GURU GURU Wiesbaden 1972 (Garden Of Delights) cd 21.00

GURUMANIAX Psy Valley Hill ( Bureau B) cd 17.98
Like a blast from the krautrock past, Bureau B brings us the debut album from Gurumaniax. But, unlike a lot of the German label's releases, this ISN'T a reissue - it's a brand new album featuring the two surviving members of krautrock legends Guru Guru, drummer Mani Neumeier and guitarist Ax Genrich. Hence the name, GuruManiAx, get it? Sadly, original bass player Uli Trepte passed away last year, so the trio is rounded out by new bassist Guy Segers from veteran art proggers Univers Zero (with guest Mario Engelter performing bass duties on two of the tracks as well). The final track here is entitled "For Uli T." but it's as if the whole thing is dedicated to his memory, doubtless he'd approve 'cause Gurumaniax is about the closest thing to ye olde Guru Guru as could be imagined, really it sounds like they went way back to the earliest albums by the original trio for inspiration (UFO, Hinten, and Kanguru, circa 1970-72). Dunno if they dropped some acid too, to get into the mood, we wouldn't be surprised...
It's card-carrying krautrock all right, freaky and psychedelic, meandering and mesmeric, mostly instrumental. Psy Valley Hill is full of lengthy, pulsating jams and drifting, echoing FX, with just enough (but not too much) of Guru Guru's trademark goofiness / weirdness (ferinstance, "Telefonladies", with the voices of telephone operators mixed into the music). Much of it is super spacey, with swirling electronics in all the nooks and crannies. Their MO seemingly involves lots and lots of improvisational freedom, yet each song finds structure and identity. Results range from the jauntily spaced-out free-rock-abilly of "Voodoo Touch" to, on the very next track, the chain-rattling abstract soundscape of "Electrosaurus", that could be something by Absolut Null Punkt.
Gurumaniax are good natured and generally mellowed out, but still venturesome, traipsing to the edge of the void and sometimes beyond. The splatter of Mani's percussion and the echoed unfurling of Ax's axe is often slow and steady, even somnolent or sedate, but elsewhere utterly urgent and agitated... Quite obviously, these guys know what they're doing, heck it was about 40 years ago they first started making these sort of sounds, now the bread and butter of bands like LSD-march, Circle, and of course Acid Mothers Temple, with whom the ever-energetic Neumeier has collaborated. And, speaking of Circle, we're really reminded of that Scandinavian band by track four, "Ghost Of Odin", a lazy almost dubbed-out jam, blissfully hypnotic, with occasional quirky vocal mutter, eventually building to a loud, distorted climax... nice!!
Mani is always making records, but it's especially exciting to hear again from Ax, whose last solo album back in 1995, Wave Cut, was quite fine. It's commendable that, without T., they decided not to officially bill this as a Guru Guru reunion. But, listening to it, they certainly could have. Gurumaniax is the real deal. Recommended! And not only to krautrock heads, but also to post rock types who like Tortoise and stuff like that, check this out and see if it's not too hippy for you!
MPEG Stream: "Drumoroto"
MPEG Stream: "Spaceship Memory"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Of Odin"

GURUMANIAX Psy Valley Hill ( Bureau B) lp 17.98
Like a blast from the krautrock past, Bureau B brings us the debut album from Gurumaniax. But, unlike a lot of the German label's releases, this ISN'T a reissue - it's a brand new album featuring the two surviving members of krautrock legends Guru Guru, drummer Mani Neumeier and guitarist Ax Genrich. Hence the name, GuruManiAx, get it? Sadly, original bass player Uli Trepte passed away last year, so the trio is rounded out by new bassist Guy Segers from veteran art proggers Univers Zero (with guest Mario Engelter performing bass duties on two of the tracks as well). The final track here is entitled "For Uli T." but it's as if the whole thing is dedicated to his memory, doubtless he'd approve 'cause Gurumaniax is about the closest thing to ye olde Guru Guru as could be imagined, really it sounds like they went way back to the earliest albums by the original trio for inspiration (UFO, Hinten, and Kanguru, circa 1970-72). Dunno if they dropped some acid too, to get into the mood, we wouldn't be surprised...
It's card-carrying krautrock all right, freaky and psychedelic, meandering and mesmeric, mostly instrumental. Psy Valley Hill is full of lengthy, pulsating jams and drifting, echoing FX, with just enough (but not too much) of Guru Guru's trademark goofiness / weirdness (ferinstance, "Telefonladies", with the voices of telephone operators mixed into the music). Much of it is super spacey, with swirling electronics in all the nooks and crannies. Their MO seemingly involves lots and lots of improvisational freedom, yet each song finds structure and identity. Results range from the jauntily spaced-out free-rock-abilly of "Voodoo Touch" to, on the very next track, the chain-rattling abstract soundscape of "Electrosaurus", that could be something by Absolut Null Punkt.
Gurumaniax are good natured and generally mellowed out, but still venturesome, traipsing to the edge of the void and sometimes beyond. The splatter of Mani's percussion and the echoed unfurling of Ax's axe is often slow and steady, even somnolent or sedate, but elsewhere utterly urgent and agitated... Quite obviously, these guys know what they're doing, heck it was about 40 years ago they first started making these sort of sounds, now the bread and butter of bands like LSD-march, Circle, and of course Acid Mothers Temple, with whom the ever-energetic Neumeier has collaborated. And, speaking of Circle, we're really reminded of that Scandinavian band by track four, "Ghost Of Odin", a lazy almost dubbed-out jam, blissfully hypnotic, with occasional quirky vocal mutter, eventually building to a loud, distorted climax... nice!!
Mani is always making records, but it's especially exciting to hear again from Ax, whose last solo album back in 1995, Wave Cut, was quite fine. It's commendable that, without T., they decided not to officially bill this as a Guru Guru reunion. But, listening to it, they certainly could have. Gurumaniax is the real deal. Recommended! And not only to krautrock heads, but also to post rock types who like Tortoise and stuff like that, check this out and see if it's not too hippy for you!
MPEG Stream: "Drumoroto"
MPEG Stream: "Spaceship Memory"
MPEG Stream: "Ghost Of Odin"

HABOOB s/t (Long Hair) cd 27.00

HAIRY CHAPTER Can't Get Through (Second Battle) cd 25.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

HALLO GALLO 2010 Blinkgurtel / Drone (Vampire Blues) 7" 6.50
Does that name sound familiar to you? It should. After all, "Hallo Gallo" was the opening track on Neu!'s legendary debut album. So who would have the gall to name their band after a Neu! track (besides Negativland we mean), well, Hallo Gallo 2010 just so happens to be the new band of Neu!'s Michael Rother, who is joined by Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley (whose Vampire Blues label released this) and Aaron Mullen from Tall Firs, for some modern day krautrocking, Neu! style, and somehow it does manage to channel the classic sound and spirit of the original with something more dense and psychedelic. Motorik and rhythmic (of course), "Blinkgurtel" is gorgeous and hazy and washed out and mesmerizing, Shelley's simple solid drumming perfectly locked in with Mullen's warm fluid basslines, and Rothers's incendiary guitars, thick thrumming riffs, soaring psychedelic melodies, all gently phased and flanged into something gorgeously trippy and otherworldly, getting downright rocking near the end.
"Drone Schlager" is much more muted and restrained, a simple pulse like groove, with little rhythmic flurries here and there, the bass a deep throb, the guitars, cyclical and looped, strange production has the guitars dropping out and swooping into the foreground, totally stripped down and utterly mesmerizing, another one of those tracks that could go on forever, but instead, winds down after 5 minutes, pretty much ensuring you'll have to play it again. So good, and not just past laurels good, this is as dark and mesmerizing and hypnotic as anything out today. Circle fans especially will probably go nuts for this.
LIMITED TO 1000 COPIES, housed in hand screened covers, comes with a download card too!

HARMONIA Deluxe (Lilith) cd 24.00
A few lists ago we raved about the reissue of Harmonia's first album Musik Von Harmonia and now Lilith has thankfully reissued Harmonia's follow-up release from 1975, Deluxe. Although we loved Harmonia's first album, Deluxe is, dare we say, even better!! Made up of Michael Rother from Neu! and Moebius and Roedelius from Cluster, on Deluxe they are joined on a few songs by Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru, making the line up on this record a kosmiche supergroup of epic proportions! While the first record was tipped in the balance towards the Cluster side of things in terms of sound and the improvised process in which it was made, Deluxe has more of a Neu! feel as the tracks are more composed and song oriented, and for the first time contain vocal elements. Plus the motorik grooves are more rocking, with a real drum kit used more often than the drum machines creating a pulsating drive on par with Neu! 75, recorded that same year. But that's not to say Deluxe doesn't have its Cluster moments, as the two final tracks bring us down into some beautiful pastoral territory with the sounds of a stream with ducks and frogs near the Cluster studio in Forst can be heard amongst the warm and percolating analog synths. This is beautifully packaged tri-fold digipak with liner notes by Asmus Tietchens, who still owns some of Cluster's original analog equipment, and lots of photos including the awesome back cover of the trio lounging by the river in an obvious nod to Neil Young's On the Beach. Absolutely Essential!!!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Walky-talky"
MPEG Stream: "Monza (Rauf Und Runter)"

HARMONIA Deluxe (Lilith) lp 23.00
A few lists ago we raved about the reissue of Harmonia's first album Musik Von Harmonia and now Lilith has thankfully reissued Harmonia's follow-up release from 1975, Deluxe. Although we loved Harmonia's first album, Deluxe is, dare we say, even better!! Made up of Michael Rother from Neu! and Moebius and Roedelius from Cluster, on Deluxe they are joined on a few songs by Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru, making the line up on this record a kosmiche supergroup of epic proportions! While the first record was tipped in the balance towards the Cluster side of things in terms of sound and the improvised process in which it was made, Deluxe has more of a Neu! feel as the tracks are more composed and song oriented, and for the first time contain vocal elements. Plus the motorik grooves are more rocking, with a real drum kit used more often than the drum machines creating a pulsating drive on par with Neu! 75, recorded that same year. But that's not to say Deluxe doesn't have its Cluster moments, as the two final tracks bring us down into some beautiful pastoral territory with the sounds of a stream with ducks and frogs near the Cluster studio in Forst can be heard amongst the warm and percolating analog synths.
This is beautifully packaged 180 gram vinyl with liner notes by Asmus Tietchens, who still owns some of Cluster's original analog equipment, and lots of photos including the awesome back cover of the trio lounging by the river in an obvious nod to Neil Young's On the Beach. Absolutely Essential!!!!!!!!
MPEG Stream: "Walky-talky"
MPEG Stream: "Monza (Rauf Und Runter)"

HARMONIA Live 1974 (Water) cd 16.98
Record covers like this one just aren't fair. Michael Rother, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius hiply dressed on a platform in an abandoned train station with their backs turned to the audience playing all manner of amazing looking analog electrical equipment: synths, farfisas, banks of tone generators, oscillators, patch bays, stacks of amps, leaning guitars, and cords everywhere, amongst racks of machines with all sorts of knobs and levels. It just makes us soooo jealous. Not only for such beautiful equipment, but also nostalgic for this period of time in Germany in the early seventies when so much thoughtful and incredibly inventive music was being produced. First Amon Duul II, Can and Faust then Kraftwerk, Cluster, and, Neu!, with Harmonia being the perfect synthesis of the latter three bands both in sound and personnel. Especially when you see the back cover and you get a closer look at the band and you can tell the trio just have this alchemical connection with each other and the sounds they make. Each member is focused but self-assuredly calm. Not exactly what you would expect from a band whom Brian Eno once called "the world's most important rock band". Not that much of the world had ever heard of them. Nor is it what most folks consider rock music to be.
So this is it! We've been reading about this for months, and it's finally here: a live document of a now legendary show on March 23rd, 1974 at Penny Station in Griessem, Germany. Not that it really matters that this is live, as their is no applause or chatter to clue you in, just bits of mumbled talking as the songs wind down at the very end. Harmonia members attribute this to there being only 50 or so people in the audience most of which were either too stoned to clap or too unsure at what points the songs begin and end. Doesn't seem to matter to the band anyway as we've already seen their backs were to the audience the entire time. But for a live document the sound quality is impeccable and what's even better all of the tracks performed weren't on any of their recordings, giving us, thirty-three years later, 5 new vintage Harmonia tracks to pore over. Most of which are over 9 minutes long.
Recorded between Harmonia's woozy debut, Musik Von Harmonia, and its more rock-leaning follow-up, Deluxe, Live 1974 is the logical conglomeration of both sounds, sort of like the merging of Terry Riley-ish repetitions with Robert Fripp's or Heldon's spacey and searing guitar extrapolations. But unlike conventional rock bands, Harmonia's music doesn't climax or necessarily change all that much, making their deceptively simple musical structures more akin to trance, electronica and slow disco. Beginning with the slow burn of "Schaumberg", an 11 minute epic of Rother's sinewy guitar lines that build and loop over gentle pulses of Moebius's programmed percussion and Roedelius' repetitive tonal keyboard patterns merging into a more sped-up and hypnotic version with bass rhythms on "Veteranissimo", an extended 17 minute meditation on "Veterano" from Musik Von Harmonia that breaks down to quiet heartbeats before slowly building again. "Arabesque", the shortest track at five minutes, does away with the percussive elements altogether, instead focussing on overlapping patterns of melodic synth and guitar before slamming into the loping quarter-hour stoner lurch of "Holta-Polta", then finally culminating in the blissful pastoralism of "Ueber Ottenstein".
It's been a stellar year or two for krautrock reissues as most of the Klaus Schulze, Cluster, Harmonia, Popol Vuh and Michael Rother catalogs have been reissued, re-introducing to the world the proto-new age realms of seventies German kosmiche music at a time when we can easily see its influence weaving through so many new bands like Arp, The Alps, White Rainbow, Lichens and Sylvain Chaveau. Always timeless, and never dated, Harmonia, like most of their German contemporaries mentioned above, were the most important rock band in the world simply because they cared about what they did, kept it simple, never indulged, and always left us wanting more.
MPEG Stream: "Schaumberg"
MPEG Stream: "Veteranissimo"
MPEG Stream: "Holta Polta"

HARMONIA Live 1974 (Gronland) lp 22.00
THIS FORMER RECORD OF THE WEEK, NOW ON VINYL!!!
Here's what we wrote about it five years ago when it came out on cd...
Record covers like this one just aren't fair. Michael Rother, Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius hiply dressed on a platform in an abandoned train station with their backs turned to the audience playing all manner of amazing looking analog electrical equipment: synths, farfisas, banks of tone generators, oscillators, patch bays, stacks of amps, leaning guitars, and cords everywhere, amongst racks of machines with all sorts of knobs and levels. It just makes us soooo jealous. Not only for such beautiful equipment, but also nostalgic for this period of time in Germany in the early seventies when so much thoughtful and incredibly inventive music was being produced. First Amon Duul II, Can and Faust then Kraftwerk, Cluster, and, Neu!, with Harmonia being the perfect synthesis of the latter three bands both in sound and personnel. Especially when you see the back cover and you get a closer look at the band and you can tell the trio just have this alchemical connection with each other and the sounds they make. Each member is focused but self-assuredly calm. Not exactly what you would expect from a band whom Brian Eno once called "the world's most important rock band". Not that much of the world had ever heard of them. Nor is it what most folks consider rock music to be.
So this is it! We've been reading about this for months, and it's finally here: a live document of a now legendary show on March 23rd, 1974 at Penny Station in Griessem, Germany. Not that it really matters that this is live, as their is no applause or chatter to clue you in, just bits of mumbled talking as the songs wind down at the very end. Harmonia members attribute this to there being only 50 or so people in the audience most of which were either too stoned to clap or too unsure at what points the songs begin and end. Doesn't seem to matter to the band anyway as we've already seen their backs were to the audience the entire time. But for a live document the sound quality is impeccable and what's even better all of the tracks performed weren't on any of their recordings, giving us, thirty-three years later, 5 new vintage Harmonia tracks to pore over. Most of which are over 9 minutes long.
Recorded between Harmonia's woozy debut, Musik Von Harmonia, and its more rock-leaning follow-up, Deluxe, Live 1974 is the logical conglomeration of both sounds, sort of like the merging of Terry Riley-ish repetitions with Robert Fripp's or Heldon's spacey and searing guitar extrapolations. But unlike conventional rock bands, Harmonia's music doesn't climax or necessarily change all that much, making their deceptively simple musical structures more akin to trance, electronica and slow disco. Beginning with the slow burn of "Schaumberg", an 11 minute epic of Rother's sinewy guitar lines that build and loop over gentle pulses of Moebius's programmed percussion and Roedelius' repetitive tonal keyboard patterns merging into a more sped-up and hypnotic version with bass rhythms on "Veteranissimo", an extended 17 minute meditation on "Veterano" from Musik Von Harmonia that breaks down to quiet heartbeats before slowly building again. "Arabesque", the shortest track at five minutes, does away with the percussive elements altogether, instead focussing on overlapping patterns of melodic synth and guitar before slamming into the loping quarter-hour stoner lurch of "Holta-Polta", then finally culminating in the blissful pastoralism of "Ueber Ottenstein".
It's been a stellar year or two for krautrock reissues as most of the Klaus Schulze, Cluster, Harmonia, Popol Vuh and Michael Rother catalogs have been reissued, re-introducing to the world the proto-new age realms of seventies German kosmiche music at a time when we can easily see its influence weaving through so many new bands like Arp, The Alps, White Rainbow, Lichens and Sylvain Chaveau. Always timeless, and never dated, Harmonia, like most of their German contemporaries mentioned above, were the most important rock band in the world simply because they cared about what they did, kept it simple, never indulged, and always left us wanting more.
MPEG Stream: "Schaumberg"
MPEG Stream: "Veteranissimo"
MPEG Stream: "Holta Polta"

HARMONIA Musik Von Harmonia (Lilith) cd 23.00
All right! One of our favorite album covers and probably the best kosmiche supergroup ever finally see the light of day once again. Called the "world's most important rock group" by Brian Eno, Harmonia consisted of Neu founder, Michael Rother and Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster. Michel Rother, after contributing to Cluster's breakthrough record, Zuckerzeit, which heralded a new direction in sound from their earlier dark and cavernous analog synthscapes to a more pastorally melodic and motorik driven percussive vibe, decided to take a breather from Neu. He moved into Cluster's newly built studio in the German countryside where they began collaborating on a more combined sound. While each member still continued to focus on their own main projects Harmonia was never considered a sideline affair, recording two stellar albums plus a series of recordings with Brian Eno that didn't see the light of day until twenty years later.
Connecting the aesthetics of Pop and Minimalism, the first Harmonia album is a product of their source bands but with a fresh twist on the motorik ideal. Less clinical than Kraftwerk, less funky than Can, each member's multi-instrumentalist abilities are employed in a variety of approaches at once playful and murky, steady and mechanical, using electronic beats, distorted rhythms, warm keyboard shimmers, drifting piano, and gliding electric guitars. Its no wonder Brian Eno was a fan. Fans of Boards of Canada, Susumu Yokota and electronica-heads of all types should check this out too. They even coined the term "hausmusik"! Totally Recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "Watusi"
MPEG Stream: "Hausmusik"

HARMONIA Musik Von Harmonia (Lilith) lp 24.00
All right! One of our favorite album covers and probably the best kosmiche supergroup ever finally see the light of day once again. Called the "world's most important rock group" by Brian Eno, Harmonia consisted of Neu founder, Michael Rother and Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster. Michel Rother, after contributing to Cluster's breakthrough record, Zuckerzeit, which heralded a new direction in sound from their earlier dark and cavernous analog synthscapes to a more pastorally melodic and motorik driven percussive vibe, decided to take a breather from Neu. He moved into Cluster's newly built studio in the German countryside where they began collaborating on a more combined sound. While each member still continued to focus on their own main projects Harmonia was never considered a sideline affair, recording two stellar albums plus a series of recordings with Brian Eno that didn't see the light of day until twenty years later.
Connecting the aesthetics of Pop and Minimalism, the first Harmonia album is a product of their source bands but with a fresh twist on the motorik ideal. Less clinical than Kraftwerk, less funky than Can, each member's multi-instrumentalist abilities are employed in a variety of approaches at once playful and murky, steady and mechanical, using electronic beats, distorted rhythms, warm keyboard shimmers, drifting piano, and gliding electric guitars. Its no wonder Brian Eno was a fan. Fans of Boards of Canada, Susumu Yokota and electronica-heads of all types should check this out too. They even coined the term "hausmusik"! Totally Recommended!!
MPEG Stream: "Watusi"
MPEG Stream: "Hausmusik"

HARMONIA & ENO '76 Tracks And Traces (Gronland) cd 17.98
Well, it's about time that this artifact showed itself again, what with all the Cluster, Kluster, Michael Rother, Kraftwerk, and Fripp & Eno reissues popping up all over the place, finally we have this last piece of the Harmonia puzzle, and it's never sounded better! Tracks and Traces is one of those curious krautrock documents, mainly because it was recorded in 1976, but never released until the late nineties. Its late release was always rather inexplicable, as there were no liner notes, but with this new reissue that bookends the original release with three previously unreleased bonus tracks and poetically expository liner notes, its former relegation as an "odds and sods" collection of sketches, can with all confidence be considered now to be one of the great lost krautrock records! If you bought this when it was first released, you may need to buy it again for the extra tracks that change the whole flow and feel of the album considerably.
Harmonia as a group was always meant to be temporary. When Eno went to see them live in 1974, he ended up on stage with them and was invited to come out to Forst to experience Moebius and Roedellius's placid countryside studio first hand. But it took Eno two years to make good on that invitation, and by then Harmonia had essentially disbanded. Michael Rother was working on his first solo material (Flammende Herzen), as was Roedelius (Durch Die Wuste), while Moebius was working on the Liliental sessions. But they were all there in Forst for eleven days, experiencing the wind, river, trees and sun, casually improvising music, but really just treating the sounds they made as a meditation on process and time together without a goal to make a product. Eno was eventually called away by Bowie to work on Low, and the recordings of their time together lay dormant for two decades.
It's easy to think that without the benefit of returning to the original recordings for overdubs, that these might be shrugged off as sketches, but the starker quality of these recordings are really what set them apart from the pastoral sweetness of the Cluster & Eno collaborations, and give them a distinctive expansiveness into the more shadowy and vague corners of their sound. Lots of ideas are explored, from rockish extrapolations, and baroque dirges to sinister and angular abstractions (Eno even sings on one track) but it never feels forced or indulgent. The sound just flows naturally. Essential!
MPEG Stream: "Vamos Companeros"
MPEG Stream: "By The Riverside"
MPEG Stream: "Weird Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Les Demoiselles"

HARMONIA & ENO '76 Tracks And Traces (Gronland) lp 22.00
Another Harmonia classic now reissued on vinyl! Here's what we said when Gronland did their cd version...
Well, it's about time that this artifact showed itself again, what with all the Cluster, Kluster, Michael Rother, Kraftwerk, and Fripp & Eno reissues popping up all over the place, finally we have this last piece of the Harmonia puzzle, and it's never sounded better! Tracks and Traces is one of those curious krautrock documents, mainly because it was recorded in 1976, but never released until the late nineties. Its late release was always rather inexplicable, as there were no liner notes, but with this new reissue that bookends the original release with three previously unreleased bonus tracks and poetically expository liner notes, its former relegation as an "odds and sods" collection of sketches, can with all confidence be considered now to be one of the great lost krautrock records! If you bought this when it was first released, you may need to buy it again for the extra tracks that change the whole flow and feel of the album considerably.
Harmonia as a group was always meant to be temporary. When Eno went to see them live in 1974, he ended up on stage with them and was invited to come out to Forst to experience Moebius and Roedellius's placid countryside studio first hand. But it took Eno two years to make good on that invitation, and by then Harmonia had essentially disbanded. Michael Rother was working on his first solo material (Flammende Herzen), as was Roedelius (Durch Die Wuste), while Moebius was working on the Liliental sessions. But they were all there in Forst for eleven days, experiencing the wind, river, trees and sun, casually improvising music, but really just treating the sounds they made as a meditation on process and time together without a goal to make a product. Eno was eventually called away by Bowie to work on Low, and the recordings of their time together lay dormant for two decades.
It's easy to think that without the benefit of returning to the original recordings for overdubs, that these might be shrugged off as sketches, but the starker quality of these recordings are really what set them apart from the pastoral sweetness of the Cluster & Eno collaborations, and give them a distinctive expansiveness into the more shadowy and vague corners of their sound. Lots of ideas are explored, from rockish extrapolations, and baroque dirges to sinister and angular abstractions (Eno even sings on one track) but it never feels forced or indulgent. The sound just flows naturally. Essential!
MPEG Stream: "Vamos Companeros"
MPEG Stream: "By The Riverside"
MPEG Stream: "Weird Dream"
MPEG Stream: "Les Demoiselles"

HARMONIA 76 Tracks & Traces (Ryko) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Wow! Long-lost (or neglected) tapes starring electronic krautrock luminaries Moebius and Roedelius (of Cluster) and Michael Rother (of Neu!), and Brian Eno!

HELL PREACHERS INC. Supreme Psychedelic Underground (Axis) cd 17.98
Great group name, and an album title that really says it all! This mysterious 1968 exploito-psych album of disputed provenance, newly reissued on cd, lives up to its Supreme Psychedelic Underground billing, all right. It's really doesn't even matter if it's the pseudonymic work of a young Deep Purple, as some Purple fans are convinced. Others will tell you that while maybe the guitar neck wringing sounds a lot like Blackmore, and the bombastic organ pounding sounds a lot like Lord, it's not them - instead, it's dudes from krautrock proto-metallers Lucifers Friend! Which as far as we're concerned is an equally appealing theory. We don't know what to believe, are they or aren't they? You decide, we'll just groove to these crazy sounds, man. With wild organ and wah wah guitar up the wazoo, the tracks here range from instrumental freakouts ("Time Race") to novelty tribal weirdness ("We Like The White Man") to baroque prog hoedowns ("Courante") to, well, there's all sorts of swingin' acid rock action here folks! A few faves to mention would be the Eastern-tinged "Shalom", which is infused with all kinds of weird noises and sound FX as well, the super groovy shake-and-shimmy "Let Me Shoot You", and definitely the awesomely Bo Diddley-ish "Turn Turn", probably what would be this record's hit, if it had one.
It's interesting that these days, actually, we've kinda gotten to the point where it almost makes more sense to say that a '60s psych artifact like this one was "ahead of its time" and compare it to today's crop of psychedelic freeks, instead of the other way around. Certainly there's moments here, when the pulsating, wailing sounds get really far out, that we could think for a second we were listening to, say, a Sun Araw album. At other times, of course, it's VERY "of its times", and that's rad (in a kitschy way) too. The jarringly tripped out "Spy In Space" could only have been made in the '60s we're pretty sure, woah.
Certainly fans of MK1 Deep Purple ought to check this out, even though the theory that it's a German studio project, featuring ex-members of beat groups The Rattles and The German Bonds (who would eventually form Lucifer's Friend) seems fairly likely to be the correct one, since those very same folks cut another similar exploito-psych album under the "band" name Bokaj Retsiem around the very same time. That album was simply titled Psychedelic Underground, so maybe they thought they did an even better job as Hell Preachers, Inc.!
MPEG Stream: "Time Race 1"
MPEG Stream: "Shalom"
MPEG Stream: "Turn Turn"

HILLAGE, STEVE Rainbow Dome Musick (Caroline) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Like Robert Fripp and Manuel Gottsching, the UK's Steve Hillage is a stellar guitarist who came out of the prog era (Arzachel, Khan, Gong) to mine his own unique cosmic territory that could be the blueprint for latter day ambient techno. His amazing guitar work on Gong's Radio Invisible trilogy, especially the epically spacious "You", was just the first stepping stone toward this 1979 avant-new age masterpiece, Rainbow Dome Musick, originally recorded for an on-site installation at an actual Rainbow Dome in London.
While it must have been -really- an experience inside the Dome, it's even now a fantastic listen at home on headphones. Two 20-minute, side-long tracks built from the sequenced filtering of guitars, piano, synths and bells, that organically glide from phased rhythmic passages to expansive cloud-like washes of sound. It's definitely much more ambient than Hillage's other albums up to that point, but as blissed out and new agey as it is, with the sounds of gurgling water (starting side one) and shimmering drones, you won't forget he's a killer electric guitarist either. Obviously, a heavy influence on The Orb, who later collaborated with Hillage, after they met in an club where to Hillage's surprise, Alex Patterson of the Orb was spinning Rainbow Dome Musick in the chill-out lounge, so the story goes! Another essential entry of cosmic proto-new age sounds for fans of Fripp and Eno, Cluster, Ariel Kalma, Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Eberhard Schoener and Ashra. We recently got into this album, ordered it for the store on cd, and heartily recommend it - though it seems to sell itself anyway when people see the cover, something about that hypnotic vibrating rainbow dome image...
MPEG Stream: "Four Ever Rainbow"
MPEG Stream: "Garden of Paradise"

HUMAN BEING Live At The Zodiak - Berlin 1968 (Nepenthe) cd 14.98
Krautrock and weird music fans all around the world MUST being living right, to earn up the good karma required for something this cool and unexpected and downright uber-historic to drop into our laps. A previously unreleased, live concert recording from a pre-Cluster (and pre-Kluster) krautrock ensemble featuring Hans-Joachim Roedelius, from way back in 1968. Wow. Who knew? Maybe not even Roedelius, who apparently not long ago just received a tape of this in the mail from an "anonymous donor", someone who'd lugged recording equipment to the underground (literally) music club Zodiak several decades earlier and captured this show, then filed it away like a sonic time capsule of late '60s Berlin freakdom, i.e. Human Being, an amorphous collective of (mostly) non-musicians, a sort of "noise orchestra" that found a home at the Zodiak (a club co-organized by Roedelius's comrade Conrad Schnitzler), touring also all the way to Morocco we're told, but never releasing a record... until now!
This rare document consists of one lengthy track, 56 and a half minutes long, of utter loud "early industrial" featuring guitar, organ, drums, saxophone, cello... and tons and tons of electronic FX, lots of echo and delay, feedback and tape loops, and what sounds like shortwave radio static... proving that there's nothing new under the sun, once again, THIS WAS DONE OVER 40 YEARS AGO FOLKS! Sounds like something we'd be selling on a cd-r from some floorcore noise-drone outfit nowadays!
20th century avant garde meets the anarchic spirit of the freeform psychedelic rock scene, with murky droning pulsations and percussive clatter building building into an insistent heavy throb by the end of the piece. It's abstract out-there stuff indeed, difficult to describe (the deep foghorn like rumbles remind us of Yoshi Wada's Earth Horns, if that helps). But you should experience it for yourself, especially if you're into the more droned out, free improv, experimental side of krautrock (or of anything)!
Given that it's cool this is available at all, we really shouldn't complain about anything, but we will say the digipack doesn't look quite the way we'd like it to... the cover illustration and cd booklet frankly seem a bit cheesy to us, in fact we almost ignored this as a result when we first saw it (don't judge a book by its cover, all right all right) just 'cause, well, it's too modern generic computery designy lookin', those fonts, that art, yuck. But, the text of the extensive liner notes is informative anyway, and besides it's really the music that STILL matters, 40+ years on from when Human Being originally hit the scene, now thanks to this release more than just an obscure footnote to the career of the very much still musically active (in Cluster, solo, and other collaborations) Hans-Joachim Roedelius.
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 1"
MPEG Stream: "excerpt 2"

INNER SPACE, THE Agilok & Blubbo (Wah Wah) cd 22.00
This is one of those records that we always thought we were just going to hear about, maybe hear a song or two on some compilation, but never actually get to hear in its entirety. So we're THRILLED to see this pre-CAN album, a soundtrack to a film that never came out (how come those are always the best?!), finally seeing the light of day. And what a tripped out, acid soaked, free-pop-jazz-rock odyssey it is!
Recorded in 1968 by a lineup that included Irmin Schmidt, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit who a year later would make their debut as Can with the release of Monster Movie, listening to these sounds one for sure can hear the seeds of what would become Can's distinctive krautrock sound, but this also displays a much more fried, disjointed and mind altering side to these way ahead of their time music makers. While mostly an instrumental affair that at times reminds us of the equally colorful and fucked up Jean Claude Vannier concept album L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, there are a few tracks which have vocals courtesy of Irmin Schmidt, but the true show stopper is when Rosy Rosy, a film actress in Germany at the time, takes the mic for "Kamerasong", a track we imagine folks like Broadcast and Stereolab have played on repeat a billion times (like we have now!). While plenty of the songs here hint at the more song based Can records to come, lots of Agilok & Blubbo is much more about sprawling, scrappy, tripped out and fucked up delight, the kind of sounds modern day colorful noise makers like Kemialliset Ystavat and Sunburned Hand Of The Man would bow down to. What makes the record so enjoyable is how its paced, just when things have gotten way deconstructed and abstract they snap into more of a catchy, driving melody and then continue on in more bizarre directions and into outer dimensions. Warped, damaged and engaging in all the right ways!
MPEG Stream: "Es Zieht Herauf"
MPEG Stream: "Kamerasong"
MPEG Stream: "Michele Ist Da"

INNER SPACE, THE Agilok & Blubbo (Wah Wah) lp 30.00
NOW IN STOCK ON VINYL!
This is one of those records that we always thought we were just going to hear about and be teased by a song or two on a rare compilation but never actually get to hear all of. So it was with total excitement when we saw that this pre-CAN album recorded as a soundtrack to a film that never came out (how come those are always the best!) is finally seeing the light of day. And what a tripped out, acid soaked, free-pop-jazz-rock odyssey it is! Recorded in 1968 by a lineup that included Irmin Schmidt, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit who a year later would make their debut as Can with the release of Monster Movie. Listening to these sounds one for sure can start to hear the seeds of what would become Krautrock legend, but this also shows a much more fried, disjointed and mind altering side to these way ahead of their time music makers. While mostly an instrumental affair that at times reminds us of the equally colorful and fucked up Jean Claude Vannier concept album L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, there are a few tracks which have vocals courtesy of Irmin Schmidt, but the true show stopper is when Rosy Rosy, a film actress in Germany at the time takes to the mic for "Kamerasong" a track we imagine folks like Broadcast and Stereolab have played on repeat a billion times (like we have!). While a few tracks like that do show and hint at the more melodic, song based side of Can that would emerge brightly on records like Ege Bamyasi and Tago Mago, lots of Agilok & Blubbo is much more about sprawling, scrappy, tripped out and fucked up delight that modern day colorful noise makers like Kemialliset Ystavat and Sunburned Hand Of The Man would drop their jaws in awe and take notes as they listened. What makes the record so enjoyable is how its paced, just when things have gotten way deconstructed and abstract they snap into more of a catchy, driving melody and then continue on in more bizarre and outer dimensions. Warped, damaged and engaging in all the right ways!
MPEG Stream: "Es Zieht Herauf"
MPEG Stream: "Kamerasong"
MPEG Stream: "Michele Ist Da"

JONAS REINHARDT Powers Of Audition (Kranky) lp 14.98
Now available on vinyl!
It's been a great year for krautrock inspired kosmiche pastiche. As records by Arp, Cloudland Canyon, Growing and White Rainbow have found a new generation using old analog synths to orbit the earth with lots of great results. It was so fitting and ideal that Jonas Reinhardt got to make their live debut playing the after party for the Cluster show in Big Sur at the beginning of summer which some of us were lucky to see, and we were immediately impressed with what is slowly becoming one of the most exciting outfits to emerge from San Francisco in a long while.
Reinhardt is the alter ego of Jesse Reiner who played in Crime In Choir and Ascended Master, as well as serving as one of the guitarists in Citay, whom he recently parted ways with so he could focus all his attention on this project. He's really managed to find his inner Klaus Schulze with this record creating an album that shimmers and pulsates with strength and grace. Like the best of '70s era Tangerine Dream with the ominous moments of Goblin and healthy nods to Cluster and Harmonia this is sure to please fans of spaced out propelling cosmic adventures in sound. It seems as this was recorded before the live version of the band was formed as recent live shows finds Jonas Reinhardt catching much more of a groove as they create 'kraut style' dance parties with totally thrilling results. We can't wait to hear them capture that side of their sound on tape, but until then this is a really great beginning of what we have a feeling will be a long running and rewarding project!
MPEG Stream: "Lord Sleep Monmouth"
MPEG Stream: "Every Terminal Evening"
MPEG Stream: "Tandem Suns"

KALACAKRA Crawling To Lhasa (Garden Of Delights) cd 21.00
The flood of compact disc reissues of obscure krautrock albums has been constant and overwhelming in recent years, but few discs are truly as cosmic and inspired as collector hype claims make them out to be. Usually an album's rarity is confused with "classic" status. But every once in a while, we get pleasantly blown away by an unexpected unknown. Kalacakra is one such album that deserves its mythical, mystical reputation (and $300 price tag on the collector's market). Reissued in 2001 (but not heard by us until more recently, due to the glut of such reissues alluded to above), Kalacakra's "Crawling To Lhasa" contains eight tracks of mantric acid-folk self-released in 1972 by the apparently drugged-out duo of Claus Rauschenbach ("guitars, kongas, percussions, vocals, harmonica, slentem") and Heinz Martin ("electr. guitars, flute, piano, vibraphon, schalmi, cello, violin, synthesizer"). Their strange, hippie sense of humor and obsession with the culture of Tibet (the name Kalacakra is the Tibetan term for "wheel of time") results in some fantastically nonsensical, eastern-influenced psychedelia (nonsensical? well, that "slentem" that Claus plays is in fact a non-existent, made-up instrument!). The album begins with the dark, hypnotic "Nearby Shiras", a song about a plague-ravaged town in olden Persia, which features some totally sinister and maniacal whispered German-language vocals, reminding us a bit even of Comus. As their crawl to Lhasa continues, Kalacakra venture into zones of lovely folk-strum and raga-rock as well, before the album wraps up with a deranged and damaged blues stumble called "Tante Olga". Oh, then there's two "bonus" tracks, recorded by Heinz in 1993, that are perhaps best ignored: electronic "world music" unfortunately lacking the mystery and insanity of his 1972 output, inoffensive but an unnecessary addition to this reissue for sure. Claus, we're told, still lives (on social security) in Kalacakra's home town of Duisburg, but does no recording. Good for him.
Some folks we know (who often make music under the name Thuja) got so inspired upon hearing this disc that they determined to start their own hippie psych side project, to be called "The Ways Of God To Man", drawing upon Kalacakra as well as the similar sounds of Yahowah 13 and Maru Sankaku Shikaku and Faust's "Tapes" as influences. We'll let you know if they manage to actually record anything!
Garden of Delights did their usual thorough job with this reissue, which boasts a thick booklet full of liner notes (in German and English), reproductions of label art from the original LP *and* from bootleg versions, plus photos of Claus and Heinz looking about as weird and long-haired and hippie-ish as it's possible to get!
Albums like this make us worry about overlooking other hidden gems amid the multitude of kraut/psych/prog reissues that we're blessed/cursed with every month, so we'll do our best to try and check 'em all out, eventually...whew...
RealAudio clip: "Nearby Shiras"
RealAudio clip: "Raga No. 11"
RealAudio clip: "Tante Olga"

KALACAKRA Crawling to Lhasa (Garden of Delights) lp 34.00
Now reissued on vinyl! Krautrock obscurity alert! Definitely a fave, an album deserving of its mythical, mystical reputation.
Kalacakra's Crawling To Lhasa contains eight tracks of mantric acid-folk self-released in 1972 by the apparently drugged-out duo of Claus Rauschenbach ("guitars, kongas, percussions, vocals, harmonica, slentem") and Heinz Martin ("electr. guitars, flute, piano, vibraphon, schalmi, cello, violin, synthesizer"). Their strange, hippie sense of humor and obsession with the culture of Tibet (the name Kalacakra is the Tibetan term for "wheel of time") results in some fantastically nonsensical, eastern-influenced psychedelia (nonsensical? well, that "slentem" that Claus plays is in fact a non-existent, made-up instrument!). The album begins with the dark, hypnotic "Nearby Shiras", a song about a plague-ravaged town in olden Persia, which features some totally sinister and maniacal whispered German-language vocals, reminding us a bit even of Comus. As their crawl to Lhasa continues, Kalacakra venture into zones of lovely folk-strum and raga-rock as well, before the album wraps up with a deranged and damaged blues stumble called "Tante Olga".

KLUSTER 1970 - 1971 (Water) 3cd 28.00
They used to be available separately (and maybe still are, as fancy expensive Japanese imports). But if you want one, you probably want 'em all: the first three (and only, until recently, with the advent of the Vulcano and Admira cds reviewed on list #294) lps of pioneering proto-Industrial krautrock from the trio of Moebius, Roedelius, and Conrad Schnitzler. The first two of whom went on to form Cluster with a C, whose career is one of the most significant in all of krautrock -and- electronic music (and whom we were proud to recently host a performance by at our store!). Meanwhile Schnitzler also made quite a name for himself as a solo electronic experimentalist too.
Together with producer Conny Plank, the trio recorded two proper studio albums, 1970's Klopfzeichen and 1971's Zwei-Osterei. Both of 'em dark and dismal soundscapes, improvised and abstract, with some sort of strange religious sermon (in German) over top of the first side of each.... apparently they cut a deal with some church or cult to pay for these records' release, and in return had to include the creepy God-talk! Which, since we don't understand much German, doesn't bother us too much. Eruption, a live recording from '71, has a similar vibe, but without the spoken word (and it's plenty spooky anyway). All of these were originally issued in incredibly small quantities (200-300 lps) and we doubt at the time that Kluster ever imagined this music would be in print, and revered, nearly 40 years later!
Packaged in a fat 3-disc jewel box, with cd booklet giving much more info than we've supplied here.
MPEG Stream: "Klopfzeichen Part One"
MPEG Stream: "Zwei-Osterei Part One"

KLUSTER Admira (Important) cd 14.98
Attention krautrock fans! Important Records has just unearthed two rare Kluster recordings, Vulcano and Admira. Of course we're Cluster krazy here at the moment (they just played in the store!!), but the first thing that must be mentioned is that not only is this Kluster-with-a-K material, it's Kluster AFTER Moebius and Roedelius left the band (to form Cluster-with-a-C). We actually didn't know that Kluster had continued without Cluster, as it were! But apparently they did, with original third Kluster colleague Conrad Schniztler in charge, working alongside sometime Kluster accomplices Klaus Freudigmann, Wolfgang Seidel, and "friends". It's Freudigmann (who, like Schnitzler, apparently also had something to do with Tangerine Dream at some point) who found these old tapes, each one now at last released on cd in deluxe packaging (embossed gatefold sleeve similar to that of the original Kluster album Klopfzeichen), limited to 1000 copies. Although we're still surprised that these guys performed/recorded as Kluster (and it's confusing, since we know the same lineup also made music under the name Eruption), regardless of who's on it, what's important is how it sounds, so...
Admira consists of twelve untitled tracks recorded in 1971, presumably in a studio, and left unreleased until now. Hmm, though we do like the fancy embossed packaging, we'd gladly trade that for some liner notes giving just a bit more information! But like we just said, what's important the music, and that's pretty cool. Definitely very Schnitzler-y, if you've heard very many of his recordings over the years, with lots of spacious synth-zap and droning abstraction. This is electronics infested krautrock on the outer fringes of freedom, ranging from meditative peacefulness to harsh noise (sometimes even over the course of one track). Admira's an experimental and eclectic set all right... ferinstance, track four is a proggy swirl of off-kilter keyboard coloration and chaotic percussion, track seven is a surreal soundscape of string sawing and outsider vocal warble. All in all, along with Vulcano, this is an excellent, if mysterious addition to the tiny Kluster (and much larger Schnitzler) discography, and a freaky footnote to the krautrock canon as a whole. Gives one hope that even now, somewhere in Germany, maybe there's more 37-year old tapes like these, under some bed or at the bottom of some closet, waiting to be dug up, worthy of release!
For those interested in the Kluster-with-a-K discs proper, those with Moebius and Roedelius, note we also have a new 3cd reissue on Water, comprising the albums Klopfzeichen, Zwei-Osterei, and Eruption, we'll try to give it a write-up next time.
MPEG Stream: "1"
MPEG Stream: "4"
MPEG Stream: "6"

KLUSTER Eruption (Marginal Talent) cd 17.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Long-awaited reissue of the third and last "Kluster with a K" album from 1971, when the "Cluster with C" duo of Moebius and Roedelius was a trio with Conrad Schnitzler, making pioneering, prehistoric ambient/industrial/ electronica. And, unlike the first two Kluster records, there's no German spoken religious narrative included (and it's plenty spooky without it).

KLUSTER Klopfzeichen (Think Progressive) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pre-Cluster pioneering proto-industrial Krautrock electronics reissued.

KLUSTER Vulcano: Live In Wuppertal 1971 (Important) cd 14.98
Attention krautrock fans! Important Records has just unearthed two rare Kluster recordings, Vulcano and Admira. Of course we're Cluster krazy here at the moment (they just played in the store!!), but the first thing that must be mentioned is that not only is this Kluster-with-a-K material, it's Kluster AFTER Moebius and Roedelius left the band (to form Cluster-with-a-C). We actually didn't know that Kluster had continued without Cluster, as it were! But apparently they did, with original third Kluster colleague Conrad Schniztler in charge, working alongside sometime Kluster accomplices Klaus Freudigmann, Wolfgang Seidel, and "friends". It's Freudigmann (who, like Schnitzler, apparently also had something to do with Tangerine Dream at some point) who found these old tapes, each one now at last released on cd in deluxe packaging (embossed gatefold sleeve similar to that of the original Kluster album Klopfzeichen), limited to 1000 copies. Although we're still surprised that these guys performed/recorded as Kluster (and it's confusing, since we know the same lineup also made music under the name Eruption), regardless of who's on it, what's important is how it sounds, so...
Vulcano is a live show from Wuppertal in 1971. It's certainly a spooky hour of semi-ambient, proto-industrial music, presumably improvised, with electronics drifting and droning and quietly surging throughout these 23 mysterious, untitled tracks. There's some rattling percussion at times, what could be flute or maybe is just feedback, and distorted, echoing voices occasionally, too. Yeah, it's spooky. And historically interesting - there was a lot of freaky music being made back in 1971, but was there anything else quite like this? But most importantly, even if this was a cd-r by some obscure "floorcore" band that just came out, we'd still be enjoying it...
MPEG Stream: "9"
MPEG Stream: "14"
MPEG Stream: "19"

KLUSTER Zwei-Osterei (Think Progressive) cd 13.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Pre-Cluster pioneering proto-industrial Krautrock electronics reissued.

KOLLEKTIV s/t (Long Hair) cd 27.00
Housed in a sleeve decorated with strange sci-fi airbrushed bondage artwork, this 1973 Brain-label krautrock album from the relatively obscure (but collectable) Kollektiv has now been reissued on cd.
First track "Rambo Zambo" starts off with some echo effected flute action in the style of early Kraftwerk classic "Ruck Zuck"... when the drums kick in it's a pretty propulsive funky flute fusion groover we've gotta say, the occasional stabs of harder guitar also doin' it for us. It's not gonna be everyone's cup of krautrock but those that like it will love it. Wild instrumental psychedelic jazzy jamming, yeah. Some songs are extended, rhythmic workouts up to 12, 20 minutes long. Others just brief wacked out interludes with vocal ravings, probably funny if you understand German. Kollektiv fits in with the likes of Exmagma, Xhol Caravan, Thirsty Moon, Kraan, and Wolfgang Dauner's Oimels album. Recommended for the krautrock connoisseur into the jazzier side of the genre, though the acid guitar soloing is definitely rock.
This nicely done reissue includes four bonus cuts, almost another half-hour of material recorded with different lineup... tracks like "Pap-Jack" and "Rozz-Pop" don't sound all that different from the album proper, though we're told there was more of an influence from King Crimson's Red album on this stuff... could be, the guitar is sometimes sorta Frippy, certainly searing and spacey, throughout the disc. In any event, worthy bonus material.
MPEG Stream: "Rambo Zambo"
MPEG Stream: "Gageg"

KRAFTWERK 1 (Germanofon) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Restocks of the first two Kraftwerk records, the ones with traffic-cone covers. Both are electronic masterpieces, melodic Krautrock classics, and while far more challenging than the popular later Kraftwerk albums, all the more lovely.

KRAFTWERK 2 (Germanofon) cd 15.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Restocks of the first two Kraftwerk records, the ones with traffic-cone covers. Both are electronic masterpieces, melodic Krautrock classics, and while far more challenging than the popular later Kraftwerk albums, all the more lovely.

KRAFTWERK And The Electronic Revolution (Sexy Intellectual) dvd 21.00
It goes without saying that Kraftwerk is one of the most influential groups in pop music history, their influence having touched pretty much every style of music to come since. In the wake of the psychedelic explosion of the late '60s and early '70s, the group's obsessively precise music set them apart from everything else. In a sea of guitar based rock bands, the strange, machine like rhythms and pioneering use of synthesizers made clear to the world that their was nothing remotely rock n' roll about Kraftwerk's approach to music. The albums produced during their classic period (generally recognized from 1974's Autobahn to 1980's Computer World) still sound without precedent, coming across as emotionally detached, yet extremely melodic and melancholy. Of course, nobody could have just created that sound out of thin air, and before venturing into such revolutionary territory, Kraftwerk evolved from the exceptionally fertile experimental German music scene of the early 1970s. Band leaders Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider established an aesthetic that separated Kraftwerk from their contemporaries, creating a mystique that remains to this day.
This well researched documentary takes a deservedly scholarly approach to Dusseldorf's legendary Man Machine, charting their path from the pre-Kraftwerk group, Organisation, to their implosion in the mid 1980s. Despite percussionist Karl Bartos being the only member of Kraftwerk open to interview, well informed journalists and key figures from the German scene are able to shed as much light as we'll probably ever see, given the group's notorious standoffishness.
The downside to this film is its lack of actual Kraftwerk performances (check out YouTube for some truly remarkable footage), and at 180 minutes, it may be a bit much for the casual observer. Krautrock obsessives, however, will find much to love.

KRAFTWERK Autobahn (Kling Klang) cd 32.00
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

KRAFTWERK Autobahn (Kling Klang / Astralwerks) cd 17.98
It's about time. Dusseldorf's most famous export, the Godfathers of electronic pop music, Kraftwerk, finally see their classic albums remastered and reissued for the 21st century (although, unfortunately, not yet their EARLIEST classics, the ones with the traffic cone covers). Given the group's notoriety for demanding nothing but absolute perfection, you can safely bet that these sound AMAZING after years of tireless mixing and mastering in Kling-Klang studios. That's probably the main selling point here, as Kraftwerk was never really a "bonus material" kind of band, and there is none of that here; if it was released, it pretty much meant it was labored upon until being deemed suitable for public exposure. These reissues have also got some pretty fancy expanded artwork, with simple but bold slip covers housing the actual cds. Of course, if you don't already have these albums in some form or another, you should probably do yourself a favor and purchase every single one of them immediately.
Autobahn was originally released in 1974, and it was in most cases the band's introduction to the rest of the world with the surprise hit single of the title track, edited down significantly for airplay. It was also the point where Kraftwerk began to combine a classic pop approach with their intense Teutonic experimentation (which remains considerable here). What was seen by some people in the mid-1970s as somewhat of a novelty (which is total bullshit, but it was the '70s...), however, laid the foundation for one of the most innovative music groups to ever exist. Clocking in at almost 23 minutes, "Autobahn" may be one of the most evocative songs ever, especially considering how minimal it really is. Synthesizers give you the impression of traveling throughout Germany by car, through many different environments and observational states, as the vocal melody classically apes the Beach Boys "Fun, Fun, Fun". The song also marked the beginning of the band's reliance on vocoders and drum machines, which would from this point forward would play an integral role in defining Kraftwerk. The other songs here retain many of the sonic qualities of earlier Kraftwerk, but it's now plainly apparent where things are heading: Pop Immortality!
Oh, and a note to vinyl obsessives, these reissues will be coming out in that format next month, we're told!
MPEG Stream: "Autobahn (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Autobahn (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Kometenmelodie 1"

KRAFTWERK Autobahn (Kling Klang / Mute) lp 21.00
Now reissued on vinyl too!
It's about time. Dusseldorf's most famous export, the Godfathers of electronic pop music, Kraftwerk, finally see their classic albums remastered and reissued for the 21st century (although, unfortunately, not yet their EARLIEST classics, the ones with the traffic cone covers). Given the group's notoriety for demanding nothing but absolute perfection, you can safely bet that these sound AMAZING after years of tireless mixing and mastering in Kling-Klang studios. That's probably the main selling point here, as Kraftwerk was never really a "bonus material" kind of band, and there is none of that here; if it was released, it pretty much meant it was labored upon until being deemed suitable for public exposure. These reissues have also got some pretty fancy expanded artwork, with simple but bold slip covers housing the actual cds. Of course, if you don't already have these albums in some form or another, you should probably do yourself a favor and purchase every single one of them immediately.
Autobahn was originally released in 1974, and it was in most cases the band's introduction to the rest of the world with the surprise hit single of the title track, edited down significantly for airplay. It was also the point where Kraftwerk began to combine a classic pop approach with their intense Teutonic experimentation (which remains considerable here). What was seen by some people in the mid-1970s as somewhat of a novelty (which is total bullshit, but it was the '70s...), however, laid the foundation for one of the most innovative music groups to ever exist. Clocking in at almost 23 minutes, "Autobahn" may be one of the most evocative songs ever, especially considering how minimal it really is. Synthesizers give you the impression of traveling throughout Germany by car, through many different environments and observational states, as the vocal melody classically apes the Beach Boys "Fun, Fun, Fun". The song also marked the beginning of the band's reliance on vocoders and drum machines, which would from this point forward would play an integral role in defining Kraftwerk. The other songs here retain many of the sonic qualities of earlier Kraftwerk, but it's now plainly apparent where things are heading: Pop Immortality!
MPEG Stream: "Autobahn (excerpt 1)"
MPEG Stream: "Autobahn (excerpt 2)"
MPEG Stream: "Kometenmelodie 1"

KRAFTWERK Computer World (Elektra) cd 10.98

KRAFTWERK Die Mensch-Maschine (EMI) cd 24.00
German import of the original Man Machine album, with lyrics in German. That's why the lofty price.

KRAFTWERK Expo Remix (Kling Klang) cd 10.98
The requisite remix single of Kraftwerk's comeback last year's single features Orbital, Francois K, DJ Rolando, and Underground Resistance. Maybe if you really dig UR records, this would do it for you.

KRAFTWERK Minimum-Maximum - Live (Astralwerks) 2cd 21.00
If you witnessed a Kraftwerk performance during their 2004 worldwide tour, you may want this 2-disc live recording as a token reminder of your experience. Especially if you attended a show in Warszawa, Ljubljana, Riga, Moskwa, Paris, Berlin, London, Budapest, San Francisco, Tokyo or Tallinn -- the cities from which these virtually perfect live performances are culled. The first eight songs from disc one are absolutely incredible live recordings, most notably "The Man-Machine", "Planet Of Visions", and "Vitamin". The clarity and bombacity of its sound is impressive. Would you pay the extra money it would cost if this came with an implantable chip that would project their video at one meter in front of you while walking around listening? Hmmm, I would. Unfortunately, this is not available. Simply listening to this, however, will help you to recall your live Kraftwerk experience.
Speaking personally, I attended their concert in Amsterdam. At the Heineken Arena. So imagine how many people fit into an "arena". Now imagine, of all those people, about 50 are women. The remaining thousands, all men. And not just regular Dutch dudes out to see a show, but men outfitted in one of two styles of dress: 1. in affected Kraftwerk/Sprockets ensemble -- black leather pants with combat boots and a black turtleneck, or 2. in Classic Man-Machine Kraftwerk -- black suit with sharp red tie. Oh how I wished I had my little minidv cam for filming Kraftwerk Parking Lot. No matter how fascinating the crowd was, the show was somehow even better. From the three 30 meter x 30 meter video panels displaying their minimal but powerfully effective video accompaniment (much of which is available to view on their website), to the actual robots backlit behind a scrim, then exposed and moving, to the mind-blowing clarity and depth of sound (which is hard to do right in a large space like that) the aural and visual orchestration reeked of utter Kraftwerkian perfection.
And of course, if you did NOT get a chance to see them last year, here's your chance to pick up an incredible aural document of some of their best performances from all over the world!
MPEG Stream: "The Man-Machine"
MPEG Stream: "Planet Of Visions"
MPEG Stream: "Vitamin"

KRAFTWERK Radio-Activity (Kling Klang / Astralwerks) cd 17.98
It's about time. Dusseldorf's most famous export, the Godfathers of electronic pop music, Kraftwerk, finally see their classic albums remastered and reissued for the 21st century (although, unfortunately, not yet their EARLIEST classics, the ones with the traffic cone covers). Given the group's notoriety for demanding nothing but absolute perfection, you can safely bet that these sound AMAZING after years of tireless mixing and mastering in Kling-Klang studios. That's probably the main selling point here, as Kraftwerk was never really a "bonus material" kind of band, and there is none of that here; if it was released, it pretty much meant it was labored upon until being deemed suitable for public exposure. These reissues have also got some pretty fancy expanded artwork, with simple but bold slip covers housing the actual cds. Of course, if you don't already have these albums in some form or another, you should probably do yourself a favor and purchase every single one of them immediately.
1975's Radio-Activity is the first album where Kraftwerk REALLY became Kraftwerk as history knows them. It introduced their classic lineup and did away all acoustic instrumentation (believe it or not, there were actually some guitars on Autobahn), and is the perfect precursor to Trans Europe Express, arguably their finest moment. Like all Kraftwerk albums, this one is highly conceptual, with a dual emphasis on radio-activity from a scientific standpoint AND the emergence of the new(ish) culture based around the radio. How Kraftwerkian of them. Even with its moments of darkness, Radio-Activity may also be one of Kraftwerk's most "fun" albums, with the joyful pop propulsion of "Airwaves" and the playful minimalism of "Antenna". Then there is the title track, a masterpiece of slowly brooding German melancholy if there ever was one. This is the album where the boys truly found themselves able to consolidate their more experimental tendencies into a solidly pop format, resulting in some of the most imaginative and original music, well, EVER. It's strange that as the group became more poppy, they also became weirder and developed a sound that was pretty much unprecedented. But hey, that's how Kraftwerk does things.
Oh, and a note to vinyl obsessives, these reissues will be coming out in that format next month, we're told!
MPEG Stream: "Radio-Activity"
MPEG Stream: "Airwaves"
MPEG Stream: "Antenna"

KRAFTWERK Radio-Activity (Capitol) lp 12.98
This 1975 follow-up to their internationally successful Autobahn LP pays tribute to the mechanical catalyst that helped create that success, the radio and the power of broadcast communications. While more obtuse and less successful than its predecessor, the songs on Radio-Activity utilize more concrete forms than ever before with sounds of static, Geiger counters, oscillators and Cage-ian moments of silence to recreate the sense of radio transmission. This also marks the first time Kraftwerk recorded vocals in English and made use of robotic voices that would come to the forefront in subsequent releases.

KRAFTWERK Radio-Activity (Kling Klang / Astralwerks) lp 21.00
Now reissued on vinyl too!
It's about time. Dusseldorf's most famous export, the Godfathers of electronic pop music, Kraftwerk, finally see their classic albums remastered and reissued for the 21st century (although, unfortunately, not yet their EARLIEST classics, the ones with the traffic cone covers). Given the group's notoriety for demanding nothing but absolute perfection, you can safely bet that these sound AMAZING after years of tireless mixing and mastering in Kling-Klang studios. That's probably the main selling point here, as Kraftwerk was never really a "bonus material" kind of band, and there is none of that here; if it was released, it pretty much meant it was labored upon until being deemed suitable for public exposure. These reissues have also got some pretty fancy expanded artwork. Of course, if you don't already have these albums in some form or another, you should probably do yourself a favor and purchase every single one of them immediately.
1975's Radio-Activity is the first album where Kraftwerk REALLY became Kraftwerk as history knows them. It introduced their classic lineup and did away all acoustic instrumentation (believe it or not, there were actually some guitars on Autobahn), and is the perfect precursor to Trans Europe Express, arguably their finest moment. Like all Kraftwerk albums, this one is highly conceptual, with a dual emphasis on radio-activity from a scientific standpoint AND the emergence of the new(ish) culture based around the radio. How Kraftwerkian of them. Even with its moments of darkness, Radio-Activity may also be one of Kraftwerk's most "fun" albums, with the joyful pop propulsion of "Airwaves" and the playful minimalism of "Transistor". Then there is the title track, a masterpiece of slowly brooding German melancholy if there ever was one. This is the album where the boys truly found themselves able to consolidate their more experimental tendencies into a solidly pop format, resulting in some of the most imaginative and original music, well, EVER. It's strange that as the group became more poppy, they also became weirder and developed a sound that was pretty much unprecedented. But hey, that's how Kraftwerk does things.
MPEG Stream: "Radio-Activity"
MPEG Stream: "Airwaves"
MPEG Stream: "Antenna"

KRAFTWERK Ralf And Florian (Germanofon) cd 16.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.

KRAFTWERK Somewhere In Europe lp 14.98
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Two live sets of Kraftwerk captured with reasonably fine fidelity, one from a 1976 show in Paris (performing tracks from Ralf & Florian and Autobahn) and the other from a 1981 show in Utrecht (performing tracks from Computer World and Man Machine).

KRAFTWERK The Man Machine (Capitol) lp 12.98
Taking Cues from the Russian Constructivist movement for its cover, 1978's The Man Machine was the most removed album to that date from Kraftwerk's krautrock origins. Taking on the form of automatons, the music is cold, and mechanical pop about robots, models, and urbanization that opened up the floodgates for new wave and electro. It is also one of the best and most realized albums in their evolving career.

KRAFTWERK The Man-Machine (Kling Klang / Astralwerks) cd 17.98
It's about time. Dusseldorf's most famous export, the Godfathers of electronic pop music, Kraftwerk, finally see their classic albums remastered and reissued for the 21st century (although, unfortunately, not yet their EARLIEST classics, the ones with the traffic cone covers). Given the group's notoriety for demanding nothing but absolute perfection, you can safely bet that these sound AMAZING after years of tireless mixing and mastering in Kling-Klang studios. That's probably the main selling point here, as Kraftwerk was never really a "bonus material" kind of band, and there is none of that here; if it was released, it pretty much meant it was labored upon until being deemed suitable for public exposure. These reissues have also got some pretty fancy expanded artwork, with simple but bold slip covers housing the actual cds. Of course, if you don't already have these albums in some form or another, you should probably do yourself a favor and purchase every single one of them immediately.
The Man-Machine was originally released in 1978, a year after the artistic and commercial triumph of Trans-Europe Express. Obviously there was a lot to live up to following TEE, and Kraftwerk had little difficulty doing so. The Man Machine is likewise a genre-defining masterpiece, containing at least two of their most well known songs with "The Robots" and "The Model". It also features one of their strangely overlooked songs, the too-awesome-for-words "Spacelab". The cold, mechanical approach Kraftwerk had been striving for is perfected on this record, also expertly conveyed from a visual standpoint on the cover, where the group appears all angular and unsmiling in their matching red shirt/black tie getup. It's pretty crazy to imagine the reaction this must have received right in the middle of the punk explosion. As the rest of the world reveled in sloppy, wide-eyed rock n' roll, Kraftwerk became more precise and jettisoned the most recognizable traces of human emotion usually reserved for the pop market. Still, though the most noteworthy traits here bring to mind a glum, dystopian future, like on the title track and the ominous "Metropolis", there is also a good deal of humor and an implied human warmth, as Kraftwerk themselves, more than anything, take the role of detached observers in a world that defines itself more and more through technological progress. Sound familiar?
Oh, and a note to vinyl obsessives, these reissues will be coming out in that format next month, we're told!
MPEG Stream: "Spacelab"
MPEG Stream: "Metropolis"
MPEG Stream: "Neon Lights"

KRAFTWERK The Man-Machine (Kling Klang / Astralwerks) lp 21.00
Now reissued on vinyl too!
It's about time. Dusseldorf's most famous export, the Godfathers of electronic pop music, Kraftwerk, finally see their classic albums remastered and reissued for the 21st century (although, unfortunately, not yet their EARLIEST classics, the ones with the traffic cone covers). Given the group's notoriety for demanding nothing but absolute perfection, you can safely bet that these sound AMAZING after years of tireless mixing and mastering in Kling-Klang studios. That's probably the main selling point here, as Kraftwerk was never really a "bonus material" kind of band, and there is none of that here; if it was released, it pretty much meant it was labored upon until being deemed suitable for public exposure. These reissues have also got some pretty fancy expanded artwork. Of course, if you don't already have these albums in some form or another, you should probably do yourself a favor and purchase every single one of them immediately.
The Man-Machine was originally released in 1978, a year after the artistic and commercial triumph of Trans-Europe Express. Obviously there was a lot to live up to following TEE, and Kraftwerk had little difficulty doing so. The Man Machine is likewise a genre-defining masterpiece, containing at least two of their most well known songs with "The Robots" and "The Model". It also features one of their strangely overlooked songs, the too-awesome-for-words "Spacelab". The cold, mechanical approach Kraftwerk had been striving for is perfected on this record, also expertly conveyed from a visual standpoint on the cover, where the group appears all angular and unsmiling in their matching red shirt/black tie getup. It's pretty crazy to imagine the reaction this must have received right in the middle of the punk explosion. As the rest of the world reveled in sloppy, wide-eyed rock n' roll, Kraftwerk became more precise and jettisoned the most recognizable traces of human emotion usually reserved for the pop market. Still, though the most noteworthy traits here bring to mind a glum, dystopian future, like on the title track and the ominous "Metropolis", there is also a good deal of humor and an implied human warmth, as Kraftwerk themselves, more than anything, take the role of detached observers in a world that defines itself more and more through technological progress. Sound familiar?
MPEG Stream: "Spacelab"
MPEG Stream: "Metropolis"
MPEG Stream: "Neon Lights"

KRAFTWERK Tour De France Soundtracks (Astralwerks) cd 17.98
They should've left well enough alone. They should've left well enough alone. They should've left well enough alone... but alas, they did not. Now that we've gotten that out of our system... The major disappointment with this new Kraftwerk is not that it's a poor album. Let us stress, that is NOT the case at all. Actually it sounds remarkably like the work of many many fine current electronic artists (or rather, *they* sound just like Kraftwerk!), and THAT is the major point of contention here. Tour De France Soundtracks simply doesn't sound like the work of great sonic revolutionaries. Arguably they reached the pinnacle of their innovations with Computer World -- making astounding, ground-breaking music that sounded unlike ANYTHING at the time nor many years to follow. Granted it took a very long time, but over the years Ralf, Florian and co. spent devoted to cycling the globe, it seems the world finally caught up to Kraftwerk.
MPEG Stream: "Chrono"

KRAFTWERK Trans Europe Express (Kling Klang / Astralwerks) lp 21.00
Now reissued on vinyl too!
It's about time. Dusseldorf's most famous export, the Godfathers of electronic pop music, Kraftwerk, finally see their classic albums remastered and reissued for the 21st century (although, unfortunately, not yet their EARLIEST classics, the ones with the traffic cone covers). Given the group's notoriety for demanding nothing but absolute perfection, you can safely bet that these sound AMAZING after years of tireless mixing and mastering in Kling-Klang studios. That's probably the main selling point here, as Kraftwerk was never really a "bonus material" kind of band, and there is none of that here; if it was released, it pretty much meant it was labored upon until being deemed suitable for public exposure. These reissues have also got some pretty fancy expanded artwork. Of course, if you don't already have these albums in some form or another, you should probably do yourself a favor and purchase every single one of them immediately.
Arguably, Kraftwerk's best recording, Trans-Europe Express from 1977 marries the Kosmiche minimalism of the Ralf and Florian record with the technological sublime sound of Autobahn while at the same time foreshadowing the robotic dance pop of The Man-Machine and Computer World. We also see for the first time, the image of the band as a uniform commodity dealing with post-modern themes of surface, reflection, repetition and reproduction that would thoroughly dominate their later output.
MPEG Stream: "Europe Endless"
MPEG Stream: "Showroom Dummies"
MPEG Stream: "Trans Europe Express"