WOEBOT

Can I park my Helicopter in your Fridge?

German music seems slightly off the agenda. The avant-garde inclined press who once touted it with ferocity are now vaguely abashed at its CONTENT. They presumably were excited by the fragile links to Darmstadt and concrete and didn't hear what the rest of us did. ATMOSPHERE. Furthermore the corpse of Krautrock has been flogged and flogged and flogged. The canon has been masterfully established by the likes of Julian Cope (albeit a very ROCK vision of this UN-ROCK/NON-ROCK/ANTI-ROCK) and you can get all of the stone tablets of Krautrock so depressingly easily. Don't think this is a snob talking. The sheer effort it took me to hunt down those holy grails before they were reissued en masse on CD and LP was Sisyphus-ian. It actually imparted to the music the mystery and power that was it's by right. I think people who can so casually pick this stuff up to keep one of their edges sharp need alot more imagination than I did to grasp this shit. I have experienced fewer depressing things in my life than seeing Neu! records on sale (reduced) in the window of hip boutiques.

With a view to re-mysterialise this music I've put together a list of 10 awesome Kraut records from my kick-arse archives didn't get trampled on in the goldrush, records alot of people may not know exist, records which I was often stumbling around in the dark when I picked up, records which didn't make Cope's (excellent) Krautrocksampler.

1. Phew: Phew

Phew was a Japenese chick who was flown to Germany in 1981 and put together with Can's Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit and genius producer Conny Plank. Clearly an attempt to reconstruct the original Can dynamic, with Phew as Damo. They made one record together on the PASS label which was, very early on (1991?) reissued to synch up with the release of a newer Phew record on Mute. That more recent LP was only OK. I have also seen a greyish black covered mid-period Phew record. Her eponymous debut, which I paid £4 for because the cover was mashed up (like I care!), is fucking fantastic. The production sound of this record is perfect. Like a Brancusi or a Ming Vase, it's perfect. Clean. Deep. Resonant. Tracks like Doze and Signal are often built on nothing more than a wobbling bass and cavernous chiming percussion. Phew herself is compelling.

2.Les Vampyrettes: Les Vampyrettes

Conny and Holger had a two oldtimers thing which must have run concurrently with the Dieter Moebius/Plank team. Called Les Vampyrettes. I wonder if there is more material by this group than this 12" which is certainly one of the most crucial records I own. This is a KILLER. If I played you this record you would turn to me and say "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?" Biomutanten which fills only 2 centimeters of a whole12" side (now THAT'S style!) has strapped to it the largest bassline of any record I own. This bassline would crush Dillinja on his Vespa, this bassline would flatten Glen Brown's studio (except Glen never had his own), this bassline would give the Butthole Surfers an on-the-spot enema. Possibly the greatest record ever.

3.Michael Rother: Fernwarme

Why, when you are the greatest band the world has ever known, do your solo projects end up so spotty? I wished I could find some spark of the mighty Neu! on some of Dinger and Rother's solo projects. I have all the La Dusseldorf records, Dinger's band with his brother, even the terrible Los Individuellos (50p!), and his stuff never gells. Possibly slightly on the first La D. LP. This Rother LP is, in my opinion the best you're gonna get. He's pared up with Jaki Liebezeit, on "shlagzeug", to use Captain's Beefheart's phrase "I love those words". This record has a couple of quite sparkling tracks with dreamily hooky melodies, production still pleasently raw. Later Rother stuff vered into a bizarre New Age meets New Romantic hinterland.

4.Popol Vuh: Seligpreisung

Ha Ha! The greatest Popol Vuh record! Not re-issued, only saw it once and paid dearly for the pleasure of it's company. It's on the Kaiser's wunderbar Kosmische Kouriers label and always makes me think of Tom Verlaine's Television, such is the telepathic communion within the group. That's not something to be sneered at. Tanz on this LP is quite exquisite.

5.Manuel Gottsching: E2-E4

OK not an obscure record. Indeed the market was briefly flooded with reissues about 5 years ago. Naturally being either a very sad man, or incredibly hip, depending on what day you ask me about myself, I had this along time before. My copy has magic powers. It's really in here because Manuel Gottshing's later waveform pre-frippertronic guitar stuff gets pretty short shrift from old Cope-y. I have the GREAT Ash Ra Tempel IV Inventions and Dimensions LP with Manuel looking superbly goofy on the cover and I love it. And Cope don't. OK you know about the Sueno Latino>Derrick May Sueno Latino Remix>Carl Craig Sueno Remake. OK you know it got played in the Loft and about the whole dance-community's fawning realtionship with it. Its still a very lovely thing.

6.Roedelius: Jardin au Fou

Possibly the best record on the spotty Sky label (those Cluster and Eno things are OK though) this is a very gentle and lyrical record. Very un-elekronik like Cluster's stuff but quite charming. It has Roedelius making like Satie in a foggy orchard. Pastoral. Unpsychedelic. But Mysterious.

7.Deutshe Amerikanische Freundshaft: Die Klienen und Die Bosen

Not everything here could be strictly termed a Krautrock record. Krautrock is after all beards and VWs. But where do you draw the line? This LP may indeed be that line. None of the any other D.A.F stuff does much for me, including their kool Der Mussolini 12". But this record is a blinder, despite being pun(k)y it is also HAIRY. It's produced by Conny "The genius" Plank (who if you didn't know, dummy, produced for both Kraftwerk and Neu! as well as Bronx hip-hoppers Whodini fact fans) It's a forebodeingly intense record which flits from raw garage-punk with drum machines with tunes like Das Nacht Arbeit, the true blueprint for both Alec Empire, Big Black and The Jesus and Mary Chain (they loved this record) to stunning lopsided metronomik rock like Kinderfunk (one of my personal favorites). I like as well the fact that D.A.F were pupils of Joseph Bueys, surely one of the last century's coolest people.

8.Emtidi: Saat

I don't know much about this record. Its a Diter Dierks/Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser thing. It's on their Pilz label. It's a bit hippy dippy. Lyrics about "sitting on the grass on your arse". Included in herein in a deliberatley non-canonical fashion. Don't buy it. Buy some other queer German record you don't recognise. See if you can find anything by Gruppe (cos I can't) or anything decent by Floh de Cologne, or maybe Wallenstein made a good record? OPEN YOUR MINDS!

9.Konrad Schnitler: Gelb

Now this WAS a find! Gelb was put out by Konrad Schnitzler (ex-Tangerine Dream) in 1974 with Blau and Rot. Each were editions of 500. I've heard Blau, which people whisper about under motorway flyovers and on the "zug". Its not as good as this. All the arguments about Detroit being a satellite of Cologne make sense with the first un-named track off this record which I SWEAR sounds precisely like "The Beginning EP"-era Derrick May. In other words like his best stuff. I should have asked Derrick whether he had heard this when he used to ring me up (had to drop that one in). Maybe Juan has a copy.

10.Eroc: Eroc

And finally. I was really suprised to see that this has been reissued. It's been swilling around rather pathetically in a few bargain bins because nobody knows what the fuck it is, and they have all the Amon Duul, Can, Faust, Neu!, Harmonia, Guru Guru, Cosmic Couriers records they're ever gonna need to impress their mates. It was on Brain. Eroc was in some other band before, which I can't for the life of me remember was called. Norderland off this LP sports the most Wagnerian production of any track I know. It would be hilarious if it wasnt so staggering overpowering. Its sounds like a Avalanche in slow-motion destroying a tiny Alpine village.

So there it is, Pearls before Swine as usual. Some of these records it's not even worth dreaming about finding. Though you may get lucky on eBay or Gemm (which is quite astonishing if you haven't already checked it). If anyone of you so-called pros even dreams about ripping any of this shit off me I'll track you down and trample all-over you, and guys and gals if you see anything about these records ANYWHERE hereafter, just remember you heard it from the big daddy first! Auf Wiedersein!

Posted by Woebot at April 13, 2003 10:32 PM