Music from Germany

"The story of each re-release begins with the original. In the late 90s, Uwe Zahn (Arovane), along with Robert Henke (Monolake) and Stefan Betke (Pole), began releasing music on Torsten Pröfrock’s (Dynamo) newly launched DIN label. This was a very inconspicuous undertaking, but fans of the flourishing IDM, glitch, and constantly evolving abstract techno genres quickly picked up on the quality of sound coming out of Germany. After a few successful EPs, Zahn began working on his debut full-length,…

*2026 stock* Last time, RLW (Ralf Wehowsky—active years ago on P16.D4 and since then releasing a largely uncategorizable brand of noise music across numerous publications) thrilled us on these pages with his album Satanic Inventions. Now, again on Stephen Meixner’s label Black Rose Recordings, the similarly conceptually dense album Fading Pictures is released. In the liner notes, Wehowsky describes the close connection between electroacoustics and Cinéma L’Oreille. He understands electroacoustic…

The album ‘November 89’ comprises a selection of very early GAS tracks, some of which date back to the late 1980s. They were first released in 2008 as a CD insert in the art book ‘Wolfgang Voigt GAS’, published on Raster-Noton. Just like the photographs in the book, these pieces are early precursors that would evolve in the ensuing years with the albums ‘Zauberberg’ and ‘Königsforst’ into a style-defining, audiovisual “Gesamtkunstwerk” (total work of art) comprising hypnotically focused forest i…

*2026 repress* 1973s brilliant Celestial Ocean, by the legendary Swiss krautrock band Brainticket, is a concept album that details an ancient pharoahs journey into the afterlife (substitute the word "journey" for "trip" and youll get what they were driving at). However, Brainticket were not mere products of their time, they explored some truly compelling musical territory and produced a superlative blanket of sound-featuring a pioneering mix of early synthesizers, flute, zither, sitar, and male …

Electric Sandwich were founded in Bonn in 1967 and played sophisticated progressive rock. Their first gigs were in 1968. At a band competition on 16 October 1971, they shared second place with the Scorpions and impressed so much that they immediately received a contract from Metronome/Brain. The LP, recorded by Dieter Dierks, was released at the end of 1972 (Brain 1018) with an olive-green label. After several illegal reissues (on Germanofon, Hiatus, Ear Ass, Icon, etc.), this legitimate edition…

On Music Compilation: 12 Dances, TRJJ turn disguised authorship into groove: twelve slow, zoned, sample‑rich “dances” that treat anonymity as a filter, stitching African and American folk, free improv and loner ambient into one beautifully crooked continuum.

Seventh entry in the essential Can live series, and one of the great ones. A hot August night in 1975, the Roman Théâtre Antique in Arles, the core four locked in: Irmin Schmidt, Michael Karoli, Jaki Liebezeit and Holger Czukay. No safety net, just the band stretching out in real time. For decades this concert lived only in the stories of the people who were there, the recording buried in the Spoon Records vaults. Unearthed at last for its first ever release, with sleeve notes drawn from first-h…

Night Sky marbled vinyò edition. 350 copies. Discovery Zone is the project of JJ Weihl, the New York-born, Berlin-based musician and former member of Fenster. In 2023 she was commissioned to perform inside the dome of the historic Zeiss-Groß Planetarium, and rather than carry over her usual rhythm-led sound she rebuilt the project from the circuitry up, composing in Ambisonics, a directional form of spatial audio, played back across a mosaic of forty-nine speakers. Written for live performance, …

Limited and numbered edition, featuring original artwork and a newly designed, beautifully crafted collector’s sleeve with new liner notes by Bradford Bailey, and pressed on 180g vinyl. Includes hi-res audio download. Among the most playful and pointed entries in Deutsche Grammophon's legendary Avantgarde series, Mauricio Kagel's Exotica returns to vinyl - a work that turns the Western fascination with the music of elsewhere into a piece of high comedy and, beneath the laughter, a quietly devast…

Rare original first edition on Metronome of the most extreme and ground-breaking album of Krautrock and psychedelic music in general released in 1969, one of the essential items on the NWW list for whom it was a major influence.

First CD re-issue on Captain Trip from 1995 of the most extreme and ground-breaking album of Krautrock and psychedelic music in general released in 1969, one of the essential items on the NWW list for whom it was a major influence.

First CD re-issue on Spalax from 1988 of the debut album by one of the weirdest and most radical groups linked to krautrock, the free improvising duo of Paul and Limpe Fuchs.

Original edition on CBS with embosseed sleeve of the 1974 album by progressive hard-rock band, introducing maverick keyboard player and producer Zeus B. Held.

Sole edition of the 1972 compilation on Ohr of the best of the first two years of the progressive hard-rock band.

1982 re-issue on Bellaphon of Joel Vandroogenbroeck's band's second album from 1972, a psychedelic space-rock classic on the NWW list.

2010 grey area re-issue on 180g vinyl of Joel Vandroogenbroeck's band's second album from 1972, a psychedelic space-rock classic on the NWW list. No CD included.

Rare original 1970 edition on Liberty of the outstanding first album, simply essential and on the NWW list.

Rare UK edition with non-textured gimmick sleeve of the spectacular second double album from 1971, simply essential and on the NWW list.

1981 Italian re-issue on Spoon/Base of the magnificent third album from 1972, simply essential and on the NWW list.

Original 1974 US edition on Liberty of the superlative fourth album, simply essential and on the NWW list.