KRAUTROCK Listening Klub! - New Albums Every Wednesday

"Inventions" is ALL guitar tho. Said it before, but i prefer Ashra to Ash Ra Tempel.

oh, never realized that inventions has no synths at all!

I definitely prefer ashra. guitar loops + snyths = gateway to pleasure

Think in this thread (club?), the electronic/ambient/motorik side of K'Rock tends to be predominate at the expense of the psych/ freakout/ jazzrockin' sides

it does. needs some to balance it up

Can't help it if that's what the kidz prefer

damn pesky kids?

I'm with the kids on this one

i don't qualify as a kid, but comparatively i am definitely a noob
jazz/psych/freakout for up times and ambient drone for down times ime

The good Ash Ra Tempel freakouts are without compare, tho. I mean...AMBOSS is freaking huge.
But I haven't listened to the rock jams much since I've discovered the electric inventions, it is true.

Hey, check the Embryo record for jazz/psyche/freakout! There was a lot of Popol Vuh/Guru Guru/Amon Duul II on this thread earlier, too...

Definitely want to check more Gottsching. E2-E4 was posted on this thread a while back but iirc it was only a spotify link so I couldn't listen to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6HVroMFP6M

^Dude, this is awesome

been wanting to get into Embryo for a while now

Curious to know if anyone out there has heard any of their later material. Like a lot of krautrock bands, their discography is vast and they went through a lot of changes. Their drummer is the only consistent member. This is all I've heard from them, personally.

That Earthstar album is so incredibly massive. Love it

I have an Earthstar record called for Humans Only and I've been wanting to check more of their music. Just downloaded it. I hope it's as blissful as the one I have.

I have been listening to Opal a lot lately. Weird.

Curious to know if anyone out there has heard any of their later material. Like a lot of krautrock bands, their discography is vast and they went through a lot of changes. Their drummer is the only consistent member. This is all I've heard from them, personally.

Rocksession is really good, sort of longer-form jazz rock freakout stuff. Great trippin' embryo-ear cover, too.

Thanks for the Embryo. Haven't heard them before.

Inventions is my favorite Ashra/Gottsching album. I like it much better than E2-E4 and it rivals Rainbow Dome Musick for total supremacy.

Curious to know if anyone out there has heard any of their later material.

Yes. It's OK. It is what it is, it's jazz rock. Some good tracks here and there. Agree that "Rocksession" is quite consistent however. Oh, they dabble in ethnic/Eastern textures on quite a few albums, which can be interesting (tho I prefer Wolfgang Dauner and Dzyan's similar efforts).

Thanks to scott pgwp for restoring my faith in this thread and in the notion that there might be some "Krautrock" out there that I haven't heard yet that might actually be worth hearing! Thought we were kinda scraping the bottom of the barrel towards the end last time round. Deutsche Wertarbeit is totally up my strasse, could say that it's shading into Neue Deutsche Welle a bit (1981 after all), also reminds me of Chris Carter in places! Great sounds on that Earthstar album! There's a bit of wandering about aimlessly trying to find a tune, a la Klaus Schulze, but I can forgive that.

... sorry it was van smack not scott who posted those albums!

Must have been von smack, right? ;)
Will get that Deutsche Wertarbeit album tonight, curious after all the praise (somehow I've never seen this thread?!)
Bought Opal] a couple of years ago but it's (was?) not up my Straße, I'll try again. Sounded way too "crowded" (krauted lol sorry) for my taste

Catching up to that Earthstar record posted a couple weeks back... some of it sounds like it could be dropped directly into an Emeralds album and no one would blink.

Is it somebody else's turn this week?

Neil S is this week. Where is NEIL?

uh oh sorry guys will put something together now

Ashra - New Age of Earth

http://img262.imageshack.us/i/covercustombi9.jpg/

Allmusic review, which credits the record to Manuel Gottsching solo:

Opening track "Sunrain" sounds like it could soundtrack a narrativeless documentary on just that, or at least some sequence of nature photography; bright and sparkling, the synths and drum machines blend together nicely. "Ocean of Tenderness" has a similar sense of film accompaniment, being a gentle, minimal flow of keyboard shading, electronic chirps deep in the mix, and a soft lead melody that carefully unwinds throughout the lengthy track, with a low-key bass pulse appearing a few minutes in as contrast. "Deep Distance" lives up to the title nicely, combining sweetly spaced-out drones with minimal percussion that sounds like raindrops as much as anything else as lead melodies slowly come to the fore. "Nightdust," which takes up the original second side of the album, captures the original psych-jam feeling of Ash Ra Tempel more than anything else.

Spotify link

I'm on an ambient tip for this week. First choice is a lovely, lovely record from Ashra, with burbling synths and psychedelic guitar to spare. I also really like the record cover, for ages I thought it was a prehistoric monolith, only lately did I realise it's a skyscraper.

More thoughts and another choice to follow.

oops album cover is:

http://rebels.img.jugem.jp/20110129_1806257.jpg

One of the best ambient albums. Great choice. I also like the other cover to New Age Of Earth:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_xR09LKGOmXM/R53-luol1OI/AAAAAAAAAGw/fdMOBXKbW1E/s200/ashra.jpg

Eno - Moebius - Roedelius - After the Heat

http://991.com/newGallery/Brian-Eno-After-The-Heat-475340.jpg

P1tchf0rk review

After the Heat differs sharply from its predecessor in tone, as well as its English language titles and the occasional vocal presence of Eno. "Most of the day we were at the machinery," he sings on "The Belldog", alluding perhaps to the creative ferment happening in Plank's studio.

Spotify link

Perhaps considered a minor record in both Eno's and Cluster's large back-catalogues, but I think a really good one. It perhaps shades a little too far into inertia in paces, but there's always interesting stuff going on.

I've also managed to do a cover connection of sorts!

So, have at it!

xp wow at that over cover, amazing!

I like the monolith cover, too.
Reminds me of Holy Mountain.

New Age of Earth on grooveshark for those who cannot access spotify

I have been on a virtually nonstop Gottsching kick for days thanks to this thread.

Thanks LL.

Here's the other one for this week

After the Heat on grvshrk but as usual the sequencing seems to be a little screwy

After the Heat was sequenced differently on its original release vs later CD reissues

"After the Heat" is the first EMR album? I prefer the 2nd one.

Ashra's New Age of Earth is one of my all time favourite krautrock/kosmische records, I can't vouch for it enough!

Sorry folks, I have an album I want to share but mediafire, which I've never tried before, doesn't like me it seems. I'll keep on trying.

i get probs uploading to them too, try m3gaupl0ad

try multiupload because it will upload to a bunch of those share sites.

@ Algerian, add me to the queue, i think i have a couple i'd like to share

Ok, thanks for your advice Algerian Goalkeep and van smack. Think I'm good to go now. Here's goes;

La! Neu? - Cha Cha 2000 Live in Tokyo

http://www.allflac.com/covers/b_48443_La__Neu_-Cha_Cha_2000__Live_In_Tokyo_Cd1-1996.jpg

There's some discussion of this recording in the Klaus Dinger post-Neu! thread Klaus Dinger post-Neu

For me this is one of Klaus Dinger's high water marks. A lengthy two cd long version of the la Dusseldorf "Viva" classic 'Cha Cha 2000' released on the Japanese Captain Trip record label. The performance on disc 2 in particular is heavenly, one the the most profound examples examples of the Dinger beat in action.

Given the low key import release of the La! Neu? stuff I'm sure there'll be a few folks here who will be keen to check this one out. You won't be dissapointed.

Links;

CD1 - http://www.multiupload.com/TFZ9S2Q8T4

CD2 - http://www.multiupload.com/USBMANST9Y

Enjoy!

Thanks! I'm a bit worried about the idea of a 2CD with one song on it tho!

Yeah...I'm on this...thank you! I'm kind of with you Tom, but one of the La Neu releases I have is over an hour long and really only features two tracks - one is a 20-minute update of "Hero", and the other just a longform jam that goes for over half an hour. It totally rules. The disc is called Dusseldorf. I'd upload it if I could get a week in here *cough, cough, cough, cough*

huh, somehow had the impression that the la neu material was slight without having ever heard it. but this sounds cool. definitely looking forward to spinning it.

I'm planning to go through all the albums sooner or later to get a better overview of it all. AFAIK the La Neu moniker was just a blanket term for whatever Dinger happened to be feeling at the time. I also have "Zeeland" and it's totally different, very low-key with a prominent female vocalist. It's generally fairly good, but way overlong.

yeah, I've never checked out anything dinger has done outside of neu before. which is kind of weird because I've dipped into tons of stuff from the neu/cluster/harmonia axis and have found value in everything I've heard.

Get the first two La Dusseldorf albums; I can all but guarantee you'll like them

oh, duh. I forgot about la dusseldorf. those are awesome, yes.

so, live in tokyo starts very low key. you can even hear lots of audience movement, coughing, a bit of chatter, and what sounds like some movement on stage. kind of digging the intimate feel so far.

He's sold before the music even starts, Klaus would love that