Guru Guru aren’t the most celebrated of Krautrockers, but this 1971 live recording puts the lie many of the common and naive Krautrock narratives: not motorik enchanters but psychedelic shredders, not minimalists but maximalist noise makers, not anti-American but celebrants of Bo Diddley! It’s a miracle a German radio station was there to capture this killer performance.
Category: Krautrock
CAN :: Live In Keele 1977
The last installment in the Can live archival series continues to explore the unfairly maligned late period of the pioneering German band. Recorded at Keele University in 1977, it finds former bassist Holger Czukay settling into his new role as effects wizard, with replacement bassist Rosko Gee, also of Traffic, upping the funk quotient for long, elaborate improvisations and sometimes surprisingly industrial pieces. As with the other entries in the series, it shows a group committed to exploding their sound, exploring the outer limits and creating new worlds, for as long and as far as they could go.
CAN :: Volkshalle Wagtzenborn-Steinberg, Giessen, October 22, 1971
Farewell to Damo Suzuki, an indomitable spirit, an outrageous performer, a force of nature. During his time with Can in the 1970s, he offered an authentic, thrilling alternative to the rock frontman role, embracing the wild, all gates open approach of his bandmates’ music — and doubling down on it fearlessly.
For some real live evil, dig into this absolutely killer audience recording of Can in 1971 from the Tago Mago era, with Damo effortlessly surfing the waves of this still-radical sound, shrieking, whispering, conjuring, celebrating. Schmidt called Can’s onstage high points “Glücksgefühl, the ecstasy.” You’ll find plenty of Glücksgefühl here.
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Based on sheer musicality, Wolf City could be the strongest record Amon Düül would ever make. The ensemble’s second record of 1972, released just a couple months after its predecessor, removes theatrics, limits improvisation, and its blistering riffs shake the very foundations of psychedelia. Things get quaking in wavering slink. The entire world begins to reverberate around the serpentine exchange of acoustic and electric guitar interplay. A false chorus ushers in a fiddle led freak-out and synthesizers begin to malfunction before heading into a lull.
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Yeti went down in the psychedelic annals as a movement defining juggernaut. The four sides that constituted the behemoth opened the gates of kosmische hell—the stamp of approval that acid-drenched weirdness could live on well past the 1960s, even if the adherents to such gospel were relegated to pop-music obscurity. On Tanz Der Lemminge, we’re greeted by the familiar echoes of psychedelia, but not as we’ve known it.
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Launching the listener into the aural assault of “Soap Shop Rock”, Yeti wastes no time getting started. The wandering, acid-drenched psychedelia of Phallus Dei is noticeably absent. The Mothers-esque eccentrics traded in favor of tectonic heaviness. As the four-part suite arrives at its second movement, Amon Düül clears a path for denim-clad stoner rockers to follow for the next half century.
CAN :: Soon Over Babaluma
Soon Over Babaluma is a satellite moon in CAN’s oeuvre, perpetually orbiting the seismic mass of the music they created between 1969-1973, one last psychedelic excursion before transitioning into the tighter arrangements and slicker production of the mid-late 70s. CAN was floating ever deeper into space, fresh off the gravitational break achieved on Future Days. Recorded on the heels of Damo Suzuki’s departure, Soon Over Babaluma marked both the end of era and a reinvention of everything the CAN had been working toward— the deepening of a sound that was still hurtling toward the outer reaches.
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The break up was cemented. The live reputation established. Amon Düül’s more musical half – adopting the suffix ‘II’ – entered the studio and laid down the first identifiable Kosmische slab. In name alone, Amon Düül II’s debut demanded attention. “The God Cock” would formally signify Germany’s emergence as a world power once more—though this time on the countercultural stage. Preceding Can’s Monster Movie by two months, Phallus Dei would be the introductory major-label document of a burgeoning Gegenkultur coming out of West Germany at the end of the 1960s.
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At three in the afternoon on Thursday, September 28, Amon Düül II took the stage of the Aula der Pädagogischen Hochschule. Freshly split from the ‘nonmusical’ portion of their Munich commune, the eight-piece ensemble intended to make waves, not as a leftist collective, but as a strict musical unit.
CAN :: Live in Stuttgart 1975
Over the course of Live in Stuttgart 1975‘s 91 unbelievable minutes, Can emerges as the ultimate jam band—forget whatever negative connotations you may have with the term. Here, jamming isn’t about technical flash or aimless noodling; rather, it’s about the quest for collective ecstasy, for both the musicians and the audience.
Damo Suzuki :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
The mythic Damo Suzuki is out on the road, traveling the highways of the United States, to team with up with “sound carriers,” local musicians assembled from each town he visits. Freelance scribe and One Eleven Heavy bassist Daniel A. Brown—known for his work with Royal Trux, ‘68 Comeback, the Screws, and South Filthy—recently caught up with Suzuki via Skype to discuss his artistic approach and history.
Holger Czukay :: Cinema (A Retrospective)
Holger Czukay was a genius of rhythm of the highest possible order, on par with Fela Kuti, James Brown, Steve Reich, and pretty much anyone else to ever braid together […]