Psychedelia & Kraut / All styles

Psychedelia, avant-garde, improvisation, underground. 'Dedicato A...' (Dedicated to) is without a single doubt a unique record, and it's really surprising to know that its authors were Italian, from Rome, and that it was released in 1967, the same year of The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Sgt. Pepper's! Mario Schifano was not a musician but a visionary exponent of Pop Art, a sort of Italian Andy Warhol, who wanted to integrate his work with a group, providing the psychedelics visuals in support…

Brothers Manfred and Wolfgang Schunke were pioneers of the Kunstkopf Stereophonie (artificial head, dummy head) binaural recording system. This recording technique was created in the Technical University of Berlin in 1974 with the aim to reproduce real stereo sound as the human ears perceive it. Human ears listen to the sounds in a concrete way that is affected not only by the sound frequencies themselves but also by the position of the listener in respect to the different sound sources. The Sch…

**Green Vinyl** The group's fourth album, from 1972, originally issued by United Artists. "The follow-up to Tago Mago is only lesser in terms of being shorter; otherwise the Can collective delivers its expected musical recombination act with the usual power and ability. Liebezeit, at once minimalist and utterly funky, provides another base of key beat action for everyone to go off on -- from the buried, lengthy solos by Karoli on 'Pinch' to the rhythm box/keyboard action on 'Spoon'. Liebezeit an…

Are we there yet? After 25 years of critical reappraisal and at least 15 years of indie and post-rock bands flaunting their influence, has Can finally gotten their just desserts? I don't think so. Not just yet. Can still seem just a little bit ahead of the curve. They really were "post-rock," as opposed to just futuristic. Can's music anticipated both the musical trend toward decontextualization via electronics, post-production, and editing, and the cultural trend toward collective experience an…

Black vinyl edition You couldn't do much better than beginning with 1971's Tago Mago, freshly reissued in vinyl format. It's a colossus of an album, the product of a band that was thinking huge, pushing itself to its limits, and devoted to breaking open its own understanding of what rock music could be. The core of Can was four German musicians from wildly different backgrounds-- when they initially came together in 1968, two of them had studied with composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, one had play…

This 1979 record is the unique album from the french band Arachnoid, architects of a dark progressive and psychedelic masterpiece, with a King Crimson and Heldon distictive flavor. "Arachnoid" is not only one of the best classic symphonic rock albums of the second half of the 70's, but also the most complicated and intriguing. This one-off is an impressive effort that rides the line between Magma’s brutalist zeuhl-ishness and the more conventional (if you can call it that!) dramatic prog of band…

During the month of January in 2013 Bitchin Bajas held residency at the Hideout in Chicago, IL. Performing every Tuesday of the month, playing two different sets each week. Collaborating with friends, playing with films in quadraphonic, using the Bitchitronics set up live and changing where the performance took place in the bar helped vary each set. Using several recording devices, all rehearsals and performances of each week were documented. Later it was all edited and mixed making these six si…

Second album by Etron Fou Leloublan, the mythic avant-rock / rock-in-opposition  incredible trio, that happily destroys all rock structures and performs a delirious music, full of humour and rhythm. Etron Fou Leloublan had definitely moved up a notch with this release and things would actually get even better with the next release! Still, this album, originally published in 1979 is quite a juicy steak that will take quite some time to devour with the end results exceeding beyong the initial anti…

Ferdinand Richard, strings, vocals. Chris Chanet (alias Eulalie Ruynat), horns, vocals. Guigou 'Samba Scout' Chenevier, percussions, choir. A French avant-rock band founded in 1973 by actor and saxophonist Chris Chanet. They were best known as one of the original Rock in Opposition (RIO) bands. Etron Fou Leloublan's music has been described as a blend of punk rock, jazz, French music hall, comedy satire and 'avant-garde mayhem'. Batelages was recorded in November 1976, and its centered around Gu…

2014 Reissue, with an extra extensive booklet. Pholas Dactylus have left, with Concerto delle Menti, a unique example of avantgarde prog containing only spoken lyrics that can be appealing to the most adventurous listeners even because the musical background is intense and mesmerising; the album contains a long suite divided onto the two sides of the record with no breaks, declaims back of apocalyptic feeling with his hypnotic voice, instrumental parts vary between hard progressive to moder…

People of the North is Kid Millions (drums) and Bobby Matador (keyboard, synth, vocals) of Oneida, and Sub Contra is their Thrill Jockey debut. While their sound, like Oneida's, is constantly shifting and absorbing new concepts and ideas, Sub Contra is a work that fully embraces tumult and darkness in startling and dramatic ways. People of the North have been an active entity since 2003, but it wasn't until 2010 with the release of Deep Tissue on their own Brah imprint and Steep Formations, whic…

CD version, housed in a digipack sleeve including a booklet with in-depth, informative liner-notes and pictures. Subtitled 'The Early Works by Bo Anders Persson 1965-1967"' these works by Bo Anders Persson presented on this record were written between 1965 and 1967, before he started the experimental rock band Pärson Sound. All but one track is previously-unreleased. What is the origin of this strange, un-place-able music? What is its place in history, in the unfolding of important conceptual id…

The Swedish psychedelic trance-rock pioneers new album - Homeless Cats. Eleven new boundless tracks with organic music for open minds. A 40-year anniversary is actually rather on the small. Back in 1967 the guitarist Bo Anders Persson had already started his Terry Riley-inspired underground band Parson Sound with the bass player Torbjorn Abelli and drummer Thomas Mera Gartz, amongst others. They evolved into International Harvester, then Harvester, and finally striking root as Trad Gras och Sten…

One of the first albums released on Ohr records, Limbus 4 'Mandalas' ranks with the Kluster LP's as one of the most challenging krautrock albums. This is the 2nd Limbus album (their even more obscure debut from 1969, under the name Limbus 3) , which was originally issued by OHR in 1970. A fantastic dose of early 70s German freeform weirdness and an essential reissue for the tuned-out community. "Formed in 1968, Limbus were a most unusual band who grew a unique music out of jazz, folk and a…

2024 Repress. A striking gatefold reissue of Neu!'s hugely influential second album, originally released in 1973, supplied by the Gronland label. The A-side's main feature, 'Fur Immer' feels like a counterpart - or even an update - of the opener on their debut, 'Hallogallo', projecting a single, disciplined musical idea across eleven minutes of soaring propulsive precision. One of the most important features of Neu! 2 is the album's second side: having run out of money to record a second side of…

2024 Repress. Another finely turned out gatefold Neu! edition from the Gronland camp, Neu! '75 is widely regarded as the band's last truly seminal recording together, and was committed to tape after the group reconvened following Michael Rother's time playing as part of Harmonia (the krautrock super-group that also included Cluster). In addition to the more ambient inclinations of the two previous albums (which can still be heard on the concrete sound interactions of 'Leb Wohl'), a newfound rock…

2024 Repress. Neu! were formed by Kraftwerk members Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger who took the sparse early Kraftwerk electronic sound and utilized many effects like lock-groove rhythms and minimalist melodies currently used by today's electronic artists. Neu! created a new kind of rhythm that bridged the gap between rock n roll's syncopation and dance music's four-to-the-floor beats. Stereolab's Tim Gane says "Neu!'s longer tracks are far closer to the future of house and techno than guitar r…

The problem with Harmonia is that words simply don't do the band justice. A super-group made up of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius (of Cluster) and Michael Rother (of Neu!) they re-defined not only the Krautrock genre but also electronic music in general with a mere two full-length albums ('Musik von Harmonia' and 'Deluxe') so saying that they are an important act, especially on the pages of this particular website just doesn't do them justice. With a flawless blend of electronic and e…

LP version. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Nachtstücke owed its publication to former Tangerine Dream member Peter Baumann, who was asked by the French label Barclay/EGG to produce three albums focusing specifically on German electronic music. He was working with Hans-Joachim Roedelius at the time, who had been given a few Tietchens tracks on cassette. When Baumann heard Roedelius play them in the studio during a break in proceedings, they sparked his interest and he met up with Tietchens some time …

LP version. Pressed on 180 gram vinyl. Between 1981 and 1983 Asmus Tietchens released four albums on the Sky Records label, fusing rhythmic set pieces and off-kilter sounds into gaudy escapades of saccharine artificiality. The "pseudo-pop" epithet reflected their frequently ironic air. All four records have been reissued by Bureau B in their original form. What remained may be found on this collection. Der fünfte Himmel ("The Fifth Sky") retrieves those pieces which were denied a place on the or…