Archive for the Kraut Rock Category
Klaus Schulze “X” (Brain)
X is the tenth album by Klaus Schulze. It was originally released in 1978, and on X Schulze attempted to execute a concept album of six “musical biographies” evoking contemporary or historical intellectuals with an influence on Schulze: Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Trakl, Frank Herbert, Friedemann Bach, Ludwig II. von Bayern, […]
Hardy Kukuk “Atemnot” (Wah Wah/Supersonic)
One of the biggest rarities from the cosmische kraut underground scene has to be Hardy Kukuk’s lost 1981 top Berlin School electronic masterpiece Atemnot. Kukuk’s synth explorations take the adventures of masters of the genre like Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze one step further into the early eighties. Kukuk is […]
Monopol “Weltweit” (Medical)
Medical Records collaborates with their good friends Anna Logue across the pond in Germany to present the long out of print Neu Deutsche Welle cult classic album Weltweit by Monopol. Released in 1982, Weltweit was the sole output of the band. It has appropriately become quite rare and difficult to […]
Slapp Happy “Sort Of” (LP + CD) (Tapete)
Slapp Happy’s debut unveiled a band that was not so much an avant-rock group as one that seemed primarily interested in toying with rock conventions, as if such subversion was more inherently worthwhile than playing it straight. That meant that at its least impressive, it didn’t qualify as either good […]
McChurch Soundroom “Delusion” (Ohrwaschl)
Ohrwaschl Records present a reissue of McChurch Soundroom’s Delusion, originally released in 1971. The cover of the gatefold sleeve promises sheer darkness and madness – A skull in a bird’s nest on the back and a skull covered with candle wax on the front. The rather pastoral folky beginning seems […]
Guru Guru “UFO” (Play Loud!)
First authorized reissue of UFO, the 1970 debut LP by German krautrock band Guru Guru. Guru Guru was formed in 1968 as The Guru Guru Groove by Mani Neumeier (drums), Uli Trepte (bass), and Eddy Naegeli (guitar) (later replaced by American Jim Kennedy (guitar)). By the time of Guru Guru’s […]
Guru Guru “Hinten” (Play Loud! Productions)
Guru Guru’s second album starts off on a chaotic note, but “Electric Junk” soon resolves itself into a full-on band jam and takes it from there, showing again that the band readily trod the fine line between merely skilled and truly inspired. There’s always a nagging sense on this album […]
Cavern of Anti-Matter “Void Versions” ( Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks)
Two tracks from the Cavern of Anti-Matter (Time Gane / Joe Dilworth of Stereolab) void beats/invocation trex album, bent into new shapes by two of the most exciting electronic producers of the moment. Chicago’s Jamal Moss records as Hieroglyphic Being, as well as a dizzying number of other names including […]
Pram “The Stars Are So Big, The Earth Is So Small … Stay As You Are” (Medical Records)
Medical Records’ celebration of 1990’s seminal works on the famous Too Pure label continues with the long overdue reissue of 1993’s “The Stars Are So Big…” by Birmingham, England’s very own Pram. This is the first of two simultaneous Pram reissues by Medical Records (the 2nd being 1994’s “Helium”). Originally […]