Tangerine Dream - Atem (1973)

Tangerine Dream in the early 70s were making great strides with each album, and now settled into their trio lineup, with this fourth album edged closer to their breakthrough sound.  The grand sweep of mellotron that opens the 20 minute title track was key to this - although Franke's thundering drums still looked back to the sound of Alpha Centauri, Froese's mellotron had established itself in the TD armoury, and Phaedra was only a year away.

Then after five and a half minutes of this dramatic introduction, Atem changes gear into becalmed ambience for the rest of its runtime - another harbringer of the near future.  Three pieces make up the second side of the original LP, starting with the humid junglescape of Fauni-Gena, looking forwards in this case to Froese's second solo album.  Circulation Of Events has the most proto-Phaedra eerie ambience of the whole album - towards the end of the mellotron/organ-dominated piece, a synth pulse gives a foretaste of the epic Berlin-school sequences just around the corner.  TD end the album with one more nod back to their more avant-garde beginnings with the vocal intro to Wahn.  After this they'd become electronic legends.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Electronic Meditation

Alpha Centauri  

Zeit

Phaedra (scroll past main post)

Rubycon & Richochet

Stratosfear
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram

Pergamon

Exit

White Eagle 
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Poland

Le Parc

Tangerine Dream - Zeit (1972)

On to the third of four albums making up Tangerine Dream's 'pink years' on the Ohr label, and we land on their first double album, and possibly the most audacious experiment of their career: a "Largo in four movements", each one taking up a side of vinyl.  The classic trio lineup of Froese, Franke and Baumann is now in place, but the Berlin School sequences are still a couple of years away.  Far from being ambient music that floats pleasantly in space, this is dark, heavy sound with enough gravitational pull to suck in planets (I thought for ages that album art was meant to represent a black hole, before figuring out it's just an eclipse, but it still looks great for the sounds within).

Joining the core lineup for Zeit were Steve Schroyder, making his final appearance on organ, and Popol Vuh's Florian Fricke, bringing his giant modular Moog as he was one of only a couple of German owners of the beast of an instrument at the time.  Fricke is featured on all tracks except the second movement.  Four cellists were also invited along, creating the memorable drone that introduces the album.  The resulting double-LP wasn't particularly well received, Ohr unsure how to market such a behemoth - but the right people were listening, including John Peel in England, who would become an even more important figure with the release of Zeit's follow-up.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Electronic Meditation

Alpha Centauri 

Phaedra (scroll past main post)

Rubycon & Richochet

Stratosfear
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram

Pergamon

Exit

White Eagle 
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Poland

Le Parc

Tangerine Dream - Alpha Centauri (1971)

Breaking out another 25 year old CD for fresh rip today - I got hold of Alpha Centauri on the same day as Electronic Meditation, and sat down at my Aiwa micro hi-fi to have my teenage mind blown.  In this album's lineup, there were now two recognisable names from my Phaedra cassette - joining Froese, Alpha Centauri inaugurated Christoph Franke's 16 year tenure with Tangerine Dream.  The personnel was about to stabilise even further, with erratic organist Steve Schroyder replaced just after the album's release by Peter Baumann.  But for these January 1971 recording sessions, the core lineup of Froese, Franke and Schroyder was augmented by Roland Paulyck, bringing the first ever synth sounds to TD, and flautist Udo Dennebourg.

The opening guitar noises on Sunrise In The Third System provide about the only continuity with their experimental rock debut - as soon as Schroyder's warm electronic organ fills out the landscape and Froese goes glissando, we're into spacier territory which will only become dramatically more so over the next half-hour plus.  The thirteen minutes of Fly And Collision Of Comas Sola progress from synth whooshes evoking the titular comet, before settling down to a guitar, flute and drums jam that increases in intensity until its sudden ending.  Taking up all of the orignal LP's second side, the vast title track reaches even farther into deep space and the gaseous formlessness of TD to come, memorably ending on an organ and spoken word finale.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Electronic Meditation

Phaedra (scroll past main post)

Rubycon & Richochet

Stratosfear
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram

Pergamon

Exit

White Eagle 
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Poland

Le Parc

Tangerine Dream - Electronic Meditation (1970)

Will be topping & tailing my TD collection here in the coming weeks/months, as the list of previous posts below is pretty heavy on the Virgin years.  Great as those are, it's always fun to start from the beginning, and enjoy this jam-session-as-unexpected-career-launcher with its hilariously inappropriate title (the number of times I've said to people over the years - erm, yeah, it's neither electronic or meditative).  This was the first Tangerine Dream CD I bought, in 1997 - the Castle Communications remaster, which also introduced me to Julian Cope's sui generis writing from Krautrocksampler - and that very CD was freshly ripped for this post.

Pre-synths, the oddball instrumentation that makes up Electronic Meditation includes cello, violin and "Addiator" (an early calculator, somehow amplified) (all by Conrad Schnitzler), guitars, organ, piano, effects and tapes (Edgar Froese) and drums/percussion (Klaus Schulze).  That last name of course gives the sad realisation that this (in hindsight quite incredible and seminal) lineup is now entirely no longer with us, so this post can double as a tribute to Schulze.  Appended to the core trio, but unbekownst to me at time of CD purchase as they wouldn't be fully credited until years later, were organist Jimmy Jackson and flautist Thomas Keyserling.

 

After the fledgling TD jammed in a basic studio in October 1969, no intention then of making a record, Edgar and partner Monika, as the story goes, left for the UK to unsuccessfully establish themselves on these shores.  On return to Berlin, Edgar found a letter from Ohr Records, who'd got hold of the tape and wanted to release it.  With various bits of quirky editing (the backwards voice at the end is actually Froese reading his Dover-Calais ferry ticket), Electronic Meditation became the debut LP of Tangerine Dream.  Two thunderous extended jams, like Pink Floyd's Interstellar Overdrive supercharged, flow like lava at the core of the album, with shorter, more atmospheric pieces making up the runtime.  Edgar Froese would keep playing guitar on TD records for some years, but never as unhinged as this.  Along with Ash Ra Tempel's debut from the following year (with more wild drumming from Schulze), Electronic Meditation remains one of the most striking and thrilling krautrock debuts.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Phaedra (scroll past main post)

Rubycon & Richochet

Stratosfear
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram

Pergamon

Exit

White Eagle 
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Poland

Le Parc

Tangerine Dream - Rubycon & Ricochet (1975)

 

If there's one band that have given me such a consistent mood-lift over the last year and a half, it's Tangerine Dream.  So here they are again for today and Monday, to complete my collection (other than the pre-Virgin years - not sure why I never got around to posting those albums, still love 'em, so that's one for the future).

The beginning of 1975 saw Froese, Franke and Baumann established (along with their fellow Germans from Düsseldorf) as a major groundbreaking force in electronic music.  Back in Virgin's Manor Studio, they were recording the follow-up to the breakthrough Phaedra, a seat-of-the-pants experiment in mellotron, synths and sequencers that all came together to make a classic.  This time around, TD were more experienced with their setup, creating a two-part suite that flowed beautifully from ambient beginnings to streamlined sequencing and much more in between (such as a memorable, haunting start to Part 2 inspired by the music of Gyorgy Ligeti) to create a masterpiece.  Rubycon remains one of the very finest examples of 70s ambient electronica & Berlin School sequencer-based music.

 

Rubycon link

pw: sgtg 

Having toured for much of the year, TD ended 1975 by releasing their first live album.  Well, in a way.  Ricochet started a long tradition of Tangerine Dream albums that were advertised as "live", but contained liberal amounts of studio re-recording, in this case based on a concert from the Fairfield Halls, Croydon in October 1975, but only containing a small amount of music from the actual venue (most of Part 2).  

 

In any case, even if the opening applause on Richochet is cheekily followed by a Manor Studio recreation of the concert's opening, it's a great album that shows an energetic TD at the top of their game.  Froese's lead guitar line in Part 1 anticipates his increased use of guitar for the rest of the 70s, and the dazzling sequencer run is one of their best thus far.  On Part 2, we get a re-recording of the piano intro, then some actual live music just slightly smartened up after the fact.  It's a great example of live TD at this point in time, freewheeling improvisations that must've been an incredible sensory overload to witness in concert at full volume.

 

Ricochet link

pw: sgtg

As a little bonus to round off this post of '75 Tangerine Dream - how about the full concert on which Ricochet was based?  Between 2002 and 2006, the fan project Tangerine Tree collected the best quality live recordings that could be found, and released them in batches on a strictly not-for-profit basis.  This early-in-the-series release of the Fairfield Halls gig is an audience recording, so it's by no means perfect, but it's a first generation tape and was remastered with care by the Tree project.  So enjoy an hour of (authentically) live TD, complete with the original longer piano solo, great guitar solos and long winding sequencer magic throughout.

Croydon 23rd October 1975 link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Phaedra (scroll past main post)

Stratosfear
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram

Exit

White Eagle 
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Poland

Le Parc

Ashra - Blackouts (1977)

Third solo album by Manuel Göttsching, and second that he did under the abbreviated Ash Ra Tempel name "Ashra", before they became a proper band again at the end of the 70s.  Blackouts was a further refinement of the echo guitar plus electronics sound of New Age Of Earth, with Göttsching heading for shorter, melodic tracks other than the 17-minute Lotus suite at the end.  Opening with the catchy '77 Slightly Delayed, the tempo comes down next for Midnight On Mars with its intro's interesting resemblance to Marquee Moon by Television, and so on to make for a very strong and varied album.  The funky Shuttlecocks is definitely my favourite thing here.

link

pw: sgtg

Manuel Göttsching at SGTG:

Inventions For Electric Guitar

Le Berceau De Cristal

E2-E4

Eno, Moebius, Roedelius - After The Heat (1978)

The second Cluster & Eno album (link to first one below), this time credited to their three individual names - perhaps with the more pervasive Eno influence, this one was felt to be a truer three-way collaboration.  

 

After The Heat is well named: there's a fair amount of cold and dark among the drifting ambient atmospheres on this album, and in the more rhythmic tracks like Foreign Affairs and The Belldog, the latter with a suitably unsettling Eno vocal.  Eno sings on two more tracks, Broken Head and the reversed vocal of Tzima N'Arki, which is also anchored by a Holger Czukay guest spot.  And of course, there's the requisite amount of Roedelius piano gorgeousness on Luftschloss and The Shade.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: Cluster & Eno

Michael Rother - Katzenmusik (1979)

Third album by NEU!/Harmonia guitarist, and a further refinement of the melodic, cyclic music he'd established on his first two solo efforts, also collaborations with Jaki Liebezeit and Conny Plank.  Rother's increasingly clean-toned guitars (his formative influence of Hank Marvin really shining through) burn these simple, indelible melodies into your brain from the first listen, and make Katzenmusik a joy to return to over and over.

As well as the literal meaning of "music for cats", the album's title is also a German idiom for a "musical racket" - clearly an ironic choice on Rother's part for such sunny, joyous and ordered music.  Melodic material from earlier sections leads to variations in later ones, with the sparkling production adding to the constant gentle evolution as well as throwing the occasional curveball (the "everything reversed except the drums" wash of part 8 is one highlight of many).  This gorgeous record is probably the high point of Rother's post-Harmonia music, at least for me.  Anyone heard the new ambient album he put out last year?  Worth picking up?

link

pw: sgtg

Cluster - Sowiesoso (1976)

'Evening all.  How's your year going so far?

A few old favourites this week I reckon, starting with the Moebius & Roedelius partnership at its most majestic.  Well established in rural Forst by 1976, with the sunnier, melodic edge of Harmonia increasingly feeding back in to their main project, the results on Sowiesoso were sublime.  The opening track pulses on a single chord, gradually building until it dances around your ears.  Next are a pair of beautifully mellow tracks cut from the same cloth as the more sedate material on Harmonia Deluxe, setting the pace for the rest of the album other than the oddball Umleitung (which I remember being likened somewhere or other to "the sound of drunk shepherds").

If their reunion in the late 80s ended up being called Apropos Cluster, the three tracks that make up Side Two of Sowiesoso are nothing less than Apotheosis Cluster.  The aching melody of Zum Wohl stretches across seven minutes, gradually building like the title track as the green acres of Forst turn brilliant red at sunset, with bird and animals at play.  Es War Einmal comes closest to representing the album cover, gazing out at a gently lapping lake as the evening wears on.  Finally, In Ewigkeit takes us to twlight and beyond, and the forest life turns nocturnal.

link

pw:sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Cluster & Eno 

Live In Vienna

Curiosum

Apropos Cluster

Qua

Faust - 71 Minutes (compi rec. 1971-3, double album first released 1988)

Been revisiting this classic compilation of late, containing some of Faust's most invigorating offcuts from their original existence.  The material on 71 Minutes was first released on two single LPs in 1986 and 1988, which at the time was the first album-length unearthing of crucial missing material by the iconoclastic legends (rather like The Velvet Underground's VU and Another View, also released in the 80s).  This double album compiled Munic & Elsewhere and The Last LP together but dropped two tracks, which would later be reissued on BBC Sessions+ (link below).

71 Minutes takes in every angle of the classic, brain-frying Faust sound: lengthy, hypnotic improvisations like Munic/Yesterday (aka Munic A, aka Willie The Pimp, etc), Knochentanz (aka Munic B, Munic/Other) and Chromatic are immediate highlights.  The shorter, dada-influenced pop songs gone insane are represented by Baby, 25 Yellow Doors and an instrumental version of Giggly Smile from Faust IV.  There's also an alternate version of J'ai Mal Aux Dents from The Faust Tapes.  In between, all manner of engrossing little sound experiments flesh out the Faust legend, such as the 'Party' tapes, the gorgeous Das Meer and the elegaic documentary collage of 60s-70s upheaval in Germany that closes the collection.  Utterly essential, boundary-pushing krautrock from the masters.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: BBC Sessions+

Tangerine Dream - Stratosfear (1976)

After their two breakthrough studio albums cemented them as Berlin-school pioneers of spacey, gaseous electronic ambience, Tangerine Dream were perhaps keen not to paint themselves into a corner, and began to diversify their sound.  Recording back in Germany for the first time since signing to Virgin, their first version of Stratosfear was produced by Nick Mason, then scrapped in favour of a band production.

The title track, with its guitar arpeggio introduction and more neatly-defined structure, began to point the way forwards to the more electronic-prog hybrid of late 70s TD.  More acoustic guitar was to come in the brief, baroque flavoured side one closer The Big Sleep In Search Of Hades, and 3AM At The Border Of The Marsh From Okefenokee was even more atmospheric, with Froese adding chilly wisps of harmonica.  There's still plenty of Franke sequencing, in this track and in the lengthy closer Invisible Limits.  Stratosfear might be one of the briefest TD albums, but it packs in plenty of creative little twists that make it an intriguing sleeper album in their classic era.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Phaedra (scroll past main post)
Encore

Cyclone
Force Majeure
Tangram
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea

Between - Stille Über Der Zeit / Silence Beyond Time (expanded edition 2007, orig. rel. 1980)

The most high-profile entries in Between's compact discography are arguably And The Waters Opened (1973) and Dharana (1974).  Those two frequently crop up at the margins of krautrock 'must have' lists as prime examples of their jazz/kraut/world-fusion sound, with group mainstay Peter Michael Hamel also fairly well known in his own right.  I went for this one from the very end of their career for no other reason than it was more readily available than the others (almost all of these 2007 reissues seem to be out of print now), and it's an absolutely gorgeous album.

The sound of Silence Beyond Time has virtually nothing to do with krautrock of any shade, except maybe Popol Vuh at their most acoustic, and is based on piano, acoustic guitar and wind instruments (Robert Eliscu had played with Popol Vuh; Roger Janotta made some obscure appearances on ECM/Japo).  If anything, Between on this album sound more like a less jazzy/more classical-influenced Oregon, or Azimuth without the electronics.  After a brief opening track based on minimalist piano figures, the most atmospheric track Two Alone By The Waterphone is an early highlight.  Percussion when it appears is minimal, either bongos or, on the lengthy Indian-influenced Das Molekül, tabla from guest musician Pandit Sankha Chatterjee.  The baroque-inspired winds earned that track the working title "Telemann in India".  

 

On Side Two of the original album, the title track was written just before the death of Hamel's father, to whom the final track is also dedicated; it starts as a meditative tribute with wordless voice, before picking up speed with another minimalist piano part.  Peaceful Piece is a lengthy group improvisation; it's followed on the CD reissue by two further improvisatory tracks that didn't appear on the original LP, and are a fair bit looser and wilder than the LP tracks, so perhaps didn't make the cut for that reason.  The album proper concludes with another beautiful piano and voice based piece, and a sublime guitar/flute/bass trio that was the last ever Between recording.  Very highly recommended.

Original LP cover

link

pw: sgtg

Conrad Schnitzler - Blau (1974)

Early Schnitzler in his second solo LP, comprising two side-long tracks.  Die Rebellen Haben Sich In Den Bergen Versteckt looks forward to the increasingly rhythmic electronics that Schnitzler would produce in the late 70s - early 80s, clanking its way forwards whilst other synth burbles are overlaid until a mournful-sounding guitar figure is introduced.  

 

Jupiter is more appropriately cosmic, with Schnitzler's synths floating around in a dark, gaseous echosphere, and what sounds like a wordless vocal towards the end.  According to Asmus Tietchens' liner notes, Schnitzler's old Kluster bandmates Moebius and Roedelius are featured on this album - I'm not entirely sure where though, it all sounds like classic early period Schnitzler to me.

link

pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Grün
Con
Consequenz
Contempora
Con 3
Congratulacion

Con-Struct (Pyrolator)

Asmus Tietchens - Spät-Europa (1982)

Spät-Europa (Late Europe) was the second in Asmus Tietchens' series of four albums for Sky Records (links to the other three below).  It took the succinct economy of Biotop to extremes, with no less than 20 tracks lasting between two and three minutes in a variety of styles, to create a kind of compendium of avant-garde synth-pop.

Despite being the first Tietchens album I ever bought, Spät-Europa took me the longest to get in to.  It is meant to be his most accesible album (although I might be more inclined to give that to Litia), and it does have zippy little melodies in spades alongside darker-hued material; I reckon it's because there's just so much of it that it took me a while.  

 

Regardless, there's tons of timeless creativity to enjoy between the bookends of the choral overture and the piano with electronic whine that memorably closes the record.  Some of the most immediate highlights include the endearingly daft samba of Lourdes Extra, the quickly-souring earworm of Schöne Dritte Welt and the Roedelius-waltz gone dark swirl of Wein aus Wien.  There's at least half a dozen tracks that would make great sci-fi themes, like the pounding Ausverkauf, nervous-sounding Passaukontrolle and the Gary Numan-like Größenwarnung.  Try it all on shuffle and see what catches your ear.

link

pw: sgtg

 

Previously posted at SGTG:

Biotop

In Die Nacht

Litia

Moebius & Tietchens

and featuring Asmus Tietchens

Liliental

Cluster & Eno

Harald Grosskopf - Oceanheart (1986)

Second solo album from Wallenstein/Cosmic Jokers/Ashra drummer turned synthesist, which came six years after his debut.  Oceanheart kicks off with the pleasantly propulsive sequencer-based track Eve On The Hill, and continues in a mostly upbeat vein of 80s electronics.  The title track gives a nice change of pace in its suitably aquatic ambience.  The tabla on Pondicherry Dream adds a nice extra colour to the track, then the album ends as it began with a lengthy workout, appropriately titled Minimal Boogie.  Of its time, sure, but in the nicest possible way.

Original LP cover

link
pw: sgtg

Dennis - Hyperthalamus (1975)

Dennis were a short-lived 'supergroup' of sorts, made up of members of the second-division krautrock bands Frumpy, Thirsty Moon, Tomorrow's Gift and Xhol.  They formed around Frumpy drummer Carsten Bohn, who named the band after his young son, and in sound were closer to jazz fusion that anything strictly krautrock.

Their sole album does open with its most experimental material: Do Your Own Thing starts with an audio-verite recording from Hamburg's central railway station, which gives way to a great atmospheric echo-guitar piece.  After this, the instrumentation gradually expands, with Others Do a nice funky guitar-bass-drums jam that adds organ at the end to continue into the third track Already.

The sound quality is a bit muffled, especially on those two tracks - Hyperthalamus is apparently comprised of live recordings stitched together at a time when the band was to all intents and purposes finished.  Despite the lower fidelity, it's clear that this band had decent fusion chops, and the 19-minute album closer Grey Present Tense gives all the band members room to stretch out, including flute and sax solos and a short synth passage.  Bohn and Wili Pape, as trailered on the Hyperthalamus LP sleeve, next ended up in Kickbit Information with Uli Trepte; they didn't even get as far as releasing an album, but a rehearsal tape did emerge 20 years later.  I don't have that, but for now enjoy this one-off from Dennis.

link
pw: sgtg

Gila - Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (1973)

To follow on from the Popol Vuh postings of the last two weeks, here's a Vuh-adjacent album.  Conny Veit originally formed Gila as an improvisatory space-rock group, which split in 1972.  After playing on Popol Vuh's Hosianna Mantra, Veit decided to revive the Gila name for another album, and invited Florian Fricke and future Vuh mainstay Daniel Fichelscher (who Veit had met at Amon Düül's commune) to participate.

The album's concept was based on Dee Brown's book Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of The American West, and on three tracks takes its lyrics directly from the book.  Musically, the blueprint for the forthcoming Popol Vuh sound is unmistakeable, even though Veit writes all the songs and thus everything is based more around 12-string acoustic guitars.  Fricke plays piano and occasional mellotron, Fichelscher handles drums and bass, and Veit's partner Sabine Merbach is the Renate Knaup-esque lead vocalist.  A fascinating little link in the chain of Popol Vuh's history, and a great-sounding krautrock minor classic in its own right.

link
pw: sgtg

Popol Vuh - Hosianna Mantra (1972)

After two initial albums of moog, percussion and organ, great as they were in their own way, the run of classic Popol Vuh albums that existed in their own beautiful universe began here.  Intent on producing "a mass for the heart", Florian Fricke scaled down his own input to just piano (and a little harpsichord) and brought on board sympathetic musicians.  Conny Veit's shimmering, liquid tones are the only guitar here - Daniel Fichelscher was yet to join - and bits of oboe, tambura, and violin fill out the heavenly sound.  The magical element that raised the album above stunningly gorgeous to somewhere far beyond was the voice of Dyong Yun, never better than on the epic title track.  Beyond essential music.  More from Fricke and Veit (plus Fichelscher) next week.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Seligpreisung
Einsjäger & Siebenjäger
Aguirre
Das Hohelied Salomos
Letzte Tage - Letzte Nächte
Coeur De Verre
Brüder des Schattens - Söhne des Lichts
Sei Still, Wisse Ich Bin
Florian Fricke - Die Erde Und Ich Sind Eins

Popol Vuh - Sei Still, Wisse Ich Bin (1981)

Popol Vuh entered the 80s with one of their darkest, most ritualistic albums.  The base of their sound was still the layers of Daniel Fichelscher's chiming guitars, and Florian Fricke's piano somewhere in the mix, but the songs were becoming ever more minimal in their trance-inducing, mantric repetition.  Renate Knaup, who was now the main vocalist, has said of her time in Popol Vuh that "Florian's music makes you feel stoned when you sing it; the repetition makes you high".

After an initial blast of the Bavarian State Opera Choir, opener Wehe Khorazin settles into the first "yehung" chant of many by 80s Vuh.  This is often assumed to mean "hand in hand", as it appears alongside this phrase on the back of the Spirit Of Peace LP.  "Yehung" and "hand in hand" are however the alternating lyrics of Take The Tension High on that album, and I reckon they're just meant to be printed as lyrics, rather than a translation. "Yehung" may have some religious root, or it could just be a chant made up by Fricke that sounds good, like the "Haram dei"'s on Letzte Tage.  Anyway, enough about that.

The next track intensifies the ritual atmosphere with just percussion and chanting, before Garten Der Gemeinschaft closes the album's first half on a more calming note, led by Fricke's piano.  The second half is in a similarly less intense vein, more akin to previous Popol Vuh albums, or indeed what was to come for the rest of the 80s.  The highlight here is the lengthy Lass Los, which starts from a choral introduction and then bursts into a familiar Fichelscher chime as the vocals combine the album's Biblical title "Be still, know that I am" with the song title and more "yehung".  The little melodic motif that stretched across Popol Vuh's career (I think Fricke called it "Little Warrior") makes an appearance at the end of the final track, capping off another wonderful, if a bit darker than usual, Vuh album.  Another one next week, which I always felt was too obvious to post - but let's face it, it's too good not to.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Seligpreisung
Einsjäger & Siebenjäger
Aguirre
Das Hohelied Salomos
Letzte Tage - Letzte Nächte
Coeur De Verre
Brüder des Schattens - Söhne des Lichts
Florian Fricke - Die Erde Und Ich Sind Eins

Edgar Froese - Epsilon In Malaysian Pale (1975)

Edgar Froese's second solo album, and possibly his best.  Epsilon In Malaysian Pale, which apparently is meant to mean "enveloped in the Malaysian humidity", came after Tangerine Dream had released Rubycon and toured Australia; like Rubycon, it has two side-long tracks.

The first of these is the title track, a lush junglescape of mellotron and a light touch of sequencer, inspired by Froese's visit to Malaysia.  The other is Maroubra Bay, inspired as the name suggests by TD's time in Australia.  After a dark, dramatic opening, it does end up evoking the beach about three minutes in, then sets off on a sequencer journey with plenty of Froese synth and more mellotron.  Both tracks are absolutely essential, timeless electronica.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Aqua
Ages
Stuntman
Pinnacles
Tangerine Dream at SGTG:
Phaedra (scroll past main post)
Encore
Force Majeure
Tangram
Logos: Live At The Dominion
Hyperborea