Thomas Girke - Elektronik Musik -1983- (Cassette, Togi Music), Germany

 Merry Christmas to all friends and followers of the blog!

Is that an image of the Brooklyn Bridge with the Twin Towers in New York? Can't really figure out the angle of the photo though. Ofcourse those towers were already there decades before they got used to scam us into the new millennium. But whether this image is a correct depiction of the skyline is quite unclear. Actually it doesn't really matter. All we care for is that those UFO's high up there in the sky were real! The rest is basically constructed around them. Skyscrapers, UFO's, modern metropoles: some key signs of the future in one depiction. Needless to say that within such a vision Thomas Girke from West-Berlin created a wonderful and futuristic soundtrack.

Elektronik Musik is a piece of Berlin School analog electronics on the synth-pop and minimal synth side of the spectrum. Analog arpeggiators, keyboard melodies, electronic syncopations and drum computer rhythms take us on a neon-light disco journey across the elektronik sky by way of China Town into synthetic dreams in time and space.

Quick get on board of the UFO! I heard those aliens have a space dancefloor and they are spinning some Italo disco records. Might have heard some Patrick Cowley and Stratis up there in the sky. Is that Magic Fly by Space now?! Abandon earth!

Get it HERE

Naomi N'Uru - Wurm -1989- (LP, Überschall Records), Germany

 

Naomi N'Uru was a project by Caroline Frerichs and Rasmi Nithokar from the Northern German town of Bremerhaven. They released a couple of cassettes as well as this record and a CD. They also recorded under the name Cosmic Dance Society which I highly recommend to check out. 

The music on Wurm consists of late EBM style music with lots of cut-ups, sampling and strange transitions. Occasionally it becomes a little more melodic gothic wave-like, but maintains its EBM core. Ofcourse iconic bands like Front 242 or Front Line Assembly come to mind, but it mostly fits that 80's into the 90's transition phase on the still more industrial side of the electronic music spectrum.

The record was hand-numbered and quite a fragile pressing. My copy was a bit warped unfortunately so the sound quality isn't the greatest throughout. 

Get it HERE

Kinder-Klons, Uwe Linke, Gefährliche Klons - The Kinderkram Tapes - Lost Tracks & Live (Cassettes 198X), Germany

The Gefährliche Klons (The Dangerous Clones) were a NDW band formed in the city of Marburg during the late 70's by the core duo of Uwe Linke and Exo Neutrino. They had many different Clone disguises and started to do their own music experiments inspired by Der Plan and the Geri Reig principle combining primitive electronic sounds with demented acoustic tunes and melodies while also using toys and other lost and found non-instruments.

These recordings are from an obscure collection of overdubbed NDW tapes I found at some point years ago. Too bad we can't see the original covers but chances are very small that we will ever see them. I couldn't find any information on these presumed cassette releases, not on Discogs nor on the Tape-Mag. In any case these recordings mostly collect the solo works by Uwe Linke who also did the Markenzeichen XY project as well as Kinder-Klons. A couple of these Kinder-Klons tracks were also collected on the extensive compilation cassette 40 Funkuchen that was released by Dutch cassette label Trumpett (from the small town of Heiloo), but some tracks are unknown.

Lastly I added an unknown live performance by The Gefährliche Klons from another one of those dubbed cassettes which now completes all the leftover material I have by them. However, it would be truly amazing if someone could provide some other unknown cassettes from their own Wir Wollen Nur Dein Bestes Bänder label.

Get all the leftover tunes HERE

Vermooste Vløten - Crankle -1996- (LP, Self-Released), Germany

 

Vermooste Vløten were a Berlin based female duo that consisted of Hannie Bluum and Libójah Shnukki that was active during the 90's. During the first decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall a new spirit reconnected the divided German capital giving birth to dozens of open spaces, buildings and (temporary) venues. Squats were still around as true city institutes, rent was relatively cheap, techno started blowing up, bars with GDR retro furniture in living-room atmospheres were created and gradually a whole new generation decided to start a living in the new alternative culture capital of Europe.

Within this new scenery lots of interesting local acts started to emerge out of Berliners and newly attracted Berliners. A living-room music movement unfolded fostering both the creation of music as well as concerts that were taking place in small circles. From lo-fi indie rock to punk to cut and paste DIY songwriting to simple und Schick toy organ electronics to surf, to bedroom pop or folk, anything was possible. This was a type of music that was in synergy with daily life, city vibrations, friendships, nightly leisure and so on, not so much with an aim to play big stages or to gain a larger audience.

Vermooste Vløten was one of those amazing bands from the time. Channeling a bit of the earlier underground sounds from Berlin in the 70's and 80's and backed up by Nikki Sudden of Swell Maps as the producer they made their first album Crankle in 1996. A really nice home-made indie album full of sweet melancholic songs, a rebellious attitude, Velvet Underground and Nico infused moods and delicate experimentation. Even John Peel picked up on them at the time. 

As a female duo they stand in a great tradition of other female underground acts from Berlin, from Nina Hagen to bands like Malaria!, Carambolage or 3 Tot in the 80's to Barbara Morgenstern or Cobra Killer in the 90's. All those sounds surely even created the subconscious fertile soil for a band like 2Raumwohnung later on. In past years it has continued in the Berlin underground with acts like Die Schiefe Bahn or As Longitude. But ofcourse there are countless other female acts to mention. Let's hope it will all carry on as it should. I'm sure it will though.

Vermooste Vløten made a second album in the 90's that is equally great and has more electronic influences. Reissues? Compilations of the Berlin living-room scene? 

Something more light-hearted during these tough times....

Get it HERE

The Unwillings - Diggin' Holes -1987- (Cassette, Servil), Germany

 

According to the review on the cover of this cassette The Unwillings were a duo comprised of the German born Steve and Pete who were working at Audi-Motors in the German town of Ingolstadt. Whether any of that is true remains unknown, however it really doesn't matter.

The Unwillings were a Velvet Underground influenced band that released only one cassette on the Servil label that was created by bedroom-pop and home-taping pioneers Fit + Limo from Altdorf, Bavaria. Their rhythm box driven neo-psychedelic fuzzy garage tunes are in line with other bands from the time like 39 Clocks (Also from Germany, later incarnated into The Phantom Payn), The Rest (from Naples, Italy), Hi-Fi (from Amsterdam, Holland) or any other brown sugar dripping, sunglasses after dark, vintage fuzz pedal to the metal, slowly burning cigarettes, shiny boots of leather bands. These guys must have had records by Spacemen 3 and The Monks at home too.

The Unwillings also play a cover of Amon Düül II's Archangel's Thunderbird which underlines their neo-psychedelic spirit. Actually, before Krautrock propelled the world into cosmic realms with musical innovation that we could have never imagined, many groups from Germany from the mid- and late 60's already heralded that near future to come. A series like the Prae-Kraut-Pandaemonium provides a great overview of that realm for those who are interested. With the neo-psychedelic revival of the 80's everything kind of went full circle.

Anyhow, as for now, here are The Unwillings for everyone who remains unwilling! 

Keep diggin' holes, long live the underground!

Get it HERE

Die Dancing Chromosomes - Was Ihr Wollt -1985- (Cassette, Refiuti Records), Germany

Ever since Mutant Sounds posted their first cassette Kleine Gelben Tierchen (Little Yellow Animals) in 2007 I tried tracking down the second Dancing Chromosomes cassette. Finally after more than a decade here it is...

The Dancing Chromosomes were a NDW and New Wave band from Munich that consisted of Ralf Bremer, Philipp Meyer and Christian Türck (& Fraenk S. and Peter Spies). (Members of honor: Lutz Möller, Steffen Haller). They released two cassettes in the early eighties and ran their own cassette label called Refiuti Records.

On this second cassette Was Ihr Wollt the band continues where they left off with the first one, although in a slightly less minimalistic way. Some light-hearted rock 'n' roll inspired tunes are interspersed with synth experiments and darker new wave songs with melancholic atmospheres.

The Dancing Chomosomes were not absurdistic like many of their NDW peers, but they focused more on their song-writing. Some of the tracks contain certain Sehnsucht love theme's that resemble Dutch minimal synth act The Actor. Their less serious tunes also remind me of Bavarian home-tapers Fit & Limo or the mysterious Tenk Ric Snach project I posted some time ago. All in all there is an elegance of the music on display through mood and emotion.

Another essential tape from 80's Germany, the Munich DIY scene and the missing piece of the Dancing Chromosomes discography. Maybe some labels are brave enough to reissue them one day!

Get it HERE

Doppelwirkung - Self-Titled -1990- (Cassette, Bestattungsinstitut), Germany

 

Doppelwirkung was one out of many projects that spawned from the home-taping laboratory of electronic musician Siegmar Fricke from Wilhelmshaven: in this case in collaboration with Michael Wurzer, a member of the international amalgamic experimental cult-band Doc Wör Mirran. During the 80's and 90's Siegmar Fricke had a large output of solo cassettes and many releases with collaborative acts like Delta-Sleep-Inducing Peptide, Ambulatorio Segreto and Doppelwirkung. 

It seems that a large amount of the musical output fits the transitional period when the home-taping culture of the 80's (often rooted in industrial culture) evolved into new dance music styles and the rave culture of the early 90's. Siegmar Fricke's work, but also that of DSIP, represents a non-commercial approach to electronic music that is not looking for imitation or to fit a certain scene or sound. The music represents the discovery of sounds through the home-taping practice transferred to the nervous system of the 90's. Deep hypnotic elements, psychedelia, eerie experimental sounds and synthetic dance grooves can all be stardust of the sonic dreamscape.

On this Doppelwirkung cassette on Fricke's own Bestattungsinstitut label there are 21 different untitled electronic minimalist tracks. Most of them are experimental loops of synthesized sounds with occasional samples. On the outer edges of these experiments we hear tracks in a cosmic Krautrock fashion (track 1) reminiscent of Cluster or Conrad Schnitzler, but there is also an ambient electronic sound of the early 90's vaguely reminiscent of Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works for example (check track 10). In any case, no matter how the listener's subjective and associative music brain works, it's clear that there are many different textures and moods to be experienced through the vast music catalog around Siegmar Fricke. Doppelwirkung is definitely another interesting project, I wonder if some other Doppelwirkung tapes are out there too...

Kindly donated by The Y Create Archive

Get it HERE

The Clone - Psycho Delicts -198X- (Self-Released, Cassette), Germany

Here is another obscure tape by the blog's favorite absurdist and disruptive Kassettentäter recidivists Die Gefährliche Klons (The Dangerous Clones). This particular recording comes from an obscure source of overdubbed NDW cassettes I got hold of a long time ago. The Gefärhliche Klons were formed in the city of Marburg during the late 70's by the core duo of Uwe Linke and Exo Neutrino. They had many different Clone disguises and started to do their own music experiments inspired by Der Plan blending primitive electronic sounds with demented acoustic tunes and melodies while also using toys and other lost and found non-instruments.

Even though this material was copied from its original source during the 80's and consequently somewhat less high in audio fidelity without any cover artwork, chances are slim that an original of this will actually surface, so I decided to share this anyway. Moreover, Psycho Delicts by "The Clone" might be one of the most balanced, intricate and serious music efforts I've heard by the Klons so far. It's as if finally a German Krimi series goes absurdist Neue Deutsche Welle and the special police unit is trying to catch a mysterious mob of dangerous clowns equiped with cassette decks and casio keyboards who are roaming the music underground and leaving an idiotic soundtrack as their only trace. Obviously undermining the success story of the police. Quite reminiscent of the neurotic and paranoid subversive world of The Cop Killers: a conceptual Italian Sci-Fi fueled anti-authoritarian and fugitive home-taping project that was created a.o. by mail-artist Vittore Baroni in the early 80's.

The short Psycho Delicts cassette doesn't really like to compromise, yet it's unquestionably humorous while containing some real musical depth. Conceptually indeed similar to some of the creations by The Residents, Der Plan or even Blacklight Braille.

"Was tu tust kann nur zur Selbstzerstörung führen."

Get it HERE

Gundel - Böse!! -198X- (Cassette, Self-Released), Germany

Here we have another obscure release from the German tape underground. Gundel was the project of the Düsseldorf based home-taper Gerrit Nowatzki. He was also in the experimental noise rock band Spalanzanis Töchter with Thomas Kallweit. Under the name Gundel Nowatzki released a couple of tapes during the second half of the 80's. You can find his other tape Macht Musik over at Tape Attack for example.

The music of Gundel on Böse!! (Angry, evil: however you want to read it) brings together an interesting combination of folk, rock and both ambient and experimental electronic sounds. Actually the quality of the recording is pretty high-standard. It seems to incorporate a certain musical dept into the release that includes some darker song-writing, piano play, flutes and other instrumental details. Maybe it's somewhat inspired by the less industrial side of Einstürzende Neubauten, but it also slighty reminds me of Circles or Strafe Für Rebellion. A sort of late 80's German sound that obtains more folk and dark ambient influences, moving away from the NDW Wahnsinn approach that was more common before. It's balancing somewhere on the thin line of writing a more serious album and home-taping experimentation.

Get it HERE

Markenzeichen XY - Da Kommt Die Braut -1983- (Cassette, BestesBänder BB5), Germany

We continue our April fool's journey with another rarity from a far away galaxy of the Neue Deutsche Welle universe. If I'm correct Markenzeichen XY was the first solo release by Uwe Linke from the city of Marburg. He was a delegate of some of Germany's craziest and wacked out Kassettentäter groups of the 80's which he formed with his partner in crime Exo Neutrino called Die Gefährliche Klons (Dangerous Clones) or Different Klons or FunTastiClones or MicroClones etc. I posted their very first cassette some time ago.

Inspired by The Residents and the legendary Hamburg based NDW band Der Plan they started to create their different musical groups of Clone incarnations as well as recording many solo projects. They founded their own cassette label called BestesBänder or Wir Wollen Nur Dein Bestes Bänder (We only want your best tapes). The music was heavily inspired by non-musicianship, the usage of found objects, toys and primitive electronic instruments and synthesizers. The mysterious Clones (or maybe just Exo Neutrino alone) also published a record during the 80's called Unpop under the moniker Lustige Mutanten. It was a 7 inch single inside of a regular LP sleeve containing lots of different demented little tracks. It's still a great album in my opinion, at least it had a big influence on me when I found it as a teenager.

Markenzeichen XY's Da Kommt Die Braut (There Comes The Bride) also displays a collection of short tracks in the typical absurdist clones style. It's a wonderful short tape with the information nicely written all over the cassette box. Maybe there was some inlay or side publication to it displaying the track titles, but I don't have it, so all tracks are untitled for now.

In any case this is a great NDW tape again that was released in the scarce quantity of 111 copies.

More Dangerous Clones stuff still to come!

Get it HERE

Bodenpersonal, Tumorbeus, Siedlerheim ‎- Westhafen Plassette -1981- (Cassette + 7 Inch, Kompakt Produkte), Germany

About a year ago a couple of hundred of tapes from an old collection came into my hands. Most of them were self-recorded copies of existing albums, mostly vinyl, that someone had been copying throughout the 80's. The majority of the music on these cassettes did consist of weird new wave, experimental and industrial music. I started to devide the tapes into different sections, the exact recorded copies of albums I put away in one box and the unknown cassettes without any written information on them I stored away in another box to examine. I also threw away dozens of tapes that were poor in quality and had nothing to do with underground music in general. Even now I still have some bags left with the unknown cassettes. I still have to listen to them and figure out what is on there.

In-between all of this stuff there was a self-made series that consisted of overdubs of rare NDW cassettes all with typewriter style titles and tracklisting. Because of that information I could luckily connect this one here to its original: a release I had been looking for over at least a decade. Thus, the digitization of this is somewhat less sharp sounding because I had to use a copy as source. Nevertheless we should be very happy that someone copied this rarity in 1981 for us to hear today! It doesn't seem likely this will surface any time soon in any sound quality (also with regard to the collectors who do seem to have this).

The Westhafen Plassette (Platte und Kassette) is a true relic and highly important item of the West-Berlin underground music scene of the early 80's. Released in a scarse edition of only 200 copies this three-way split release, that consisted of a 7 inch vinyl and a cassette, compiled three underground groups hailing from Berlin: Bodenpersonal, Tumorbeus (Read: Tumorboys), and Siedlerheim. It came out on the obscure cult label Kompakt Produkte from Berlin. The music consists of some of the purest experimental minimal synth and DIY new-wave music in the tradition of the grey and wall-divided Berlin music underground of the time:

Bodenpersonal with their Zufallsprodukt Eines Langweiligen Wochenendes (Chance product of a boring weekend) was recorded in a factory in Berlin in 1980 and consists of great minimal synth and DIY-music improvisation. 

Tumorbeus create such abstract synthesizer driven atmospheres that the music almost becomes techno-like, mindblowingly ahead of its time to say the least. I really wonder whether they did more music in those days. They also remind me a bit of the Studio 12 bands from Haarlem, The Netherlands from the early 80's with bands like Nexda and Cargo Cultus. 

Siedlerheim seems to be the more traditional NDW group, but also ventures into electronic experimentation. They have more structured tracks with vocals and even incorporate the occassional saxophone burst. Maybe their sound is actually the most representative West-Berliner sound of the time. An energy that was also captured strongly in the Berlin Super 80 film, that gathered underground music and performance video's recorded on Super 8 Film by different artists from Berlin during the 80's (I will add that video below. Update: the video has been removed). Both Bodenpersonal and Siedlerheim have been re-released more than a decade ago by the great WSDP label specialized in rare NDW cassettes. Some of the tracks that are on the Westhafen Plassette were also compiled by WSDP, just not everything.

The Westhafen Plassette is partially a musical time-document but it also displayed its avant-garde vision of futuristic musical possibilities beyond the political barriers of the bleak urban landscape and society of Berlin at that time. It stands closely next to many other important underground bands from Berlin of the time like Kompakt Produkte peer band Thorax Wach, Notorische Reflexe, Die Tödliche Doris, Sentimentale Jugend, Malaria!, Einstürzende Neubauten, An Die Schwarze Kunst, Sprung Aus Den Wolken and many more. Both in instrumentation and energy very strong. Those analog machines in combination with this urgency to experiment really resulted in some of the greatest music in general it seems.

It's nice to post this on the blog since 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. If you would like to dig deeper into the theme of the underground music history of Berlin I really recommend the book Berlin Calling, A story of Anarchy, Music, the Wall and the Birth of the New Berlin by Paul Hockenos (2017).

A long story this time, anyway... could have saved this one for Christmas, but I have so much more to share on the blog... Enjoy! Sturm und Turm!

Get it HERE

Survival Instink - Self-Titled -1988- (Tape, Self-Released), GDR

Survival Instink was a project by German musician Bernd Jestram, perhaps recorded together with others, perhaps not. There is a little child singing on one of the tracks on the B-Side. Jestram is one of the important underground musicians from East-Berlin who played in many iconic punk and experimental bands from the other side of the wall surviving the German socialist regime. Among others he played in Rosa Extra (aka Der Schwarze Kanal) which was probably East-Berlin's most important punk band that had formed already in 1979. He founded his own band Aufruhr Zur Liebe in 1984 and later joined another important experimental band called Ornament & Verbrechen. Aside from this he played in numerous other bands and did many solo works. You can find a lot of those bands and related material over at Tape Attack. Obviously none of these bands in the DDR had proper chances of releasing anything so their music circulated on tapes in the underground. They spreaded their common experience of bleakness due to the repressive totalitarian regime as well as the daily derooted alienating feeling of misplacement in a city that was torn apart by warfare and corruptive political powers.

Survival Instink was another nice project by Bernd Jestram, although a somewhat later project from 1988. I couldn't find any information about it whatsoever. It's also not listed on Discogs. It's a very loud (!) lo-fi cassette that contains some heavily distorted cyber garage-punk dedicated to urban dystopia. Lots of raw guitar sounds, manic drum machine clattering, and dark distorted vocals. The music probably appeals to fans of Chrome, Strafe Für Rebellion or Second Layer and even reminds me of equally obscure stuff like the rock era of Salò Mentale or Spalanzanis Töchter.

Get it HERE

Various Artists - Views Beside... -1982- (7 Inch EP, Ed. Vogelsang), Germany

This is a rare artists' 7 Inch that accompanied an art book edited by Fritz Balthaus, published by Ed. Vogelsang in Berlin in 1982. Unfortunately I don't have the book, but according to information online it was an anthology assembling contributions by numerous artists: texts, photos, collages, drawings, an object (a pencil), and the six audio pieces on the 7", which was housed in a generic inner sleeve attached to the inside of the back cover of the book.

It's another nice example of the music experiments that were going on in the West-Berlin art scene and the galleries of the time in which there was dialogue, overlap (or colission as you wish) between the art academies and more established art world with the DIY underground of the time. Neue Deutsche Welle music and its performance aspects balanced on these two fringes, because of the often conceptual nature in the artistic approach. You can find certain examples of this in Berliner bands like Die Tödliche Doris, the whole Geniale Dilletanten happening in Berlin's Tempodrom in 1981 or the Berlin Super 8 DIY art-films that were being made by local experimental musicians and artists. On a sidenote, these type of happenings and musical output also took place in East-Berlin and other GDR cities like Dresden and Leipzig. There is a nice documentary in German about that here. These expressions were much more marginal and obviously not tolerated by the regime so at times quite dangerous for the artists in their practices.

On this little record there are various artists compiled from Berlin as well as foreign places: the first piece is made by Florence born Italian visual artist Maurizio Nanucci, who started to work with neon typography in the late 60's. His work deals with the relation between his research on linguistics and the visual experience of colours.

Then there is Berlin artist and writer Thomas Kapielski who also worked a lot with the important experimental musician Frieder Butzmann in the 80's. Kapielski is still active to this day. Also Fritz Balthaus is present, an artist that in his work dealt a lot with the mediation between architecture and design in (public) spaces. American composer Beth Anderson is compiled with a nice track that is also the most poppy on the record.

Lastly there is a piece by conceptual visual artist Rolf Julius based on a reel-to-reel voice cut-up of American female voice experimentalist Joan La Barbara and a piece by Fred Szymanski of the great New York band Ike Yard, which was the only band from the US to be featured on the Factory Records roster during the 80's.

Some nice sound-art pieces from Berlin's past.

Get it HERE

Zorah Mari Bauer & Tilman Küntzel - "Stipendiaten 1991" -1992- (Split-Tape), Germany

Since there is some catching up to do with regard to the frequency of uploads on the blog here is an obscure tape that I picked up by chance recently in Berlin:

Zorah Mari Bauer and Tilman Küntzel are both artists that are still active today in the realms of new media, cross media, art theory and sound. Apparently this cassette was released to accompany a catalogue for an exhibition they did at K3, part of the art center Kampnagel in Hamburg in 1992. It was released in an edition of 100 copies.

Zorah Mari Bauer takes one side of the cassette and plays two abstract pieces where musique concrète and voice experiments are the main components. It actually reminds me somewhat of the music of Laurie Anderson or the voice experiments of Dutch artist Moniek Toebosch.

Tilman Küntzel's side is called "Pinguin In Wonderland" and contains some interpretations of music by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. It's midi and computer controlled music that he recorded at the Centre for Art and Media ZKM in Karlsruhe. It's quite an unusual collage of animal sounds, voices and instruments.

Strange art tape, nice music.

Get it HERE

Stan Red Fox - Same -1988- (LP, ITM Records), Germany

Stan Red Fox were a band from Berlin formed by Stephan Hachtmann (who came from the GDR), Lars Rudolph of anarcho-jazz combo Kixx and Franklin D. Newmeier (later in Caspar Brötzmann's Massaker). They had multiple releases by the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties. Their first self-released EP cassette is to be found here.

The music resembles the cross-over sound of new wave by the end of the eighties, but is also clearly inspired by the 80's No Wave art-rock and jazz-pop styles from New York. Apart from more conventional songs they also play weird Butthole Surfers-like outburst, sing German lullabies and create experimental absurd jazz sounds in almost Zeuhl-like manners. German bands like Reifenstahl or AG Geige also come to mind, as well as more obvious UK groups like Rip Rig & Panic or even Pigbag.

I was quite surprised that this wasn't available yet. I guess it's also a reminder of that there is so much good stuff out there that won't cost you a fortune. Don't believe the hype of today's internet music market and listen to what you like.

Get it HERE

Ceddo + Derschau ‎- Grüne Rose Live -1981- (LP, Saguitarius), Germany

In the early eighties punk, post-punk and new wave paved the way for new generations and created quite a musical break with the previous generations and their more (psych) rock fueled sixties and seventies. Some artists from the psychedelic era had quite some difficulties reinventing themselves in the new punk times. Daevid Allen, front man of the legendary Gong for example, made a dark album called The Death of Rock and Other Entrances in 1982. A different approach than he had before. Somewhere in the nineties when a neo-psych revival changed everything, the legends of the sixties returned fully to their spaced out selves of their prime.

But some musicians and bands were never influenced by external factors and kept making music during the eighties like it was 1972. Some real psychedelic pearls were actually made in the eighties, especially in what we could call late-krautrock. In germany there was quite a continuation of the krautrock scene and legendary pioneers as well as unknown musicians kept playing in their new or old bands. This resulted in many privately released albums, some of which are nearly impossible to find today.

Ceddo was a jazz fusion trio from Dortmund fronted by guitarist Jochen Strumpf. In 1981 they released this Live album with psychedelic jams and poetry which was recorded in Dortmund on 08.05.1981 and 9 + 10 5. 1981 im Gasthof zur Mühle, Ascheberg. They worked together with the countercultural poet Christoph Derschau. He was influenced o.a. by Bukowski and other US underground literature. The lyrics of Grüne Rose (Green rose) on this album are dealing o.a. with a corrupted state, environment, psychedelic rock music, existence and more. It's quite a good freak out album actually. If you understand German you might hear some echo's of political krautrock bands like Floh de Cologne, Von Brühwarm Theater or Ton Steine Scherben.

Grüne Rose. Das Ziel des Todestriebs ist nicht die Zerstörung an sich, sondern die Aufhebung des Bedürfnisses nach Zerstörung - Herbert Marcuse

Get it HERE

Pierre Courbois, Edgar M. Böhlke, Oskar Gottlieb Blarr - Free Music & Orgel -1969- (LP, Schwann AMS Studio), Germany/Holland

This record is linked to many other posts on the blog. Free Music & Orgel was a freeform endeavour to combine Christian church music with avant-garde, free-jazz and 'beat' music. The main composer behind it was the Dutch Pierre Courbois (to be found on the blog). Together with German organist Oskar Gottlieb Blarr, German narrator Edgar M. Böhlke, Dutch trumpetist Boy Raaymakers, Dutch sax player Peter van de Locht and Ferdi Rikkers on double bass a spontaneous project was recorded on October 13th and 14th, 1968 at Melanchthon-Kirche Düsseldorf and at Grote Kerk Arnhem.

This album showcases how the church tried to find new ways of connecting to the youth that was more and more being submerged in hippieness in the late sixties. An important figure in this German wave of the Christian krautrock-beat-mass genre was Nicaraguan priest-poet Ernesto Cardenal. His poems were also used on this album. Cardenal related things like the cosmic unity of the universe to Christ to use the hippie discourse for a Christian message, although politics are also important in this case.

The Christian Schwann label was quite adventurous with its releases. It also published the first two legendary Kluster albums. Somehow redemption was thought to be found in the experience of the free and abstract. But also in the popular culture, like Cardenals poem tells on this album: praise the lord of the milky ways and space between the milky ways with violins, with flutes and saxophone, praise him with blues and jazz, praise him with record players etc.

Musically I find this an amazing album where a sound reminiscent of Italian library music in the vein of Il Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza meets jazz, poetry and dark psychedelic sounds. It also comes close to the Risonanze series which I published before. It is almost a Christian take on the Dutch hyperrare cult psychedelic beat poetry album Woorden. I actually find the balance between the church organ and the church bells with the other instruments really impressive. Much more could be said about this album because it has so many implications and so many different musicians, but I'll keep the rest to you.

Highly Recommended!

Get it HERE

Circles - The Third Cycle -1987- (LP, Einhorn Music), Germany

This is the third and last privately released Circles album that came out during the eighties. Circles is a Frankfurt based late-cosmic- krautrock and NDW band that consists of the duo of Mike Bohrmann and Dierk Leitert. Also they had a side-project called Das Organisierte Chaos. I posted their first album some time ago, but I recommend you to get your own vinyl copy since it has been beautifully reissued lately.

The Third Cycle is the most ambient and cosmic album of Circles. It moves away from the sometimes wonky chaoticness of the first albums and travels to much subtler electronic spaces to drift into. Still the distinctive Circles ingredients are present: Ash Ra Tempel like guitars, kosmische electronics and dark eighties sounds expected from the DIY tape-culture. Actually I think this album is a real classic and we can only hope it gets reissued too. Recently German label Bureau B has also issued a semi-unreleased album by Circles called Structures. I think it stayed somewhat under the radar so I recommend you to check it out.

Highly Recommended!

Get it HERE

Donated by SonicA

D.O.C. (Das Organisierte Chaos) - Same -1983- (LP, Einhorn Music), Germany

So here is the next post within the realm of the kraut-synth duo of Dierk Leitert and Mike Bohrmann. This time it's the first album of their Circles side-project called Das Organisierte Chaos, also released on their own Einhorn Music label. The first two Circles albums have actually just been reissued through Mental Experience records (Guerssen). According to the liner notes of the reissues, Dierk used to live in Amsterdam in the late seventies whilst Mike in Frankfurt. However Circles is a Frankfurt based band which is still active to this day. Musically they existed in-between psychedelic krautrock and the new wave, NDW, industrial stuff from the late seventies and early eighties.

Das Organisierte Chaos has always been described as the more rock or new-wave oriented counterpart of Circles. But basically the musical approach and sounds are the same. D.O.C. had more people involved in the rhythm section, but created a similar amazing mixture of synth experimentation, krautsounds, ambient atmospheres and wave-y guitar textures. I might even think that I like this D.O.C. debut more than the Circles debut from the same year.

It's a nicely balanced album going from rocking extremes to kosmische soundscapes. A real treat serving us the favourite combination of analog synthesizer jams, NDW wonkiness and tripped out krautgrooves.

Get it HERE

Donated by SonicA

Circles - Same -1983- (LP, Einhorn Music), Germany

So we're some days into the new year and I don't have a clue what to post, I've got so much amazing stuff at the moment, don't have much time and I'm trying to only post two releases every month to give this blog some time to exist into this future. Anyway, here is one of many posts around German cult-group Circles which was donated to me by a friend of the blog (Thank you!). This is something I'd never tought I would hear and happy to share.

Circles were a band from Germany that started out in the early eighties and consisted of the duo of Dierk Leitert and Mike Bohrmann. They created a mixture between old psychedelic krautrock grooves, wave-y guitar textures, electronic kosmische sounds, NDW and rock 'n roll. They are a perfect example of the particular period of Germany's early eighties when the influential Krautrock period started to merge with the fresh Neue Deutsche Welle music. Circles released three albums on their own label Einhorn Music and also had side projects like D.O.C. (Das Organisierte Chaos) which was more electronic oriented.

This first album is quite daring and rough in its approach, just like what you'd expect from a debut record. It's an energetic and dense trip full of electronic sounds, weird vocals, psychedelic guitar stuff and much more. Similar things that come to mind are german bands like 39 Clocks, Harmonia, Teflon Fonfara's album Inge In Venedig and American Milwaukee based band F/i. Actually this type of music is also what influences myself the most I guess, a mixture between the hippie-ish psychedelic krautrock music and eighties synth, noise, ambient, industrial type of stuff.

I have red that allegedly there is a reissue of this record coming out on Ultima Thule Records soon. If this happens I will kindly take this link down and link to the website (I hope so, this stuff is incredible!). More Circles and related projects to follow soon on the blog.

Highly Recommended!

UPDATE! Links removed due to the reissue on Mental Experience, a sub-division of Guerssen records.The first and second album of Circles have been reissued on CD and LP. Get them HERE!

Donated by SonicA