Three CDs of music by the excellent Biliana Voutchkova on Blurred Music (ELSEWHERE MUSIC elsewhere 001-3), documenting three live performances from Dec 2016, where this violinist was joined by Michael Thieke and his clarinet for these dates in America. The word “blur” is being used to set the scene for “indeterminacy”, and refer to the method used by both musicians, for instance alternating between improvisation and composition in the structure of each piece. Ultimately, they’d like to “blur” time itself. There’s nothing unfocussed about their playing, if that’s what you were thinking; Voutchkova in particular lands each note with the grace of a bird somehow alighting on a cloud. Not minimal music; it’s packed with empathy, emotion, meaning, and genius. Released in 2018.

Austrian genius Katharina Klement here with Textur (KALD CD 03) – 14 experiments composed for the piano and loudspeaker, using a six channel tape recorder. Some technicians and mixers are credited, e.g. Flo Prix, Oliver Gross, David Petermann, but I think this is all played by Klement. I love the precision of this – it feels like she’s typing it all out by longhand, setting each note in metal in preparation for a letterpress edition. She packs so much complexity and density into short, economical spaces that it’s like hearing Xenakis compressed in a matchbox with a Stockhausen packed lunch at the interval. One of several back catalogue items she sent to us years ago; see this page. This one was released in 1998.

Doc Wör Mirran sent us Confusion Rocks! (MISS MANAGEMENT HAVE TEN) – recorded in 2015 in a German studio. Joseph B. Raimond plays all the guitars and synths, and did the cover paintings, supported by Stefan Schweiger on drums. Raimond has been ruder, and more abrasive, but this is enjoyable and well-made rock music, not especially avant or challenging. Think of it as a form of latterday Krautrock with added Euro-synth melodies and textures. I’d like to have heard a shade more “confusion” in the grooves, but the mood throughout is pretty mellow, despite growling mad head painting on the cover and titles like ‘Every Fibre of my Body Hurts’. Not enough Jean Dubuffet, more like Marc Chagall. The ‘Self Portrait, Broken’ does at least deliver a mildly uncertain episode of self-contemplation. Released in 2016, their 142nd release (take that, Zappa).

Also from Doc Wör Mirran the much more interesting Tape Hissed (Historical Obscurity Volume 2) (MISS MANAGEMENT HAVE NINE) which apparently was drawn from the archive of DWM recordings as far back as 1983 up to 1994. A long list of collaborators and camp followers on these rare cuts, even including Jello Biafra. Packaged as a “three-sided” release, of which the first two sides on tape might be included as a snippet inside the jewel case! At least two tracks here – unsure of the titles which don’t quite add up – are brilliantly concocted layers of balmy noise, accumulating in a very open-ended fashion and allowing any errant synth squiggle or passing gnat to flap their wings in the general melee. Some tracks may appear more conventional art-rock mode, but even these uglified workouts are informed by a lunatic sense of mayhem and controlled chaos. They also had the good taste to dedicate the release to David Bowie. Maybe the time has come for a proper reevaluation of Doc Wör Mirran, arguably a much “better” band than Sunburned Hand Of The Man. From 2016, I think.

This eponymous follow-up to 2021’s “Down in the Meadow” (Morphine Records), finds this trans-European trio’s further explorations into a space where age-steeped Balkan vocalese fuses with electronic ambience, sinuous bass pulse and a lattice-work of Can-like hypno-percussives. After that debut received the critical hosanna, the unveiling of the second album reveals a somewhat more radical shift, with eight pieces that are more fluid and situated a good country mile from certain ‘box standard’ frameworks. Beginning with an endorsement of a Bohemian lifestyle, the rhythmically imposing “Barabinska” is one of over half of the set that leans heavily on native-tongued trad. verse (sourced from the western Balkans, to be precise). “Selo Moje” is however, penned by Gordan vocalist extraordinaire Svetlana Spajić (collabs w/ Zeitkratzer, William Basinski a.o.) and then radically reshaped by bassist Guido Mobius (also found on the Dekorder and Karaoke Kalk labels) and drummer Andi Stecher (Matana Roberts, Carla Bozulich).

The single, “The Bell is Buzzing”, is a well-travelled Balkan love song which begins in some versions, as an everyday tale of a young shepherd’s betrayal at the hands of his sweetheart, who then rejects him for another. In this take though, things surprisingly end in a happy-ever-after fashion, which surely goes against accepted folk norms. So, I guess from a capsule version of ‘Far from the Madding Crowd’ to the closing “O Nikola”; a detailed tribute to the Serbian scientific genius Nikolai Tesla’ written by Bosnian singer Milan Bilbija. I always thought that poet Herb Bermann’s lyric for Captain Beefheart’s “Electricity” could serve as a makeshift anthem to this man born out of time, especially with the “…thunderbolts caught easily…” line. But now, we’ve got the real thing and this compelling slice of near-sprechgesang is undoubtedly the cherry on the icing and one that prods the listener into a further bout of bookworming.

Casting the runes in a digital age, Gordan can be seen as successfully grabbing the baton from mystical prog/folk worthies such as first album Comus, first album Mr. Fox, The Third Ear Band and Germany’s I.S.B. Counterparts: Flute & Voice.

When we first started this magazine in the 1990s, I was just starting to discover more about so-called “Krautrock” and “Kosmische” music, and indeed so was the rest of the music-loving world – CD reissues were abundant, commentaries were published by expert music journalists, books about the history started to appear, and we would always relish learning more about the evolution and background to the music. It was particularly interesting to hear the level-headed views of Conrad Schnitzler and his take on Tangerine Dream – he remained resolutely unimpressed by most so-called experimental music, and would dismiss the later T.D. records by Edgar Froese and company without hesitation, which makes Electronic Meditation such an exception. Wolfgang Seidel absorbed some influences from his friend Schnitzler, not least the level-headed no-nonsense attitude he clearly has, but he also inherited the “cassette suitcases” which Schnitzler had built for his famous cassette concerts; even though the cassettes later became CDs, the principle was the same – that of productive sound generation from very modest resources. The expectation was that he should act as custodian for the suitcases, and also continue using them to perform concerts.

When Seidel started to mingle with the Zodiak Arts Lab people in the late 1960s, he was already experimenting with contact mics and tape echo, pretty much creating an interesting sound from any physical object he could strike with his drumsticks; like many others, he too had heard the Forbidden Planet soundtrack by this time, and was bewitched with an electronic vision of the future of the culture. However, by 1970 pretty much everyone in Germany wanted to be in a rock band, and Seidel was recruited as the drummer into Ton Steine Scherben with the guitarist and lead singer Rio Reiser. By Seidel’s account, they were popular; to him they represented the voice of wide political unrest and dissent, probably active since May 1968 across Europe, and he notably points out “it wasn’t just students” who were doing the protesting. Connoisseurs of Kraut and Prog history tend to align Ton Steine Scherben with the two other major political ranting groups, Floh De Cologne (cerebral sound poets) and Checkpoint Charlie (shouty and punk-rockish), although stylistically the groups are quite dissimilar. Seidel refuses any nostalgia or delusions about this early 1970s incarnation: “today I read that the band was a legend. Back then, they were one thing above all: poor”. In other words, Ton Steine Scherben wanted to change the world, but they were still skint. Seidel also grew tired of playing the same repertoire and reciting the same slogans; “you have to have the freedom to do…whatever interests you,” was the life lesson he learned.

This brings us to the recordings on Friendly Electrons; it’s neither the experiments from Zodiak Arts Lab, nor out-takes from his 1970s work with Ton Steine Scherben, but studio pieces made quite recently; some of them may date from the lockdown time, or come from Seidel’s archives, or both. Some are apparently based on earlier ideas and sketches. While you might have been expecting a set of stern-faced electronic noise in the Schnitzler / Kluster mode, in fact this set is improvisation mixed with electronics; there are percussion and piano elements, as well as the pure synthesized sounds. This reflects Seidel’s improvising performances from the 2000s onwards, when he drummed in free-jazz and improv groups, including with Hans Joachim Irmler and Alfred Harth. As pointed out in Thomas Herbst’s notes (a friend of Seidel’s, who compiled this item), two things come over very strongly; one of them is the very free-spirited approach of Seidel, an instinctive player who has no need to make formal compositions, but simply starts playing and recording, then refining as he goes along, through a process of editing and selection. The second thing is the sheer sense of optimism; the music, and the album title, show clearly that Seidel loves the modern world, and his view of Battersea Power Plant on the opening cut is a vivid sound portrait of this most singular monument to modernist architecture and imaginative design. Much more upbeat and listenable too, than that rotten Pink Floyd LP with the inflatable flying pig.

As a footnote, be sure to investigate the Live at the Zodiak Berlin 1968 album by Human Being, to learn more about this moment in Berlin’s cultural history and the spark that led to the Krautrock explosion. Having written that, I wish Seidel himself were here now to reproach me for that sort of hyperbole! From 10th June 2024.

Concealed behind the tiny two-letter pseudonyms of ‘MK’ and ‘CT’ are avant-conceptualist and Berlin resident Chris Dreier and Tim Löhde, a visual/sound artist hailing from Düsseldorf. Keen students of k-rock’s second phase will remember the former name as she was an integral part of “ingenious dilletantes” Die Tödliche Doris from 1980 to 1987. Now here was a trio that immersed itself in unorthodoxy. So much so that their activities could’ve made the eccentricities of Germany’s first wave seem a little wanting in comparison. Their “Unser Debut” (1985) and its follow-up “Sechs” for example, were actually composed/calibrated to be played simultaneously (!). This ghost recording (now made flesh) was then even accorded its own catalogue number (!!). Then there’s “Chöre & Soli”, a nattily packaged box set which took the proverbial custard cream. It comprised of eight two-inch singles that could only be played on a mechanism transplanted, presumably, from a child’s talking doll. And no, I didn’t dream that last bit…

In terms of general off-the-wall weirdness ‘MK-CT’ couldn’t compete with Doris’s wild years (what could?), but this ‘field recording +’ manages to rise above the dime-a-dozen recorderists out there, purely by dint of location/event. Timing is everything. Chris took full advantage of the rare freezing over of Berlin’s river Spree by recording the various sounds generated by the ice as changes in temperature occurred. These sound files were then ping-ponged between Chris and Tim on numerous occasions, each time tweaking the compositions with additional synthetics and drawing room piano. Surprisingly, this release isn’t the only recorded study in ice, as Peter Cusack’s “Baikal Ice” (ReR c.d./2003), trod a similar path down Siberia way, but also included stray human interventions and other noises off. By comparison, MK-CT’s venture is a far more single-minded pursuit. From the melancholic and cavernous “Eisbrecher” to the closing “Ruminating” – the sounds captured defy my puny attempts at onomatopoeia; crackle, creak and snap falling well wide of the mark.

Sidestepping the misleading ‘observatories in orbit’ sleeve design – cozmik it certainly ain’t! – the duo have assembled a reassuringly alien listening experience. Excellently recorded and mastered (kudos to Martin Bowes), this intriguing album comes highly recommended, especially for fans of the outer edge of 21st century k-rock.

Another fine one from this UK-Israeli collective of musicians who call themselves “krautfolk” in an attempt to nail down their eccentric approach to group playing…very much enjoyed the work of Gosha Hniu and his men since we were surprised by a copy of Inwards Opened The Floor in 2020, and today’s item continues the mildly barmy and driven approach which seems to characterise this oddball combo – a deliciously ramshackle approach, lots of instruments playing at once, puzzling voices jabbering and squeaking away like an entire congregation speaking in tongues, or else intoning and repeating the ancient mystical texts with much solemnity. One of the things I like is the lack of a tonal “centre” – there’s not necessarily a root note, nor even a centre of musical gravity, yet the music hangs together like a loose affiliation of gases and related elements, slowly but inexorably making its progress across the floor of the jungle.

It’s indeed handy for them (and us) to invoke the “krautrock” model, but even our most free-spirited favourites from that golden age of German progressive music were still rock musicians, some of them shackled to playing together in the same key or working to the same old blues-derived chord structures. (Obviously we’d have to make an exception for Faust, at the very least). Staraya Derevnya manage to escape a few of the major pitfalls of “jamming”, developing their own very distinctive form of freeform DIY acoustic thrash and clump. I suspect it’s a rare and hard-won thing, and though it may appear simple and almost insouciant on the surface, it’s very likely there’s a lot of craft, practice, and musical rapport informing all of these wayward musical moves. I enjoyed ‘Scythian Nets’ for its highly idiosyncratic vocal burbles (almost comical in places), though you may prefer the Amon Düül styled hammerment of the title track, where our friends nearly work themselves into a frenzy with their single-minded assay, which like its name is not unlike the progress of a rock rolling down a hill.

But wait until you hear ‘Tangled Hands’, a mystical cloud of seriousness and unknowable mesmerising tones, expressed through stick percussion, murmuring voice fragments and gorgeous polyphonic drones and interplay. Instruments used, for those who wish to know, do include synths, guitars, cello, clarinet, double bass, drums, as well theremin, flute, and voices, but nothing can really account for the limpid beauty of ‘Tangled Hands’, its amazing mixed chords which stir a romantic and nostalgic heart. Credit to some of the standout maverick names here, such as Grundik Kasyansky, Yoni Silver, and the vocalist Galya Chikiss who provides ‘Cries and Whispers’. I suppose ‘Bubbling Pelt’ is the main event on the album, taking up 21 mins of the B side, and though I do enjoy it I’m slightly disappointed by its form – a simple guitar and bass shuffle in a minor key which doesn’t modulate very much, treads water, and generally resembles the kind of thing Sunburned Hand of the Man would churn out on a Tuesday afternoon in their futile search for the Nirvana of cosmic free-playing. That said, this ‘Pelt’ does afford space for each musician to interject an intriguing line or tone colour at unexpected moments, be it a clarinet flourish or synth burble or percussive sweep. Strap in for this camel ride and hope for an oasis at the end of it. Could be that Staraya Derevnya work better with the intensity of a shorter tune where they must work that bit harder to pack in all the information emerging from their papyrus screeds and carved tablets.

Very fine record, with a surreal cover painting by Danil Gertman that subverts innocent motifs while channelling Lewis Carroll, and suggests strange, primordial forces at play.

There are times when I think I’ve led a fairly uneventful life, but after reading about the white-knuckle exploits of Kiev Stingl (“Germany’s enfant terrible” and a man who “embodies massive deviance…”), perhaps I’ve been dealt a fair hand after all. Redolent of say, an old grainy b/w episode of ITC’s Danger Man T.V. series, a particularly fraught time in Herr Stingl’s life began in Madagascar, February 1982, whilst being a guest of Jean-Pierre Martini, a maths professor at the University of Madagascar. That presumed idyll was shaken to its core when Kiev was arrested by the secret police, who accused him of helping the CIA in an attempted coup. He was then imprisoned, narrowly escaping a death sentence (!!) and was eventually smuggled out to Paris c/o the German Consulate General. Back from Paris and keen to add to his repertoire of albums, which included Teuflisch (Philips/1978) and Ich Wunsch den Deutscher Alles Gut (Ahorn/1981), a session at Teldec Studios in Hamburg was arranged with the help of ex City Preachers’ Götz Humpf on keys and guitar. This resulted in five numbers being recorded but only two saw release. Producer Achim Reichel‘s decision to shelve these tracks effectively putting the blocks on the career of one of the German underground’s most intriguing performers.

With reworkings courtesy of producer Niklas David, here’s what we missed…. The tick-tocking of an acoustic rhythm guitar locking in to the rusted shards of its electric counterpart (“Ozean”). On “Spiel den Brief”, Martin Rev is distracted by a Nintendo Gameboy, while Kiev’s sinister monologues, speaking of jealousy, poison and destruction hover overhead like a sulking black cloud. “Shang Hai Café” lightens the mood slightly and showcases Götz’s poignant and sensitively played Spanish guitar figures. The odd one out (from 1984) “Feu Follet” briefly fleshes out the set as a solo piano vamp. Its origins coming from the artist’s visits to a certain brothel in Hamburg’s ‘St Pauli’ district, where the kindly owner of said establishment would give him unlimited access to the eighty-eights. Exemplary customer service, I think you’ll agree. Even though these numbers are delivered in Kiev’s native tongue, one can easily detect a world-weary/resigned atmosphere, draped just so, over the furniture. Leonard Cohen’s New Skin… and Uncle Lou’s chin-on-floor operetta Berlin would be likely precursors to this worldview.

While being interviewed for Rolling Stone, Flake (?) of Rammstein said that “For us, Kiev Stingl was God!”. Well, I wouldn’t go that far, but the rediscovery of X R I Nuit does shine a welcome light on a skid patch masquerading as a career; details of which, and I’ll stick my neck out here, have never graced the pages of any of the British music weeklies at the time. Think of this as redressing the balance a little.

Human Adult Band with Slog Quest Crosstime (FEEDING TUBE RECORDS FTR 628) – I never heard this New Jersey band before, yet it seems they’ve been active since 2002. Trevor Pennsylvania (bass and vox, I think) leads his crew through the swampy terrain of six gorgeous tracks of (a) lively garage rock with lo-fi grungey surface and feedback squawls by the spoonful or (b) slow-mode noise excursions with semi-experimental free-form guitar and darkened Kosmische moves, refashioned in the finest steel mills of Arco Co. Throughout, the lugubrious vocals moan and complain in semi-human form about the travails and aches of man’s existence, while drumming of King Darves (also of Thee Black One) injects similar sensations of a Sisyphus-like fate, suggestive of huge weighty boulders attached to neck and ankles…press notes speak warmly of the “low end” generated by this band live and in studio, and this particular recording emits ample evidence of same, enough to bludgeon 18 elephants on way to volcanic graveyard…while so many bands continue to namecheck Krautrock heroes from the 1970s, it’s great to hear how the genre has been mutated and emphasised by bands such as Human Adult Band, daring to go one step further into noise, excess, and heavy poundage, and somehow giving it a uniquely American voice. Fave cut here personally is ‘Lie Torpid’, 13 minutes of remorseless solid pummelling, though you may like ‘Unhurried Skeletons’ with its tormented psychedelic ghosts wailing for release from a self-made 1968 Hell. Only 200 copies pressed…with cover art by Connecticut artist Rvrs Mrcy. (29/04/2022)

Dagobah (FEEDING TUBE RECORDS FTR612) by Kool Music is a set of instrumentals played on the electric guitar by Jasper Baydala, a creator from Glasgow who’s also a writer and maker of videos…when he started this musical project it seems he was thinking of occupying some point midway between Country and Western music and Asian string music, a fusion-ish mindset not too far apart from John Fahey with his country blues fixation or Robbie Basho with his spiritual and Indian influences. Jasper isn’t so much about the finger-picking or even about the guitar prowess – no nifty chord shapes or ultra-fast fingering, rather just slow-moving moods, atmospheres, and meditations. The track titles reflect natural concerns (the sky, the trees, the weather, the moon) as well as alluding to nostalgic states of mind and wistful emotions. I certainly like his guitar sound – plangent, upfront, echoed, longing – but found my attention drifting through lack of a coherent melody. I need to grow more accustomed to his very personal approach to free-form playing. (27/06/2022)

Eberhard Kranemann is another one of those individuals whose name should really be set in a much larger and bolder typeface than it actually is. The relevant k-rock sourcebooks just didn’t seem to go that extra mile, which is a burning shame as his somewhat involved past endeavours certainly encourage further ink spillage. After studying the disciplines of classical double-bass at Dortmund Conservatory, he attended Dusseldorf’s Arts Academy under the professorship of unclassifiable (and then some) artist Joseph Beuys, comforter of dead hares and fat corner technician. In 1967, Eberhard formed Pissoff (Florian Schneider was also on board) – a confrontational project if ever there was one, soon gaining notoriety for their warts’n’all, three-hour improv blow outs. Later (this really cries out for a Pete Frame-style ‘Family Tree’), he participated in the early stirrings of both Neu! and Kraftwerk and the further (out) activities of Joseph Beuys. Then in 1977, adopting the more workaday pseudonym of Fritz Muller, released the F.M. Group’s new wave-edged Kummt album, which included Christa Fast in its ranks, the long-time partner of producer/k-rock father figure Conny Plank.

After a fairly heavy shower of cdrs on his own ‘Kunsthaus Boltenberg’ imprint, we head up to the present-day with Electric Fluxus; a face-to-facer with Pharmakustik (a.k.a. Siegmar Fricke), a sound collagist/synthesist of some four decades standing, who has worked with names like Conrad Schnitzler and Le Syndicat and initials such as M.B. (a.k.a. Maurizio Bianchi, during his second wind…). On entry, one should instantly disregard the very misleading sleeve art where that godawful bubble lettering can’t help but bring back the age of ‘E’ and illegal raves at Pharma Brown’s top field. Shudder. Rest assured, the only ahem, set of shapes being thrown here are the ones which have no earthly counterpart. In other words, we’re talking ‘Kosmische’, using the classic default ‘one track, one side’ remit. So, it’s off into the limitless void we go. Obviously, certain quadrants have already been colonized in the past by the likes of the Cosmic Couriers, Ash Ra Tempel and Agitation Free a.o. but all of that genre’s vital ingredients are on show here too…the oscillatory pitch and yaw, the distant reverberations and the strange treated sounds; in this case, Eberhard’s electric cello and feedback guitar. As to whether this is a dewy-eyed homage to the golden age or ‘The Real Thing’ is pretty much pointless head-scratching. What is definite is that this comes highly recommended for any k-rock maven in the near vicinity.

As for someone who seems to have a penchant for the darker recesses of the German underground, some things will never change as the vinyl pressing is limited to a strangely cautious one hundred and fifty copies (!) with sadly no sign of a c.d. version showing itself on the event horizon.

The other two tracks are credited to the present trio, suggesting they are semi-organised jams – savour the chaotic tumblings of ‘Three Islands’ and enjoy the claustrophobic riffage and poundage of ‘Tokugoya’ which spins around in ever-increasing circles like an acid-trip whirlpool…just think what Finnish rockers Circle would have done with the same material. I confess I stopped listening to Acid Mothers Temple records after a while, mainly since there are so many of them and they began to seem too much like clever pastiches, but this one is as genuine as they come, a powerful unkempt beast of unashamed retro-rock. (21/06/2021)

Berlin sound artist Jana Irmert here with The Soft Bit (FABRIQUE RECORDS FAB088), last heard by us with her Flood record which attempted to tell a story and created all its atmospheric effects purely by electronic means, eschewing use of processed field recordings. However, she’s gone back to playing “objects” on this record, alluding to materials such as “metal, water, sand and air” which were the source recordings for these eight audio episodes. She’s aiming to convey something about the surfaces and granularity and physical sensations of these elements, and hoping to create a very immersive experience on The Soft Bit. As she worked through the process, she was bit surprised to find that rocks and metal created “soft” sounds – while air and water produced hard, percussive beats. At this point she stops short of alluding to any sort of metaphysical or alchemical procedure (thankfully), and makes a point of telling us there were no preconceived ideas, structures or storylines determining the ultimate form and direction of the record, suggesting she was guided by more intuitive and instinctive methods. Good surfaces and textures, each track tending to blend two or more layers together to produce a certain light tension, occasionally allowing minimal melodies on piano or keyboard to emerge from the nebulous clouds. (21/06/2021)

I used to be quite keen on the prolific outpourings of Makoto Kawabata, until I realised I probably had enough Acid Mothers Temple records, and his solo stuff seems rather ordinary psychedelic drone. But that was years ago. Here with just an electric guitar in his paws he adds considerable value to an unusual “collaged” record. RG Rough is Robert G Rough and a sometime member of Rude Garden, and though I never heard of him he’s a very able Franco-British musician. Over two sides of LP, an audio “construct” has been presented for our delight, a hugely entertaining journey across many musical acres and gardens, somewhat in the “classic” Pink Floyd mode (from the early 1970s). By which I mean the music has been carefully knitted together from numerous and separate recorded performances to create a pleasing suite of sounds. While fans of psychedelic rock and krautrock will find much to satisfy their predilections and tastes in these endless long-form grooves, the linking ambient and washy sections are original and dream-like, without resorting to squishy formless drone. Plus nifty electronic and tapework interventions also embedded in the tapestry / fabric.

This all hangs together in a compelling fashion and projects a strong “hazoid-cosmic” vibe, as of a more spacey and uncertain Steve Hillage moment, and there are one or two genuinely unexpected moments in the continuum that cause welcome surprise. With guest players Ren Karlmann on drums and JFG on vocals, and a violinist Lea Claessens appearing somewhere. For optimistic dreaming during the summer months…arrived 10 June 2020.