Guru Guru (Brain)

For years I thought this was the first Guru Guru record, but the Internet tells me it's actually the fifth! For guys often lumped in with Kraut heavyweights, you wouldn't think it listening to side one, which is mostly balls-out biker rock. Any intellectual (or at least, progressive) tendencies present in Guru Guru are buried behind the riffs, operating here in power trio mode, and even doing an Eddie Cochran cover as well. I'm not so equipped to rate such things - at parts I feel like I could be listening to Steppenwolf - but when flipped over, this record becomes a winner. That's due to 'Der Elektrolurch', a snaking, funky exploration which starts around some jammy percussion before experimenting with heavily processed guitars and a scary sci-fi voice (though I think most voices sound scary in German). It's almost unrecognisable against the riffage on side one, and it's kosmiche musik at its best - progressive, dark, and invigorating. You could probably argue that it's a bit underwritten, sounding more like a few sketches put in linear fashion than an actual 'song', but that's OK. Closer 'The Story of Life' continues the atmosphere for 12 and a half minutes, and it takes it's time. It's a slow, meandering tune with a plodding bassline, built around the repeated tenor vocals about matters such as 'The story of life' / 'is hello and good-bye'. About 2/3 of the way through we get to some sort of bridge, suggesting we sleep 'until we meet again', and it drifts off to nothing among some gongs - before a distorted guitar comes back in and takes us home via a flying carpet of burning riffage. Guru Guru are second-tier Krautrock for me but this second side can stand up against the best moments by Dzyan or Cosmic Jokers, for sure.

Faust (Recommended)

I got into Krautrock while a sophomore in college, circa 1998-99, and at the time I devoured all the big names (or at least what was available to me in the pre-Napster days, with a limited budget). You can read already my thoughts on Agitation Free, Cosmic Jokers, and Dzyan; but the "big names" as I saw it, probably thanks to Julian Cope's privileging of them in his book, were Can, Düül and Faust. (In my mind I always grouped Neu!, Harmonia, Ash Ra Tempel and Brainticket into a 'second tier' which is pretty stupid --Brainticket were Swiss, after all -- but, hey, we take easily presented narratives and stick with them, especially when 19). My point is that Faust seemed like one of the essentials of Krautrock and to me they were the best. The absolute best. My compass is always wavering on which of the first four Faust albums I like the best, but you can make a strong case for any of them. This one tends to get overlooked, maybe because it has the least "songy" bits, and also because it probably wasn't as big of a seller. Years later, after having dug through the NWW list and all the obscure surrealist treasures that have been unearthed through blogs and reissue labels, Faust "1" (as I like to call it) stands out as something special. The overall presentation is ace - clear cover and vinyl, mysterious lack of info, creepy/scary X-ray fist - and then three stunning tracks. I first found a CD reissue of this secondhand and played it to death, but this vinyl version (a reissue from the late 70s, I think) really makes the tones pop out. This is extremely left-field when compared to a lot of the other kozmiche music happening at the time, due to the collaged nature and odd pop/folk forms that are woven throughout - but I think it actually sounds quite distinct from a lot of the less jammy, more surreal freak music of the 70s, like Mahogany Brain or Jac Berrocal too. This is 1971, and that's notable as well, because it somehow feels like a blueprint for the 70s to come, clearly built from the psychedelic times of the 60s, but completely singular as well. There's only three cuts here, and the first side is pretty iconic, with its melting marching band and 'a wonderful wooden reason'.... but it's 'Miss Fortune' that I really love to listen to. It's a beautiful composition, even when it feels discordant, and it introduces the Faust tradition of ending the albums with genteel acoustic bits. Whenever other artists are compared to Faust, it's usually because they have a short attention span or collaged together a bunch of different styles a la Tapes. But who's out there capturing the mystery, the enigma, and the spectacle? Faust in the Internet age surely couldn't happen anyway...

Amon Düül - 'This is' (Metronome)

Source: Ross.

You ever wonder why Amon Düül split? I'll tell you the answer - "chops". Amon Düül II, which we'll get to soon, are total wizards with their instruments. I mean, it ain't King Crimson but it ain't the Ramones either. But you listen to this one, and it makes the Ramones look like Yngvie. I'm never one to fellate musicians for their technical ability, and in fact, it's the utter lack of it that makes this record interesting and compelling. The first track is the quintessential hippy strumjam. It goes on and on and on, sounding like a loop of a jam band being filtered through a kazoo. It shifts only so slightly, but mostly stayed locked to it's (somewhat irregular) ryhthm. When the track finally ends (it's hard to tell since the bands aren't clearly marked on the vinyl) it switches to a Teutonic guitar riff for a few moments before the familiar heavy rhythm lurches back into place. Bonehead German hippies - whose fashion on the sleeve make them look more like a biker gang, membership restricted to te back rows of the classroom. Stereo effects galore, mangled vocals, and megathick warm fuzz make a pretty sick blanket to picnic on. Side two "varies" a bit: the pieces open up and changes are actually recognizable. The vocals and synths sound haphazard, if not random, though the songs still don't go anywhere. At the very end we get some heavy tape manipulations overtop of a somewhat more frantic strum; it's fucking amazing and meatheaded and trippy, and unfortunately just too short. I did some Internet "research" to discover that this is the same album usually called Psychedelic Underground, just repackaged/retitled. That is a better title because it really sounds underground, as in covered in dirt and never seeing any sunlight. This (and the two subsequent records) all came from one big jam in '68, supposedly. I like how the songwriting credits on every track are all 'Amon Düül/Amon Düül' - lyrics and music?