from the LP NEU!, Brain Records, 1972
Come along and take a drive on the super-stoner highway, where we be hazin’ & phazin’ though the galaxy at twilight (thank you Choo Choo), prompted forth by the metronomic pulse of Klaus Dinger’s drumming, dubbed ‘motorik’ by those who needed it to have a name. Few krautrock bands have managed to acquire the level of veneration, both critically and amongst the underground, that his band NEU! has come to behold, and it’s no wonder---ah, that progressive post-war German spirit really comes alive here, literally and metaphorically. There aren’t a lot of touchstones which you can point to that would be indicated as influences for this manic crusade: maybe the Velvets, maybe compatriots Can to some extent, perhaps Pink Floyd most of all, having just dropped Meddle the year before this came out. Or maybe, so much LSD was being ingested that the players merely needed a way to keep moving along while being stuck inside the studio, and this persistent driving rhythm was the result. Who can say?
from the LP Kraftwerk 2, Philips Records, 1972
It’s always an illuminating experience to seek out the earlier recordings of a band who went on to become massively influential or popular, even if the music itself bears little resemblance to what came later, imbued with an adventurousness that typically gets sanded down after more time in the music business. Freed from the limitations of using real drummers, Kraftwerk (which is German for “power station”) really begin to come into their own on this, their second LP; to be honest, I doubt they would have changed their sound so quickly if not for the departure of drummer Klaus Dinger (to form his own band, the legendary NEU!), but it put machines at the helm of their rhythms, leaving Ralf & Florian free to experiment with all manner of other instruments & electronics. The influence of producer Conny Plank can not be over-stated, as he worked with virtually every electronic musician of that period, cross-pollinating the vibes of several krautrock crews; my guess is that the early work of Popol Vuh or Kluster served as their biggest inspiration here, perhaps too much so, as Kraftwerk have been known to refer to these early albums as “archaeology”. As young & abstract as this piece comes across, you can’t deny the inherent warmth found within that droning repetition, an approach the boys would later perfect after a little more time in the studio.
from the LP Frumpy 2, Philips Records, 1971
Many musicians, writers & artists in post-war Germany have been, justifiably, consumed with issues relating to human rights and the continuing plight of many groups around the globe, including what is perhaps the worst treated ethnic group in all of Europe: the Romani, or ‘Gypsies’. With lineage stretching back into northern India, this group of people began migrating west around 250 BCE, and they’ve been met with hostility at virtually every step of their journey it seems, culminating in the murder of over half a million Roma in Hitler’s concentration camps during WWII; however, unlike other groups afflicted by the Nazi disease (i.e. Jews, gays, the disabled, etc…), the Romani people have continued to face prejudice and hatred from all corners of the continent. Inhabiting the same, more western sounding, corner of the Krautrock hash den as Jane, the Hamburg-based Frumpy delivered a touching story here, establishing something of a creation myth for the Roma, conceiving of them as being higher than the rest of us, “…God saw that everything was nice, but there had to be a creature who looked like me and you…so he took some earth, and put it in a form, but the oven wasn't hot enough, so the white man was born…so he took some earth, and put it in a form, but the oven was too hot now, so the black man was born…I have to build another creature…he has to get a special blow…so he took some earth, and put it in a form, an the oven was right now, so the gypsy was born…go to the top of the mountain and look, do you see this land around? Go where you like to be, 'cause you and the gypsy will be free…” Yes, that is a female singing, the indomitable Inga Rumpf!
from the LP 25 TAB, Glitterhouse Records, 1991
It kills me how many people only know of Monster Magnet (MM) from their fluke brush with mainstream success (via their generally boring 1998 LP Powertrip), particularly because that exercise in generic head-banging shouldn’t even be discussed in the same breath as their earlier work: a demented, drug-addled, sludgy, soupy, psychedelic mess that felt as if Hawkwind had eaten dinner with Sabbath, both crews dosing one another’s food (with DOM and Quaaludes, respectively), and then decided to make an album--- that was a compliment, in case you weren’t sure. This “song”, which comes across like some sort of lysergic space hymn, marks the absolute apex of MM’s sonic experiments, more than half an hour’s worth of droning, skronking pandemonium that builds up around a repeating bottom end whose rhythm section easily owes as much to Can as it does to the boys in Hawkwind. This trip (…and it is a trip…) should be experienced through the glory of good headphones and strong hashish, at the least, but I’ve even had a sober friend of mine tell me it makes his head feel funny & his heart beat fast when he rocks this track, so go figure. Put bluntly: the title “Tab” isn’t just a smart name, and Monster Magnet aren’t your average stoner rock band.
from the LP Känguru, Brain Records, 1972
Moving hazily through no less than 8 different suites of musical variety, one thing you will assuredly not be while listening to this expansive jam by German acid freak’s Guru Guru is bored; indeed, some parts fluctuate so drastically that if you don’t like what you’re hearing, just a wait a couple minutes, because it’s no indication of where things might be headed next (my favorite section is the loose vibe from 5:17 – 7:30, more cowbell!!). While some krautrock bands made their reputations sounding like the control panel on a spaceship, and others upon sounding like a prehistoric drum circle, Guru Guru always comes across to me as the most literal translation from that whole scene, in that, they sound like a bunch of Germans on LSD; mind you, this is not to take away from their abilities as musicians, only to highlight the profoundly wasted vibe they brought, noticeable even within a scene that was partially founded on drug experimentation. I don’t hesitate to call this album absolutely essential for any fans of krautrock or spacey hard rock in general.
from the LP Together, Brain Records, 1972
There were two distinct veins of krautrock, and while almost all of the tracks I’ve posted in the Honeypot thus far fall into the spacey electronic school of thought, there were a substantial number of bands which subscribed to a more Western-leaning approach, top amongst them being the Hanover, Germany-based crew Jane; basically, by any other name, this style of kraut is essentially blues-based prog rock, but the one feature which sets both Jane and others like them (Frumpy for one) apart is their insistence upon jamming at a mid-to-slow tempo, probably less of a plan than a natural outgrowth for people who were consuming entire caravans of hashish, “…when I wake up in the morning, it’s the end of the day…”! Jane never fails to deliver on a lazy afternoon, almost like they infused the proceedings with consciously positive vibrations, ably predicting both the needs & the heady nature of their audience.
from the LP Ege Bamyasi, UA Records, 1972
I can remember my first encounter with the bizarre music of Can: having been primed by some of my older peers for an experience that was going to absolutely blow my mind, I had prepared myself for some super crazy shit, and upon hearing the first few measures of this track, all I could think of was cavemen---it sounded like a group of Neanderthals who had just come upon some instruments in a cave and decided to fuck around with them. Hell, even Damo Suzuki’s “vocals” sound as if they might be coming from the throat of early man! Admittedly, being a snotty punkish brat at the time, it didn’t excite me much and I heaped them into my then-sizeable pile of “weird trendy rubbish” which I fancied set myself apart from the typical undergrounder (I don’t know how any of us had any time for anything other than our own identity management when we were teenagers?!). Over time, these wild German acid-heads have grown on me like humidified fungus, blissfully submitting to the near-modal cycles of their grooves, the danciest, not to mention hypnotic, goddamn deconstruction of pop music around. Heavy breaks-heads out there, if you don’t already know, you better get up…
from the LP Brösel maschine, Pilz Records, 1971
Have I mentioned lately how much I love hashish? The recent explosion of medical cannabis dispensaries in this area has produced a rather competitive market, benefiting the consumer in numerous ways, one of those being a healthy & burgeoning hash scene, the size and potency of which already eclipses even that of the ‘70s, when white people went to Afghanistan and Pakistan to purchase hash, not to drop bombs. Something about the level to which it stones your whole body, the way one good hit slows & deepens your breathing, even the smell and taste of it for fuck’s sake, some of the purer full-melt bubble not only looking, but smelling & tasting like earthy chocolate wonderfulness; and it packs a wallop my friends, right to the dome. There is nary a better soundtrack for the hashish fiend than Krautrock, its hazy freeform cycles lulling you into a trance, tenderly lifting you out of your mind. Like so many before it, this tune comes to life upon a drone of sitar & tambura, guided by the light tapping of some tablas, but soon an acoustic guitar joins the party and things get both a little folkier and tad bit stonier. I have no idea what the lady is talking about towards the beginning of the track, but the German title of this song means “butterfly”, so the flute solo is entirely apropos; the band’s name loosely translates to “machine crumbs” in English, which is both far out and cool.
from the LP Zuckerzeit, Brain Records, 1974
Much like the chilly breeze that is currently blowing in through my window & the leaves on trees which seem to have magically changed their colors overnight, this song feels like autumn to me; reflecting upon the passing away of another cycle, journeying towards the inevitability of winter, something about this time of year always gives me strength, and that goes for this song as well. Cluster invited their pal Michael Rother along for the ride, whom they had been collaborating with for the couple years prior to this, thus it isn’t surprising that their sound here is much closer to the music they were making with him in Harmonia: spacey, repetitive, ambient, out there shit. I often wonder what it was that attracted the German music scene to electronics before everyone else; maybe something to do with the war, a musical expression of the dissociation this generation felt from their parents’ choices, perhaps even mixed in with some by-proxy guilt on a global scale, which encouraged the insularity of their scene…I don’t know. Whatever it was, I’m interminably grateful for & gratified by these detached soundtracks...the view is lovely from outer space!
from the LP Phaedra, Virgin Records, 1974
Having left behind any connection to pop-songcraft and having almost totally abandoned traditional instruments, the evolution of Tangerine Dream seemed near complete on this, their debut release for Virgin Records; while electronics had always played a role in the group’s sound, it was on this release that the sequencers & synthesizers really took over, and any semblance that their sound previously had to “rock” music dissipated. The classic lineup of Tangerine Dream is fully assembled on this LP (founder Edgar Froese, Peter Baumann & Christopher Franke), and listening to this album I can’t even conceive of what it was like being in the studio with them; I’d imagine a lot of chemicals, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if they were totally sober either. The ambient textures these guys shaped and twisted gave birth to the entire New Age music movement in the 1980s; you know, that stuff you were supposed to meditate to, or some crap---back when the Dream made this, it was a soundtrack for psychedelic wanderers.
from the LP Musik Von Harmonia, Brain Records, 1974
Oh those crazy Germans---I am so fucking thankful for their willingness to embrace electronics and technology long before the rest of us did!! Harmonia was the near-alchemical reaction of Michael Rother from NEU! and the duo of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Möbius, known collectively as the band Cluster; I can’t even imagine what the recording sessions for this album looked like, other than lots of acid. Indeed, hearing this music is like having a revelation, particularly when you consider the early date at which it was released, the electronic squeaks and skronks pulling you into their detached, ambient vortex; this sounds so unlike anything else, you could easily tell someone that it’s a new Boards of Canada bootleg and they’d probably believe you. This song feels like the electricity of sunrise, over some vast and grassy steppe, the awakening of old memories in our genes…
from the LP Affenstunde, Liberty Records, 1970
Opening with the sound of birds chirping away and the splash of something jumping into water, this track by proto-ambient space cadets Popol Vuh quickly descends into the deep & uncharted depths of the ocean; this German trio was so ahead of the curve with their electronic fascination that, at the time when this was recorded, Kraftwerk was still playing traditional instruments! While many of their far-out Krautrock brethren still used basic pop-music templates to build upon in crafting their psychedelic wanderings, Popol Vuh dismisses any notion of traditional song structure here, generating a sinuous and avant-garde soundtrack that lulls & carries the listener along; it almost gives the impression of traveling through someone’s nervous system, electricity & messages flittering by all around you---you guessed it, another opportunity to dust of those good ol’ headphones!
from the LP Wolf City, UA Records, 1972
Expanding and unraveling like the outer reaches of some lysergic nebula, this song displays the quieter, more reflective side of Amon Düül II (ADII), a German collective of hippies and freaks who produced some of the most bizarre and enchanting music of the 1970s. While some of their music was loud and heavy enough to draw comparisons with the likes of Sabbath and Hawkwind, this lovely number glides along effortlessly like some kind of soundtrack to a Kashmiri caravan of camel-riding hashish merchants. ADII, like many of their Krautrock peers, lived on a commune of sorts and had something of a revolving door policy when it came to band members; literally, you never really know who is playing on a lot of their tracks---frankly, they probably wouldn’t even be able to remember if we asked them…
from the LP Electric Sandwich, Brain Records, 1973
Germans on acid! What better impetus for a music scene? The term ‘krautrock’ gets loosely applied to a gazillion different bands, spanning a decade in time, and criss-crossing several actual styles of music; ostensibly, the only common thread among them being their love of drugs & music, and their being from Europe. Electric Sandwich hailed from the capital of old West Germany: Bonn. This track is the definite highlight from their self-titled debut album, and while there is no real “representative sound” which you can pin on krautrock, this is a fairly archetypal example of a popular tendril of the greater scene: lots of phasing, audio effects, echo, wah-wah guitar, all dancing around a super-tight percussive axis built from both congos and a drumset. The bassline drones throughout, another standard in this arm of the greater krautrock family. Soon after this album was released, the band members fell into disagreement over just how far down the jazz-rock line they wanted to go, and promptly broke up. Over the last couple of years I’ve started to notice more and more new indie bands aping this drone-based method, to varying degrees of success; too often, it seems, they get carried away with the simplicity rather than focusing on the groove. Electric Sandwich really nail it here, and the whole jam sort of sweeps you into their hazey, drug-adled world; this is due in no small part to the mastering and production genius of one Dieter Dirks, in whose studio this track and album were recorded (and gobs of other krautrock classics). No lyrics here to disturb the trance, which erupts into a flurry right at the end, leaving the listener happily stunned.
from the LP NEU!, Brain Records, 1972
