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

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

Various Artists - Festival Du Son (Nyl, Bali-Barong, Alain Renaud, Exmagma) -1977- (LP, Continental Edison), France/Germany

This is a pretty rare trifold record that came out in France as promotion for the Continental Edison audio brand. It was made to demonstrate their hi-fi equipment. Probably through the music industry and some record label connections this record somehow got some of the weirdest bands from France's seventies on there. Most of these bands were on Richard Pinhas' (Heldon) Urus Records which was called Disjuncta before that. Every side of the record was dedicated to a different audience and had one act covering one whole side. None of the tracks have titles listed. The last record has an easy listening trumpet orchestra on the E-side and a Beethoven suite on the F-side, which I did not include in this rip. The rest of the sides are recordings of great underground acts of zeuhl and progressive rock music. It's a mysterious combination of acts on a promotional record like this. I don't know if Festival Du Son was indeed a real festival, I can't find that information.

The A-side (Pour Les Fans de Pop) is represented by French Zeuhl band Nyl which made one pretty good album in the mid-seventies and is a prime example of a Gong and Magma influenced psychedelic rock band, but for this record described as the "pop-music representative". The first song (of the entire record actually) might sound pretty generic, but later on the music becomes more psychedelic and agressive with cool French English Vocals. I really think that Nyl was a much better band in reality than is to be heard on their only published record.

The B-side (Pour Les Amateurs D'Exotisme) is the Gamelan group Bali-Barong from Indonesia that was recorded during a field recording by Jean-François Bizot, who also created Actuel (sub-division of BYG records imprint) and was an important person in the French underground culture from the seventies and beyond. Bali-Barong published one album on Disjuncta records in 1975.

The C-side (Pour Les Avant-Gardistes) is by French psychedelic guitarist Alain Renaud, who was also in Heldon in the early seventies and made a couple solo albums. His music on here is a typical mixture of acoustic and electric guitar combined with some synthesizer sounds. I kept this side as whole as I felt it was intended originally like that.

The D-side (Pour Ceux Qui Aiment Le Jazz Moderne) is done by one of my personal favorite Krautrock groups from the seventies Exmagma. Exmagma was from Stuttgart and consisted of Thomas Balluff, Andy Goldner, and Fred Braceful (who also played with Wolfgang Dauner in his group Etcetera). Exmagma played some top notch fully improvised jazz-rock kraut and have made two legendary albums.

All in all it's a cool record with some  recordings of bands of which we don't have that much material. Possibly this material is also on some of the already published records by these artists, but I was too lazy too verify. I had to record the album quite loudly because of the crackly condition. Ironic that Continental Edison used this record as a showcase of how great their audio equipment was, but pressed the music on some of the thinnest slabs of vinyl you can imagine and put it in hard plastic inner sleeves. Some internet prices I have seen for this are not worth it. Anyways.

Enjoy! Recommended stuff!

Get it HERE

Ernesto Cardenal - Gebet Für Marilyn Monroe & Psalm 21 -1972- (LP, Pietbiet), Germany/Nicaragua

Merry Christmas and an Archaic New Year to all followers of the blog!

This is a record I'm very happy to present on this blog. It's a beautiful example of how all kinds of ideological currents surfed along on the waves of hippieness and political progressiveness during the early seventies and eventually were translated to psychedelic music.

Ernesto Cardenal is a Nicaraguan priest, poet and politician. He was also minister of culture in Nicaragua at the end of the seventies. Cardenal started a christian commune in 1966 on the Solentiname Islands in Nicaragua in which they lived in poverty among indigenous farmers. This is a record he made in Germany in the early seventies with a couple of christians who were completely out of their minds. Cardenal wrote the texts and the German musicians made the musical adaptations and German translations. The first side of the record is called "Prayer for Marilyn Monroe" and has a completely pedantic and moralistic character. It tells the story of the life of Marilyn Monroe and why it was all a futile effort. The second song is called Psalm 21 and talks about war, torture and technological problems of the world. Really heavy stuff (I mean the record).

The greatest thing about the record is that the German vocalists sing both in German and Spanish. Their Spanish has an insanely strong German accent which makes it incredible. It has a similar feeling to German bands like Floh De Cologne (who would totally hate these christian people) or Dutch hippie flutist Sigurd Cochius who made one album in the early seventies. It's very groovy with amazing flutework. The flutist who is appearing on this record is Klaus Dapper who was also in Krautrock groups like Bröselmaschine and the NWW-List group Kollektiv so this record has a link to some of the proper Krautrock bands as well.

UPDATE: I got hold of a new copy of this album, which means the bad quality B-side of last time has been replaced by a better rip. I suggest you grab this pearl again! 

"Herr, in dieser Welt, die verseucht ist von Sünde und Radioaktivität sprichst Du eine kleine Verkäuferin nicht schuldig, die wie alle kleinen Verkäuferinnen davon träumt, ein Filmstar zu sein. Ihr Traum wurde Wirklichkeit (doch eine Wirklichtkeit in Technicolor), sie agierte nur nach dem Script, das wir ihr gaben - das Script unserer eigenen Leben - und es war ein absurdes Script. Vergibt ihr, Herr, und vergib uns allen..."

Get ready for some amazing Christian Krautrock! 

Get it HERE!

I uploaded some vintage North Korean records as well if you prefer to listen to that during this Christmas.