It’s already August and I have to move into a smaller flat in the next few weeks. I had most of my furniture moved last week. Now I just need to sort out the items that I won’t have room for in my new flat. The good thing is that my new home is just across the road; the bad thing is that I find it hard to part with things that have been with me all my life. But these are simply the challenges of life that I have to face up to.
There’s still a lot to do before the final move, time is running out, and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to keep updating this blog as usual over the next few weeks. But I’ll do my best.
Today’s track is taken from Michael Rohter’s first solo LP, released after he left NEU!. Flammende Herzen is a masterpiece of meditative guitar sound – warm yet ethereal.
Another year, another new album by Andy Bell. Pinball Wanderer will be released in four weeks and he has released a cover version as an appetizer in advance. The fact that he chose a song by The Passions from 1981 may come as a surprise at first, but it makes sense, as the original's echoing guitar is very similar to the way he plays.
What's much more surprising is that the collaboration with Neu!'s Michael Rother and One Dove's Dot Allison has turned this song into a pearl.
Justin Robertson added also a few superb remixes of a song that sounds like an early highlight of the year. You can listen to them all here.
Today is the last day before I leave for my annual holiday to Sri Lanka tomorrow. Most of my things are packed, the documents are ready and my Spotify library has been updated. The last album I've added is Michael Rother's 1977 debut, a krautrock classic on which Rother shows what he's capable of on the guitar. Jaki Liebezeit supported him on drums and Conny Plank produced it superbly. All the songs are played instrumentally and I will probably never get tired of their beauty.
I have prepared a few more posts, otherwise I'll see you here again in the middle of next year.
It is time to feature one of the best composer and musician once again at these pages. I think Michael Rother is well known for his works with NEU!, Kraftwerk and La Düsseldorf. He was one of those who created krautrock and his influence to new sounds in the 70's was immense. Together with Jaki Liebezeit on drums he recorded three albums under his own name and every one is worth to be listened. If I have to describe his music I would call it relaxed psychedelia with a get out of hand guitar over a steady beat. This one is from his second album Sterntaler and a great start into another sunny Sunday.
The good things about re-releases are that you can remember the times you listened first to it or you can hear something new you missed but the lot of releases from this time. This happened to me when I listened to the latest release by Stereolab. In 1997 they released their collaboration with Nurse With Wounds as a limited single. On this two songs Stereolab combined their mighty organ sound with the krautrock inspired avant-garde of Steven Stapleton and he couldn't hide his experiences working with Guru Guru and Faust. Tripping With The Birds is an experimental mix of Kraftwerk's Autobahn, combined with a Rother-esque guitar and the spoken words by Stereolab. A nugget of forgotten release.
50 years ago German krautrock band NEU! released their self titled and epic album with the same name. After leaving a first incarnation of Kraftwerk Michael Rother and Klaus Dinger with Conny Plank at the controllers one of the most influential albums of electronic music. Small, inconspicuous melodies, loose rhythms, the technical means available at the time and a large portion of improvisation created music that floats in the Neu! cosmos like the elf in fairytale land. Hallogallo is probably the best example how great this new music could be and it isn't astonishing that John Peel played this song so often that NEU! got well known in many countries except Germany.
It was in 1977 when Michael Rother released his first album Flammende Herzen a masterpiece in late krautrock inspired guitar masterpiece. It is an all time favorite of mine since I heard it the first time and it was the first idea that came to my mind when I listened to Hans Hjelm's first solo album Factory Reset a few days ago. Hjelm is probably known as the main guitar player by Stockholm's finest psychedelic band Kungens Män. Educated to play a jazz guitar in the 90's in North Texas he played all instruments except drums on this album and it surprised me massive because I didn't expected to hear this kind of music again. Free formed sparkling guitar chords with reminiscenses to Can and psych-rock over a floor of warm synths is what this instrumental album makes so much different to many other. This could be a classic in others times.
As every year I compile a list of albums that was on on heavy rotation this year on my turntable, inspired me in any way or made me feel familiar with the music. I started a few weeks ago to collect a list and I couldn't decide which one doesn't make it on the final list of ten albums. For this reason fantastic albums by Daniel Avery, The Orb, Four Tet, Whyte Horses, SAULT, Kanaan or Little Barrie & Malcom Catto doesn't appear on the final list but are highly recommended. So here are ten albums without valuation.
Sonic Boom - All Things Being Equal: In the middle of the year former Spacemen 3 Pete Kember aka Sonic Boom released an album that has everything I expected from him. From spaced pop songs to Phil
Spector's wall of sound and everything in between is assembled on this beautiful album.
Michael Rother - Dreaming: After 16 years Michael Rother, one of the best living fossils from the golden krautrock days released a new album. From the first chords you realize that this guitar only could be played by the former member of Kraftwerk, Neu! and Harmonia. Timeless guitar phrases like played on his first album make a perfect combination with the voice of Sophie Joiner. Probably on of those albums that will be overlooked.
Waxahatchee - Saint Cloud: Katie Crutchfield released as Waxahatchee an album that could be filled under Americana but it is much more. Her voice, some big guitars, well-honed noise and battering sounds makes her different to many other singer-songwriters in these days and sometimes helped me making some days better this year.
Glok - Dissident Remixed: Last year one of the best albums and this year the remixes were played on heavy rotation when they were released. Andy Bell gave the tracks to some well known mates to develop the originals. Together they made their owns visions of the source material, delving into ambient techno, psychedelic acid disco, krautrock and beyond.
Rose City Bank - Summerlong: It seems like Ripley Johnson can't make any mistake in music. Either as Wooden Shjips or Moon Duo. Also laid back California psychedelic sounds are close to him. It is every time a pleasure listening to his beautiful guitar lines. A second album that has the same quality as the first.
Bob Mould - Blue Hearts: Every album by ex-member of Hüsker Dü Bob Mould is a good one. But this is maybe the best he recorded during the last years. He returns as an angry man shouting out what is going wrong in days like these. With the fury of Hüsker Dü he made the best songs since a long time.
Julian Cope - Self Civil War: This album is one of them I came back often this year. Not just because it shows how great Cope is. Returning after years on high level with 13 songs between his interpretation of rock music and krautrock added with orchestra and ballads. A weird bastard of an album but I love it.
The Long Champs - Straight To Audio: Welsh producer Lloyd Jones and his latest album was one of the discoveries I made this year. A collection of compositions that range from dancefloor to after hours drifting always with an upbeat mood and sinister soundscapes. This was a record that made the strange days of lockdown more brighter.
Richard Norris - Elements: The idea of making an album about earth, fire, water, air and space is probably not the first one ever but for me the best realization I heard. Far away from any cliché of modern music he invites us to a trip into ambient and space. An album that grew with every time I listened to.
Andy Bell - A View From Half Way Down: This album arrived in late autumn and I played it often since then. I like the perfect mixture of his warm interpretation of neo-psychedelia combined with shoegaze and dream-pop. For me the blueprint how an album should sound in 2020.
Velvet Dessert Music: Finally a compilation that was worth to be named in a year-end-list. Cologne's Kompakt-label released in spring a compilation of electronic variations of electronic sounds. The common sense of all is a new interpretation of dessert sounds. Sometimes it sounds like Ennio Morricone in a psychedelic style, sometimes like a downtempo variation of krautrock with psychedelia but always worth to come back to.
Many of you told about problems to embed a bandcamp track on New Blogger. I have also my problems with this new version that went back into stone age for me. I am really thinking about moving to wordpress but this means to spent a lot of time until this new page will be enough for my claims. So I tried to embed Drew's yesterday's track and one more by Michael Rother in this post.
And I have to say it worked like in former times. I just clicked on share/embed on bandcamp, choose the track and selected the style. After then I copied the code choose standard and past into this post. Now I see a symbol - not the preview in the text I used to but going to the preview symbol on the upper right side it seems ok. I am going now to release this post and will see what happens.
Michael Rother will celebrate his 70th birthday in a few days with the release of his new album Dreaming. A couple of days ago the first song from this album was featured of different places in the internet and makes curious for the rest. It seems he is moving back to the days of Flammende Herzen, an all-time favorite of mine. I really like his fragile guitar figures, wafting synths and the repetitive vocals by Sopie Joiner on this song. Seems like the older he is the better he gets.
El Paraiso is the record label that gave us Kanaan I featured last Monday and one of that holds up the flag of psychedelic rock. Another band from this label that is worth to be featured is Papir, a three-piece band from Copenhagen, Denmark and active since a few years. Based on a powerful drum sound they create instrumental journeys in psychedelic sounds with hypnotic grooves they probably learned by Can to develop into powerful fuzzy psychedelic guitar. Their melodic side is borrowed by Michael Rother. This is music that don't need vocals because you can lose yourself in this sound. Their mannirism is that their albums and songs has no names because they only use roman numerals instead.
A few days ago I read a post about Michael Rother and his record from 1977 Flammende Herzen. He was a former member of NEU! a heavy influenced Krautrock band from the late 70s. This is the title song of his first record and still a record I like to play when the day is going to end. Matchless, timeless, groovy and out of fashion.
I don't know if you're in to this kind of music but right now it is something special to me. Neu! was one of those Krautrock-bands which had a heavy influence into modern electric music. I listened to their music for decades and it still didn't lost it's attraction to me. It's the sound for late music to come down after a hard working day with a glass of wine in your hand and drifting into the music. This is the full length version of their third record - and maybe their best. Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother were not better than on this record.
Sadly the news arrived that Dieter Moebius died yesterday. He was a German/Swiss musician who had a huge influence on a sound that's known as Krautrock. Together with Conrad Schnitzler he formed Cluster back in 1969. He was one of the first that made experiments with synthesizers and electronic music and played with other heroes of this genre like Mani Neimeier and Michael Rother. Cluster's albums was produced by the Krautrock pioneer Conny Plank. Sadly he was famous in many other countries (as showed by his collaborations with Brian Eno) but didn't got the respect in Germany he should have.
This series wouldn't be complete if I don't feature one of the well respected German bands worldwide. Kraftwerk is a band that has influenced the music scene with lasting effects and changed as well. The complete history you can read here. I have grown up with the music of the heroes from the 60s and the entrance in their music was not easy. In the early 70s some dope smoking friends introduced me to upcoming electronic music made by German musicians. They introduced me to to early Krautrock and the especially the music of Michael Rother who would become a member of Kraftwerk in their early days. For me Kraftwerk started in 1974 with the release of their album Autobahn. I've never heard a sound like this before. One side of a record just with one song based on a simple melody with a lot of variations. The improvisation I used to know by guitar slingers was transported to electronic sounds. It wasn't a music to be played for masses or on regular radio stations. We played this record for our very own personal delight - mostly late at night. The greatest gift they gave me was open ears for new sounds. And I agree to most of the critics that they had a heavy influence to electronic music as we know it.
This week I was very busy talking to C. what happened during the last weeks and also watching the German team in the Champions League so that I hadn't enough time working on my block. It is now between dinner and going out with my brother in law that I write this post.
Today's music comes from a German musician who had great influence in electronic music. In his early days he was a co-member of Kraftwerk an a full-member of NEU! They made fantastic music to relax (lot of people used to smoke to this music in these days). Nowadays you can hear this kind of music in rotten versions all over the esoteric wave or in the supermarket. But the originals were never beaten.
I read in wiki, that Michael Rother did some jams with Joe Frusicante from RHCP. If it's true - great respect to them.
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