Krautrock

[PublicImage]

Those are my thoughts too. The vocals sound a bit off-putting, but fragments can be misleading. I think Still Standing sounds quite cool, probably because the sample is clearly from an instrumental section.

[2066]

More importantly, Faust have a new double-album due out next month, Faust is Last. This one is by Hans Joachim Irmler's Faust, so it's not the same lineup that released C'est com...com...compliqué in 2009 (which is great, but this is coming from someone who likes post-reunion Faust just as much as the original stuff, which is a minority opinion). Nevertheless, it should still be good because his keyboards are a big part of the original lineup's sound.

Jeez...new Faust that I haven't heard about. Coolness! I must "get out" more. I also must find a job!

[Stephen]

Do any good live recordings exist of Ash Ra Tempel around the time of Traummaschine and Amboss, audio or video ? I have one from Paris '74 but wanted to get some earlier ones too.

[PublicImage]

Try out "The Private Tapes" by Manuel Göttsching. Discs 2, 3 & 6 have a concert from 1971, and discs 4 & 5 have some from 1973; I believe Klaus Schulze is playing drums on both of these performances. It's annoying that they are scattered over multiple discs, but I'm fairly sure these are all taken from the same performances. The quality is not ideal but if you can handle the lo-fo nature of the first album, it won't be a struggle to get into either of them.

(It's available on Mutant Sounds, I believe)

1973 Ash Ra Tempel live (one track each on Volumes 4 and 5). Göttsching on guitar and electronics, Hartmut Enke on guitar and bass, Klaus Schulze on drums, guitar, and electronics. Similar to the Freak 'N' Roll song on Join Inn. Ooze Away clocking in at 28 minutes along with the 40 minute Dedié a Hartmut are the representatives for this period. A reunion concert that is loose, almost West Coast jamming. While it lacks the intensity of the original it still packs quite a punch. Hartmut Enke quit both music and, in a manner of speaking, life after these concerts. Of course, Klaus Schulze continued on to a very successful solo career that is well documented.

1971 Ash Ra Tempel live (one track each on Volumes 2, 3, and 6). Göttsching on guitar, Enke on bass and guitar, Schulze on drums. Represented on the eponymously titled first album, in particular the composition Amboss. With this period we have the CD's raison d'être. This is Ash Ra Tempel at its finest. Each song begins with Enke and Gottsching echoing their guitars slowly to build a deafening crescendo. Without warning, Schulze begins his definitive piledriver drumming pattern, and Göttsching complements this with some of the most intense psychedelic heavy guitar ever recorded. And since one of the pieces is over 54 minutes long, get ready for jams to end all jams. The whole effect just exudes a frantic and intense atmosphere. Yes, it's Germany, 1971, Underground. Amazing. The aforementioned Steeple Chase Bluesband (represented here by one 10 minute cut) and a couple of short, German language interviews, round out the collection.

http://www.ashra.com/disco/7961prp.htm

[Stephen]

Thanks for reminding me Roger that I already have this set and had completely forgotten about it (I think it was you who sent me the link before). This one that I have is from Paris in 1974 as I say and has the following as a track list:

01. Echo Waves (Big Waves) (27:31)
02. Echo Waves (In The Deep) (15:10)
03. Night Dust (Dust In Your Dream) (25:03)
04. Night Dust (Head Liner) (17:21)

The line-up for the band is shown as:

Manuel Göttsching (guitar)
Harmut Enke (bass)
Lutz Ulbrich (guitar)
John Strawn (synthesizer)

As far as I can make out the first two tracks were released on Manuel Göttsching's album Inventions For Electric Guitar, although as just one 17 minute track under that name, and the second title appeared on the 1976 Ashra album New Age Of Earth, again as a single track.

'The Clock That Went Backwards Again' is one place to find it.

[Massed Gadgets]

Hmm, I'm going to have to check that out. I've heard all the Private Tapes stuff, but not that.

[flashback]

been listening to a lot of Krautrock lately and figured this thread needed bumpedup.This is what I got on right now,
Hash Jar Tempo - Well Oiled - Untitled 1 (part 1)

[Stephen]

Just listening to that from your link on the other thread, good stuff too.

[Massed Gadgets]

Just read an interesting article about Neu! in our local paper...

Music giant Neu! enjoying revival
By DAVE GRAHAM, Reuters

BERLIN - Four decades after recording one of the most influential German rock albums ever, Michael Rother of Neu! can finally play it live the way he always wanted to.

At the age of 60, the guitarist of the Duesseldorf duo who pioneered the controlled, linear, driving "motorik" sound that became a hallmark of the 1970s West German rock scene often called "Krautrock," has never been in such high demand.

After watching his career all but grind to a halt in the 1980s, Rother's fortunes have undergone a marked renaissance -- built on the legacy of the three albums he cut as Neu! (New) with the late Klaus Dinger on drums between 1971 and 1975.

"The workload has exploded: it's non-stop," Rother told Reuters in an interview after playing in Berlin. "I'm being steamrolled by everything that's going on -- in a nice way."

"The response and the enthusiasm we've generated at our concerts is incredible. It's almost like the music was created today -- and hasn't been in my head for the past 40 years."

The interest in Neu!'s music reflects a wider revival in appreciation for records produced by German bands in late 1960s and early 1970s whose distinctive forays into garage rock, electronica and psychedelia won them many fans abroad.

Since late May, Rother and his band Hallogallo have been playing the music of Neu! to crowds across Europe and cities as far afield as Edinburgh, Mexico City and Detroit -- with more dates in the offing in South America, Turkey and the Far East.

The contrast with Neu! could not be starker.

Hampered by the limits of technology in the early 1970s, Rother played only a handful of gigs with Dinger, who died in 2008. The pair, who had earlier toured with Kraftwerk, went their separate ways, reuniting briefly for an album in 1975.

NO CHAOS PLEASE

Rother initially enjoyed solo success, but over time he and Neu!'s records gradually faded from memory, leaving the softly-spoken guitarist to wonder whether he still had a career.

"By the mid-1980s there was nothing. There was no interest," says Rother, in a voice mirroring the steady, measured tones of his music. "For 12 years it was just about surviving as an artist because my records had completely disappeared from view."

Since then Neu! have been hailed as an inspiration for artists ranging from David Bowie, U2 and Stereolab, and namechecked by the likes of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Oasis.

Neu!'s eponymous debut placed no. 25 in U.S. online music site Pitchfork Media's top albums of the 1970s, ahead of any record by star acts such as Pink Floyd and Stevie Wonder.

Named after the opening track of that album, Hallogallo features Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley and bassist Aaron Mullan of the Tall Firs -- a combo that has enabled Rother to perform the band's old music they way he intended.

"In my view it's really the first time the music of Neu! can be performed live," he said. "Though it's not about playing the pieces note for note as they were on the album."

"Back in 1972, we only did about seven or eight concerts. We saw that with the means available to us and the musicians we had to draw on, we couldn't perform it live. So we stopped."

Now in demand across the globe, Rother shrugs and says he's been lucky. "It's not like I'm in the top 10 now," he said.

Musing on what enabled him to stay in business in the lean years, he offered one explanation that could have come straight from the German government, which is now trying to persuade cash-strapped European partners to live within their means.

"I hate chaos -- chaos in the sense of not being able to pay the bills. And being in debt," Rother said. "That would weigh on me so much it would take away the joy of living."

[flashback]

ah,everything old is Neu! again,killer

[flashback]

been listening to quiet a bit of Sula Bassana lately.really in the krautrock vein,a 1 man krautrock machine from what i have been reading about him.Did some of his recording at Eroc's(Grobschnitt) mastering ranch.Have any of you guys and dolls listen to much of his stuff.

[Massed Gadgets]

I absolutely love Sula Bassana. The Night was my number one album of last year. I've been trying to collect a lot of, not just the Sula Bassana recordings, but anything Dave Schmidt has been involved in, like Liquid Visions, Zone Six, Südstern 44, Weltraumstaunen and others. He's been involved in a lot of projects and it can be difficult to track them all down and a lot of it has gone out of print, but there's some amazing music out there to find.

[PublicImage]

I'm going to see Hallogallo 2010 tomorrow night. I never thought Michael Rother would do something like this, but it's great that he has; I've listened to a bootleg recorded this September and it sounds fantastic; Negativland and Dino (by Harmonia) are especially good, and even more dynamic than the old studio recordings. It's a shame Klaus Dinger couldn't be involved.

[Sonic Destruction]

Just picked up "Brand NEU!", which is not a NEU! album, but rather a compilation of tracks by (relatively) new/neu bands influenced by NEU! Most tracks so far are pretty good, and bands include Kasabien, LCD Soundsystem, Primal Scream (hey, I said "relatively" new), Ciccone Youth and even Oasis (the last being a rather unfortunate choice). There is one unreleased track each by La Dusseldorf (Klaus Dinger) and Michael Rother.

NEU! seem to be a bit like the Velvet Underground or Syd in that they sold very few albums in their lifetime, and yet continue to influence millions. May that continue to be the case ...

[flashback]

here's another band I found-Tyburn Tall.Don't know weither or not you would call them krautrock or not but they are a german prog band of that era.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c07cpXGL ... re=related