Extarradio

 

The fact that there are new bands in the world that keep the flags of post-punk or new wave keeps high makes me believe that nothing is lost in music. One of those are Sei Still (be quiet or shut up) a Mexican five piece band now located in Berlin that combines influences of krautrock (especially the motorik beat) and post-punk guitars. Not new of course but a sound that is fresh and natural. This could be released 40 years ago and sink in the mass of releases at this time. Good to have a new band that knows where they come from.

Monday's Long Song

In the late 60's there was a radical commune in Munich, West Germany, where musicians and artists met as well as later founders of the Red Army Fraction. In these days were everything seemed to be possible Chris Karrer and others formed Amon Düül, as a band searching a new kind of music based on longer improvisations the main idea to make anti-music. After some musical discrepancies the band split and a few of the forming members continued their work as Amon Düül II with the claim of a minimum on song structures. During the change of the decade they released their first album Phallus Dei and after a contract with a major label their masterpiece with their double album Yeti. With their heavy and psychedelic guitars and their cryptic vocals they created a blueprint of what krautrock could be. Still a strange but fascinating sound after many decades.

Amon Düül II - Yeti

Forgotten Krautrock

Achim Reichel formed Germany's most popular beat-band The Rattles in 1960 and they got lot of critical acclaim when they played in Starclub in Hamburg when beat-music was the hottest thing. His career stopped when he had to join German army for 18 months. After finishing his military duty he tried to get back in music business. But the times has changed and nobody wanted to listen to beat-music any more. So he tried to find a new sound. Working in his home studio with an Akai-X330D tape.recorder he discovered loops while he pressed the wrong button on the machine. Based on this experience he recorded his first solo album The Green Journey/Die Grüne Reise. It was a drug and psychedelic inspired album. Ruminant percussion, sparse guitar licks and some misty vocals make this record a masterpiece of the Krautrock era. And on my opinion he made trance and industrial before we even knew it.

A.R. & Machines - To The Echo Of Time
A.R. & Machines - Why Peter Is Only On Holidays

Monday's Long Song

Tim Gane, former co-founding member of Stereolab released since 2013 several records under the moniker Cavern of anti-matter. Together with German synth artist he released his first record called Void Beats/Invocation Trex a deeply based creature of Krautrock and a post-punk guitar. Neu! and Harmonica couldn't sound better today. I was glad to see them live a few years ago and I have to admit that I seldom listened to more inspired musicians.

Cavern of Anti-Matter Tardis Cymbals

Dissident

Dissident is the title track from the new album by GLOK, the project of Ride's guitarist Andy Bell and it is a record I listened often during the last days. Adam featured the leading track a few weeks ago and since then I couldn't resist to set this song on my heavy rotation mix. This song is an almost 20 minutes long monster of cosmic and krautrock influenced sounds with pulsing beats, warm synths and sporadic guitar breaks.

Enjoy and have a great Sunday

Loops In The Secret Society ...

is the name of the latest album by Jane Weaver, an artist I featured a few times during the last years. I love the kind of music she makes because she combines psychedelic folk with electronic exotica, music used for soundtracks and the spirit of 70's Krautrock and Hawkwind. Her latest album is a remixed version of songs from her latest albums. The album is filled with songs that could be played by Neu! or Can decades ago. Over all it is the voice of Jane Weaver that make them so unique. For me one of the best records this year that will be played at my place often.

Monday's Long Song

In 1974 Kraftwerk released the groundbreaking album Autobahn. Groundbreaking because it marked the end of Krautrock as we knew it. Since then electronic music was just a part of the sound by Can, Amon Düül or Birth Control. Now Kraftwerk's guitarist Klaus Roeder was just a small part of the sound any more. No more conventional instruments were used in the future and Kraftwerk made the blueprint of many other artists working with synthesizers and electronic equipment. It was also these days a lot of my friends had to decide which road they will follow. Some of them found themself in electronic music or in the jazz-fusion thing and the most turned into the upcoming guitar sound of punk and new wave. Anyway - this is a classic song and it's flow still grabs me.


Kraftwerk - Autobahn

Hong Kong Garden

I was not the one who bought singles in former times but when I visited my local record shop back in 1978 this single came appeared when I searched the newest incoming records. It was in these days when almost every week another great song was released but it was hard to get the singles at my hometown. Hong Kong Garden was one of these singles I bought without any listening to it - just because the cover fascinated me. Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees was one of the hottest bands in 1978 and they still are one of those artists from the punk era that stood the test of time for me. I don't know how much I listened to this song but I still get goose bumps when I listen to it after all these years.

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Hong Kong Garden

A few weeks later they released their debut album The Scream a manifest in punk/pre-post punk. Learned a lot by Velvet Underground and obscure Krautrock they made one of the sounds of they year. This record is still a classic and worth to be played today.

Metal Postcard
Suburban Relapse

Dimensional People

There is music not for everyone featured at this place for several times and I know this. But sometimes I take a walk into something new. Sometimes I leave this way because I was disappointed by what I expected and what I got. Sometimes I say wow - this kind of music is so strange and far away of everything I heard for long times. A few days ago I listened to the new record by Mouse on Mars, a Cologne/Düsseldorf based electronic duo formed 25 years ago. I know them since a longer time but never saw the necessity to feature them at this place until now. Their newest album Dimensional People is so different and rich on influences by Krautrock, breakbeat, folk and ambient. Sometimes it sounds like Klaus Schulze will play nowaday music - sometimes it sounds like soft-rock. But always this organic sound is unique in it's way. Frank Zappa would take his pleasure in this music

Orange Clockwork

It was three years ago when a German electronic duo surprised me with an album that is still on rotation in my house. A few days ago they released their second record Uhrwerk Orange. When they had on their first album tracks that impressed me with their hypnotic sounds I looked forward what will be the next. They didn't copy their style another time and moved forward to a trip through Krautrock and electronic adventures. If her first album was quite unusual and eclectic, they have gone with her second album still 1 step more strictly. It sounds like Einstürzende Neubauten doped on Valium. Long songs with endless loops From percussion and bass dominated tracks alternate with almost already folky sounds. It can be an 80 minutes trip into space if you have a similar affection to spacey sounds. I saw them live a few month ago in a small club and have to say that they are worth to be seen on stage.

Frequency Rhythm Distortion Delay

You know that you are getting old when assert that a song is new to you although you heard this song a few month ago. This happened to me on my yesterday's post when I featured Olden Yolk. I listened to Takes One To Know One back in December when it was first featured by The Swede. I posted a positive comment and sadly forgot to write down to check their upcoming album in February this year. So thanks to him for introducing me to this (and many other) bands. The fact that it goes also differently I want to prove today. Drew introduced us a few weeks ago to Psychic Lemon and I followed his advice to spent some money for this record. And it is worth every cent.

Psychic Lemon are a Cambridge based band with probably the finest sound somewhere between psych, Krautrock and space rock. While most psyche bands first of all on atmospheric, slowly rising sound sceneries place, Psychic Lemon immediately get cracking with a rocket start, by wild percussion and fat bass sped up. Also the guitars do not keep waiting long, to dark songs as if they came directly from the crypt, her menacing stories tell. Then a propelling percussion dissolves the horror mood and increases up to really lust E guitar-solo. If I have to drop some names than I would lik
e to call them like Mogwai on speed or the resurgent Hawkwind.