.Sarah (10:40)

DOWNLOAD some sand HERE!

N.Æ. (Niemen Aerolit). ‎– "Katharsis" ( Polskie Nagrania Muza ‎– SX 1262) 1976

Czeslaw Niemen is hardly obscure in his native Poland,unlike anywhere else outside of the soviet bloc. In fact he's a star there. Actually I should be saying "was" since he kicked the proverbial 'bucket' and left to sing with the choir invisible in 2004. There's even a bust of him in a park somewhere in Poland and even Czeslaw Niemen commemorative coins were minted....a rare honour indeed.

N.Æ. was mainly his fusion-oriented project, but this second release under that moniker,also on the Polish State label, was essentially a Czeslaw Niemen solo album with no outside help.Now he could really indulge himself with his own genius without other musicians muddying the waters.Mike Oldfield Style, but without the tunes or dubious humour. This one veers much dangerously closer to the avant garde rocks. Lots of spacy Minimoog and EMS Synthi A.Plus some of the more raw, in your face, Mellotron ever commited to low grade communist era plastic.

Its always a sign,especially in the seventies when we didn't know any better, that a 'Rock Star' is begining to believe his own godlike status, when they quote 19th century romantic poetry on the rear of the jacket.You know you're in even deeper trouble when every track has sub-titles in brackets,to show how much more intelligent our new God is than you are.

Never seen without a hat,I wonder if his Soul really did 'Return To The Regions Of The Central Galaxy', as the sub-title of the title track suggests it was tearning for?

Tracklist:

A1 Discovery Of A New Galaxy (A Triumphal Dream)
A2 The Milky Way (Travel To The Confines Of Infinity)
A3 The Planet Earth (Gravity, A Gate In The Clouds, Landing, A Terrestrial Landscape, Enchantment, Annunciation)
A4 Fate (The Immutable Law Of Trasience)
A5 The Seal (Biological Reproduction, The Struggle For Survival, The Vanity And Euphoria Of The Privileged)
B1 From A Letter To M
B2 An Attempt To Escape (A Hope In Outer-Space Communication)
B3 Katharsis (The Eternal Yearning Of The Soul - Return To The Regions Of The Central Galaxy)
B4 An Epitaph/In Memory Of Piotr

DOWNLOAD some katharsis for pretentious intelligentsia HERE!

Sergei Djokanov ‎– "Зелената Пустиня / The Green Desert" (Балкантон ‎– BTA 11674) 1985

We haven't been to Bulgaria yet on our Communist era tour of the Soviet Bloc have we. There may be a reason for that. Fuck all went on there, and still doesn't. Except organised racism at Football matches,like the black clad scumbags at the Engalnd Match in Sofia recently. The match was stopped three times,they were booted out after a lot of moaning by the English, who still thrashed the crap bastards 6-0. The funny thing was that the swarthy hoodies who were making the monkey noises,Nazi Salutes etc, would have been classed as Gypsies under the racial profiling system of their beloved Third Reich; stuffed into cattle trucks and never allowed to attend a Football match ever again!
Baugaria was after all, an Axis member and Nazi ally during world war 2,lets never forget that.
That's all good but what position did most germans, including Hitler what to play in during a Footy match?......The Right Wing of course!
No-one dared play on the left wing,they were quickly substituted and repositioned in the east.
The left wing postion became popular after the communist 'liberation'.

Bulgarian racially pure Aryans making dubious hand gestures at English Black footballers...hmmm nice chaps?

And, back in 1938, the England Team saluting the German National anthem before a nice game of footy against the Nazi's, who are fittingly dressed in Black.....the English are polite to everyone.

Of course not all Bulgarians are Nazi scummers, like  communist era Kosmiche style synthesist, Sergei Djokanov. Who made Tangerine Dream inspired minimal Cosmic landscapes like an ambient Berlin School hybrid.Very mellow with sparse synthesizer melodies and the usual white noise to give th music that "then" cosmic feel. Side A is minimalist no drums or guitars just full on analog beauty. Side B doesnt pick up until the later part of the album replete with string synth, lead melodies, drums and a nice sort of mellow prog vibe.
Taken notes from the mid period of Tangerine Dream this music is sparser,and,i'm sorry,but, no mellotron and alas a bit more contemplative.If those Nazi-Football Hooligans spent more time listening to this, they might relax a bit,and start to educate that black desert they call a mind a tad?
This was recorded at Bulgarian National Radio by the way,if you're one of those persons who need to know shit like that?

Its no coincidence,that Tangerine Dream also had an album called 'Green Desert' too.....who stole from who? The TD album came out a year after this one,but they cunningly added a 'Recorded in 1973' epithet to wriggle out of acusations of plagarism.

Tracklist:

A1 Било Е... / It Was...
A2 В Пещерата На Мъртвите / In The Cave Of The Dead
A3 Копнеж / Yearning
B1 Зелената Пустиня / The Green Desert
B2 P. S. / P.S.

DOWNLOAD into the desert of your mind HERE!

Reinhard Lakomy & Rainer Oleak ‎– "Zeiten" (AMIGA ‎– 8 56 111) 1985

It's 1985, and the German Democratic Republic,rather undemocratically as it seems, is still in the grips of the most thorough Police State that has ever been.But at least everyone had a job,somewhere to live,and a crap car. The Stasi probably made a recording of Lakomy making this recording,which likely still exists in the Stasi HQ,waiting for the deluxe reissue of this album in the west.
On this one, Lakomy, and buddy Oleak,get more experimental with their imported DX-7....never one of my favourite synths, but they seem to make it sound electronic rather than emulating a bank of digital horns as most of the chart-bound sounds of 1985 preferred.
The cover references several Hammershøi style open doorways which pass through several walls,almost daring those trapped in that drab communist existence to pass through these symbolic walls into the mysterious room at the end where the slavery is much more subtle...'The West', and so-called freedom.
In the west we are our own personal Stasi,voluntarily existing in a prison with no walls.
To quote W.S.Borroughs, "An efficient Police State doesn't need Police".In some ways that makes the DDR a more honest form of oppression,and a victim of its own sucess.
Oppression aside, Lakomy's previous "electronics" albums are fairly accessible outings typical of the era, much of this album belongs in the experimental category. The first three minutes of "Gleichzeit" and much of "Klangzeit" resemble the abstract 60s/70s computer music of academia: atonal and sparse, dissonant,whereas "Ruhezeit" wouldn't sound out of place on an early '80s Tangerine Dream album.

This was not at all endorsed by Erich Honecker of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany,but the fact that you could make a record like this in the DDR,seems to suggest it weren't all shite.You could curl up with your alloted Stasi tail,and listen to some pretty cool electronica of an evening.Leaving all the paranoia behind for forty minutes.....then back to the normal recorded conversations and video taped sex.Even spys need a time-out every now and again.

Tracklist:

A1 Gleichzeit 10:02
A2 Raumzeit 6:15
A3 Ruhezeit 5:14
B1 Klangzeit 9:30
B2 Hochzeit 8:52

DOWNLOAD to your prison with open doors HERE!

Reinhard Lakomy ‎– "Das Geheime Leben" (AMIGA ‎– 8 55 893) 1982

The Handsome ,yet ,Modern Young Gentleman that was Reinhard Lakomy

Lakomy was well known in the DDR for releasing all sorts of projects,such as nursery rhymes, books for children and,more significantly, records in such various styles as Jazz,Schlager ,disco,and euro-pop,among many other atrocities. So it wasn't astonishing that he made the first release of Berlin School style  electronic music in East Germany,of which "Das Geheime Leben" was it .Only about a dozen years after Tangerine Dream's debut in the western part of this subjucated country, followed closely by Pond and others later.

Rumour has it that he heard a Jean Michel Jarre album(Which is one more than I've ever managed!?) and away he went.After such a traumatic experience most of us never regained our mental faculties again, but somehow Reinhard managed to retain his perchant for such progressive electronics until the wall came down and ruined everything.It was Illegal to be unemployed in the Soviet Bloc, so I suppose he had to say he was doing.... something?...it was either that or Jail.Now that's what I call artistic motivation.

Tracklist:

A Das Geheime Leben 21:15
B1 Es Wächst Das Gras Nicht Über Alles 11:24
B2 Begierde Und Hoffnung 5:40
B3 Das Unendliche Rätsel 3:30

DOWNLOAD the communist Jean Michel Jarre HERE!

Reinhard Lakomy ‎– "Der Traum Von Asgard" (AMIGA ‎– 8 56 021) 1983

From the East Berlin school of electronics,on DDR state label, Amiga. Reinhard Lakomy provides us with some Tangerine Dream inspired electronica with fine socialist morals.
Its full of gorgeous analogue electronics that never escaped until the wall came down and piles of cheap Amiga vinyl was snapped up up by rich westerners. Most East German music was, of course, pure shite.But a few nuggets lay amongst the squalor...this being one of them.Active in various genres, Reinhard was the most published musician in the DDR,but didn't discover his true mojo until he made this couple of electronic Kosmischer albums.Truly worthy enough to be awarded the 'Karl Marx Order for exceptional merit in relation to ideology, culture, economy, and other designations'?

The Karl Marx Order Medal that Reinhard Lakomy was never awarded!

....good cover art too. 

Tracklist:

Der Traum Von Asgard 11:45
Die Gotischen Narren 9:20
Möglichkeit Einer Ouvertüre 3:27
Orakel 6:04
Sodom 11:32

DOWNLOAD 'cus a reinhard's gonna fall HERE!

Sven Grünberg / Свен Грюнберг ‎– "Hingus / Дыхание" (Мелодия ‎– С90-16301-2) 1981

Luckily, Soviet Estonian prog legend, Sven Grünberg, formerly of commie prog band 'Mess', got to muck about with the Melodia, in house, EMS Synthi 100 too. The results of which can be heard on this Electronic Cosmic classic. Its like drifting in space waiting for your oxygen to run out after a malfunctioning computer had jettisoned you from the air-lock into the eternal something.
Fittingly its called 'Breath',so it can't be bad,unless its your last one on the million year journey towards the Black Hole at the centre of our Galaxy.

Tracklist:

Hingus/Дыхание 

A1 Hingus I (Breath)
A2 Hingus II (Breath)
A3 Hingus III (Breath)
A4 Hingus IV (Breath)
B1 Teekond (Journey)
B2 Valgusois (Flower Of LIght)

DOWNLOAD and breath easier HERE!

Edward Artemiev /Э. Артемьев ‎– "Метаморфозы / Metamorphoses" (Мелодия ‎– С 10—13889-90) 1980

When Eduard Artemiev, Yuri Bogdanov and Vladimir Martynov got their clammy hands on the massive, British made, Digital/Analogue synthesizer Synthi 100  by EMS systems as owned by "Melodia", the result was "Metamorphoses - Electronic interpretations of classic and modern musical works".Which consisted of electronic interpretations of ‘classical’ and neo-classical pieces by Claude Debussy and Monteverdi among others . Yuri Bogdanov features on every track, on some tracks together with Edward Artemiev, among others. Other tracks feature Vladimir Martynov.
The record was made with the basic concept of a kaleidoscope: it's interspersed with pieces of various styles, genres and eras. For example,for these pieces the authors wanted to show a variety of ways to use a synthesizer, starting with the direct simulation of now or once existing instruments, to the establishment of new not yet known sounds. Thus, the record is like a small musical walk through time,as realized by the SYNTHY100 synthesizer.
Yes, the only synth I know of with a built in Oscilloscope!?
There were only thirty of these beasts made,and luckily for Iron curtain dwelling modern composers the state label shelled out the 6.5 grand necessary to purchase one of these mighty beasts in the late seventies.....of course the BBC Radipphonic Workshop had one since 1970. Now dodgy pop stars all over the planet salivate at the prospect of finding one of these in the local thrift store. Billy Corgan has one....but don't let that put you off.

The Synthi 100....they don't build 'em like this anymore!?

Tracklist:

A1 Ветер На Равнине = Le Vent Dans La Plaine 4:25
A2 Я Молод И Радостен = Io Mi Son Giovinetta 2:15
A3 Почему Ты Спрашиваешь? = Why Aske You? 2:32
A4 Весенний Этюд = Spring Etude 5:20
A5 Сарказмы = Sarcasmes 1:20
A6 Канопа = Canope 2:15
B1 Летний Канон = Summer Cannon 2:25
B2 Утро В Горах = Morning In The Mountains 3:30
B3 Гольдберг-Вариации № 5 И 8 = Goldberg Variations Nos. 5 And 8 1:44
B4 Паруса = Voiles 4:44
B5 Движение = Motion 8:35

DOWNLOAD and interpret it for yourself HERE!