Second Division Krautrock

WOEBOT said:

roll up, roll up!

any thoughts? if it's not in cope's krautrocksampler book it qualifies.

has anyone heard out of focus?

check these links:

http://rateyourmusic.com/lists/list_view?list_id=21390&show=25&start=0
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Sandrose/german_progressive_treasures___1970_79/
http://www.progarchives.com/top-prog-albums.asp?style_id=17

Click to expand...

i am not familiar with cope's book, but i am fairly fond of Kraan and Krocodil...

Kraan is more proggy, but def still krautrock (ie sounds similar to Can and Amon Duul)... Krocodil, at least the bits i've heard, are similar to can's more funky rockist stuff...

WOEBOT said:

has anyone heard out of focus?

Click to expand...

these were uploaded to the newsgroups 2 and 25 days ago, respectively ..
alt.binaries.sounds. mp3.1970

Out Of Focus - Rat Roads (1974 German Prog)
Out Of Focus - Four Letter Monday Afternoon (1972 Germany Prog-Fusion)

any info about the maniac making this stuff available would be appreciated.

believe me there is much for the picking!

seeselberg is the one I really wan't to hear...

For today I nominate:

DOM - Edge Of Time

&

Code III - Planet Of Man

I think there's plenty more...

http://rateyourmusic.com/lists/list_...how=25&start=0
http://rateyourmusic.com/list/Sandro...res___1970_79/
http://www.progarchives.com/top-prog...sp?style_id=17

Click to expand...

I've got that Bokaj Retsiem thing (the first one on that list), it's alright I guess. If memory serves there is one good kind of Can-like track and there is one that reminds me in a weird kind of way of Superfly (at least I think it was that, something by Curtis Mayfield anyway). It's also got loads of little short tracks with machine gun noises and stuff I think.

No Michael Bundt on any of those lists, maybe it's not exactly krautrock (but it is German "rock" from the seventies) but that Brain of Oskar Panizza thing is fucking awesome. That's so far ahead of it's time. I've got another album by him as well but to be honest I wouldn't bother.

I think Bundt is amazing but I always thought he was Belgian for some reason.

Rich, if the other album you have is Neon or Electri City do you want to sell it?

Noel, I'll check what it is, give it one last listen and if it's how I remember it I'll sell it. Where do you live?
I think Electri City is the one with him with sun glasses on the front sticking his fingers in some lazers or something. It's definitely not that. The one I have is really horrible looking, him standing there with a "sexy" lady kind of kneeling at his feet.
Ah, it's this one.

http://www.discogs.com/release/447620

I'm pretty sure that he's German although I really don't know what I'm basing that on. Anyway it's definitely not second-division in terms of quality. If anyone can recommend anything at all like the Oskar Panizza track I would LOVE to hear it.

A friend was recommending DOM to me a while ago, but I could never find any info on them...

So was noodly, jazzy, maximal prog actually the more prevalent style in 70s German progressive, with the whole loopy, kosmische, minimal, spacey, motorik thing of the now mythologised kraut bands being the exception... or were those minimalist bands just the "best" of a larger movement of a similarly minimal prog style, with the jazzier British-style prog actually being the exception in the scene?

The DOM album is gorgeous - deep, melancholic, acoustic kraut-folk. Not really second division - I think it's first class.

Thirsty Moon have some good moments - especially the first LP and the more synthy Blitz, not everyone's cup of tea though.

Also worth checking is Oktober's 1976 album Uhrsrung, the track 'Nero' anyway which is so weirdly drum and bass before the fact. Nice drumming and synths anyway.

Maybe these last two are veering towards noogly jazz prog though.

There are many more decent and lesser known artifacts from this period - the names of which escape me at the moment - will have to go have a look at my mp3 collections.

Bunnyhausen to thread...

I'll second Kraan and Krokodil.

Were Limbus 4 in the book? I'm not even sure they are krautrock to be honest but they're good if you want something a bit noisy.

Chris said:

So was noodly, jazzy, maximal prog actually the more prevalent style in 70s German progressive, with the whole loopy, kosmische, minimal, spacey, motorik thing of the now mythologised kraut bands being the exception... or were those minimalist bands just the "best" of a larger movement of a similarly minimal prog style, with the jazzier British-style prog actually being the exception in the scene?

Click to expand...

Good question, conicidentally me and a mate were trying to find out the exact same thing the other night. We didn't get very far, but it was about five in the morning. I think there was more minimal stuff than Prog, but i'm open to correction...

Interesting... I almost wonder if the minimal thing has do with certain aspects of a German ethic/mentality and mythos, manifesting in certain qualities; like stark, straight-forward, metronomic, melancholic, dark, wintery, detached, sometimes Tragic but rarely Comedic (these are GERMANS we're talking about), scientific/Modern yet at times Romantic; that could be traced from Stockhausen-era noise, through kraut and kosmische, >Kraftwerk, through the NDW, into industrial, maybe through some aspects of trance, and now manifesting in the whole micro/minimal/kompakt scene today? The "kraut kontinuum"... I suppose aspects of it could maybe even be traced back into German philosophy, Sturm und Drang, even fairy tales...

*shrugs* maybe I'm making connections that aren't there, but I'm going to pursue this thought a bit more later, next time I go through my records...

Brainticket "cottonwoodhill" is actually one of my favorite kraut records. they were actually from switzerland and recorded the albums and played live in italy festivals with italoprog people. The record was heavily sampled by Nurse with Wound for "brained by falling masonry" (the original version, not the remix on SugarFishDrink) that is almost a cover version with Foetus singing.

On second rate has anyone mentioned Annexus Quam "Osmose"? On Ohr no less with a great silly gimmix cover. Their second album was not so great... For those who like Limbus 3 and Electrip this is a must.

Captain Trip from japan, who recently greatly reissued Heldon and Conrad Schnitzler, is reissuing the holy grail of third rate krautrock, the uber rare triple lp from Zweistein (Flip - Trip Out - Meditation) !!! http://www.captaintrip.co.jp/zweistein.html

out topic:
Woebot if you are reading this, about the Jackie Gleason's Dalì cover: isn't Ralph Gleason the jazz critic you refere? I know Jackie Gleason as one of the greatest musician of fifties orchestral mood, exotica and bachelor pad music (he made a tons of albums and Dalì was a fan). Not one of Dalì greatest painting, anyway... (seems more like a cheap imitation).

Come to think of it, the metronomic aspects of the kraut kontinuum stretch back through polka and even the clockwork-like internal logic of Bach....



*note... coming back to this idea the next day... I'd still make some of these qualitative distinctions about strains of a lot of german underground music (or just german music in general), but there perhaps wasn't enough causal flow from one scene to the next like in the Hardcore Nuum to quite be considered a cohesive continuum... the concept still kind of fits for me though in a loose way... I'd even consider Detroit, synth pop, and electro outgrowths of said "continuum"...

....Anyways, didn't mean to derail the intent of this thread...

only just discovered this thread!!

woebot's 2nd tier krautrock list is pretty spot on, although if anything i'd heap far more praise on brainticket's amazing cottonwoodhill - possibly the most frazzled kraut-acid-blues-stoner-psych-out out ever!

i'd second the tripped out melancholic cosmic folk of dom's 'edge of time' and on a similar is kalakackra's haunting 'crawling to lhasa' which has been bootlegged a few times and is relatively easy to get hold of

the sesselberg album is fantastic, kind of similar to the early conrad schnitzler electronic albums (esp. gelb) and kluster with a k. abstract and astringent electronics and synth-blatt. i'm still on a mission to get a proper vinyl copy

another great 2nd division kraut album is sand's 'golem', which got a reissue c/o stapleton and tibet a couple of years ago, although it's been out of print for a loonngg time and is now nearly as hard to get hold of as an original. really otherworldly and sinister sounding collision of folky whimsy and klaus schulze-esque (he's on production duties) cosmic electronics, with some primitive drum-machine action in parts.

those early achim reichel lp's (under the name a.r. & machines) are pretty neat. i've not heard #4 which woebot recommends, but i can definitely recommend 'die grune reise (the green journey) which is a very kosmische psych-rock trip with myriad wild synth fx and voice treatments and weird cut-up fx, with moments that remind me weirdly of the groundhogs. 'echoes' is the one that goes for silly money, probably for being more conspicuously kosmische and for never having been reissued. it should be - it's great.

god, this is just the tip of the iceberg. i also love the witthuser and westrupp albums, esp 'trips und trausm', even though they get a passing mention in cope's book, i'm not sure if they fit into the canonical kraut 1st division. just really wonky and very german cosmic folk with lots of space and a weirdly bavarian sort of pastoral vibe (not that it descends into volkisch schlager or anything...)

great to hear that the zweistein bad-acid magnum opus 'trip-flip out-meditation' is getting a reissue. long overdue!!

bunnyhausen said:

those early achim reichel lp's (under the name a.r. & machines) are pretty neat. i've not heard #4 which woebot recommends, but i can definitely recommend 'die grune reise (the green journey) which is a very kosmische psych-rock trip with myriad wild synth fx and voice treatments and weird cut-up fx, with moments that remind me weirdly of the groundhogs. 'echoes' is the one that goes for silly money, probably for being more conspicuously kosmische and for never having been reissued. it should be - it's great.

Click to expand...

Look: http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/reichel.and.machines.achim.html

Not sure how official that is.

cor! thx for the link...

focus is craaaaaazy. the real first heavy metal band?