this is session 7 of the music series -- KRAUTROCK 101, by antonio ramos. all mp3s are available for educational purposes only. if you like it, buy the rest of the record. thanks! - mgt.

1. kraan - sarah's ritt durch den schwarzwald [mp3]
2. eloy - the light from deep darkness [mp3]
3. electric sandwich - china [mp3]

Kraan was one of the better jazzier fusion type bands. For me, all those bands rode a kinda fine line between amazing rock and boring, wanky, too-technical jazzy/proggy self indulgence, but when kraan stayed on right side of the line, they were great. This is the first track from their self titled debut from '72. Just enough switch-ups and sax to keep it interesting but it still rocks, good stuff. These guys were huge, like the Steely Dan of germany, so everything they ever recorded has been rereleased by EMI and is easy to find.

Like Kraan, Eloy was another popular jazz fusion band but much more on the rock/spacey side of things. This track is long and not necessarily their best, but I picked it cause it pretty much covers their whole discography in one track- you've got the spacey/new agey stuff, the heavier stuff, lots of guitar, and some sweet organ solos. Also EMI, easy to find.

Electric Sandwich only released one self-titled album in '71 on the brain label, it was rereleased a while back you can maybe still get an import. I don't know much about them, but the album is awesome and way underrated. All the songs sound pretty different, most have electronically tweaked sax and guitar. This is the best, a perfect kraut track, very repetitive german funk rhythm, with nice wah-wah, noisy fuzzed out guitar over top. A nice palate cleanser after the above jazz prog wankery.

this is session 6 of the music series -- KRAUTROCK 101, by antonio ramos. all mp3s are available for educational purposes only. if you like it, buy the rest of the record. thanks! - mgt.

1. annexus quam - osmose 1 [mp3]
2. harmonia - manza (rauf und runter) [mp3]
3. achim reichel & the machines - beautiful babylon [mp3]

i know very little about Annexus Quam. this is their first record 'Osmose', one of the earliest releases on ohr. amazing, long building, beautifully textured tracks, kinda like Godspeed/Do Make Say Think but with flute, trumpet, sax, organ and guitar and about 30 years ahead of their time. jazz psych fusion at its best.

as mentioned earlier Harmonia was Michael Rother joining Cluster's Roedelius and Moebius. sounds like you would expect, 1/3 neu!, 2/3 Cluster. this is from the second and last album, Deluxe -- awesome stuff.

Achim Reichel was a big force in 60's german rock originally in a beatles knock-off called 'Rattles' then doing heavier stuff in 'Wonderland'. This is his first solo project 'Die Grune Reise' from '70, also check 'Echo' -- both were pretty awesome then he did some odd pop stuff thats not so great. lots of echoing, looping guitar and that nice german pre-techno bounce.

this is session 5 of the music series -- KRAUTROCK 101, by antonio ramos. all mp3s are available for educational purposes only. if you like it, buy the rest of the record. thanks! - mgt.

1. paternoster - old danube [mp3]
2. walter wegmuller - der magier [mp3]
3. cluster - plas [mp3]

The Paternoster record is still a bit of a rarity, the master tapes are lost and the only reissue is a 1000 copy cd mastered from the vinyl in '91 on an obscure german label [note: the entire album is available for download here]. A classic for the absurd vocals, it sounds like hes doing an exaggerated caricature of a suicidal person, and the lyrics are ridiculous as well. The music is led by a hammond organ and fuzzed out guitar over a proggy rythym section. The juxtaposition between the jaunty proggy organ jamming and the cartoonishly depressing vocals is just perfect, amazing stuff.

As mentioned earlier, the Walter Wegmuller record 'Tarot' was recorded during the same sessions as the cosmic jokers stuff featuring the same musicians, basically an Ash Ra Tempel meets Wallenstein thing. Wegmuller wasn't a musician, he was an artist/scenster/psychedelic guru of some sort and he designed a set of tarot cards. Each song on the double disc is named after one of the cards and Wegmuller talks over a lot of the tracks, kinda annoying on some of them, but still lots of great spaced out tracks. This is 'Der Magier'

I take back that comment about Tangerine Dream being king of the ambient synth bands, they were probably more popular, but ive always liked Cluster better. They were originally called Kluster- a trio of conrad Schnitzler, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius until Schnitzler left in '71 after 3 albums, all awesome, and they switched to Cluster and kept releasing more great albums thorugh the 80's even working with Brian Eno, who was a huge fan, at some point. They also briefly absorbed Michael Rother of Neu! and renamed themselves Harmonia for 2 records in the mid-70s. Anyways Kluster was a lot more harsh and industrial sounding than anything else coming out of the krautrock scene which probably had a lot to do with Schnitzler since this later Cluster stuff is a bit more toned down and even melodic in places. Instead of just trying to lead you on a trip with spacey trippy sounds they really experimented and reached for new, foreign sounds, still sounds fresh today. This is from the second album 'Cluster 2'.

this is session 4 of the music series -- KRAUTROCK 101, by antonio ramos. all mp3s are available for educational purposes only. if you like it, buy the rest of the record. thanks! - mgt.

1. brainticket - black sand [mp3]
2. popol vuh - kyrie [mp3]
3. cosmic jokers - galactic joke [mp3]

Brainticket was technically an austrian/german/swiss/belgian band but they always get thrown in with the krautrock crowd. This has got to be the most over the top acid-drenched psychedelic recording out there. American west coast psych, british psych, swedish psych--none of it touches this, not even that Ash Ra Tempel record where Timothy Leary fed everyone a 7-Up bottle filled with liquid acid during the recording session and then did the vocals. This track may be the calmest and most normal track of the record: repetitive, driving, grimy funked up bassline, drums and rhythm guitar with crazy acid guitar and keyboard interjections and some unrecognizably distorted vocals. check the rest of the record for the 'Nico on acid and ecstasy' female vocals. she doesnt know whether she's having a paranoid anxiety attack or an orgasm... absolutely ridiculously, disturbingly good.

Popul Vuh was another spacey ambient band with early synth experiments, they distinguished themselves with a kind of world music vibe, lots of varied instruments and a heavy eastern spiritual influence. they are also well know for soundtracking a lot of Werner Herzog's famous movies. 'Aguirre' is my personal favorite, both the movie and soundtrack. This is 'Kyrie' for the '73 lp 'hoisanna mantra'.

The Cosmic Jokers was krautrock's accidental supergroup, centered around Manuel Gottsching (guitar) and Klaus Schulze (electronics) from Ash Ra Tempel and Jurgen Dollase (keyboard, electronics) and Harald Grosskopf (drums) from Wallenstein plus other musicians coming and going, and all recorded and tweaked by studio master Dieter Dirks. there are 4 main albums, as well as the Walter Wegmuller 'Tarot', Sergius Golowin, and Gilles Zeitschiff records that were all recorded in a few informal drugged out jam sessions during the Cosmic Courier label founder's crazy parties and later remixed and recombined into multiple albums by Dirks. the artists involved never realised that they were being recorded for album release and there was apparently a big lawsuit mess over that, but anyways this is an excerpt from 'Galactic Joke' from the self-titled album.

this is session 3 of the music series -- KRAUTROCK 101, by antonio ramos. all mp3s are available for educational purposes only. if you like it, buy the rest of the record. thanks! - mgt.

1. agitation free - you play for us now [mp3]
2. tangerine dream - fly and the collision of comas sol [mp3]
3. guru guru - next time see you at the dalai lhama [mp3]

Originally an insane, too good to be true, early kraut super group, Agitation Free unfortunately lost 2 key members before ever officially recording an album, guitarist Axel Grenrich left for Guru Guru and drummer Cristopher Franke left for Tangerine Dream. Thank g-d for bootleg concert recordings, but anyways they recruited new members and recorded 2 albums before totally disbanding. This is from 'Malesch', their first album, inspired by a tour through egypt and greece. Lots of field recordings, middle east influenced sounds, early homemade synth work and some of the most blissed out rock ever recorded.

Tangerine Dream was king of the spacey synth bands (except maybe Cluster). The first album, 'Electronic Mediation' recorded with Klaus Schulze on drums, was the closest to a traditional rock set up- drummer, bass, guitar and keyboards, but also the most atypically crazy sounding, very aggressive and chaotic. They eventually settled into a synth trio playing super spaced out, textured jams. This track is from the second album 'Alpha Centauri', i know its long but hang in there, there's a lot of changes and even some drumming and flute in the last 3 min.

Guru Guru was a seething mess of guitar insanity, either not technically skilled or purposefully amateur and crazy guitar work, no apparent structure or order at all, and poorly recorded, these tracks succeed on pure manic intensity. This is from their first album 'UFO', later albums got more refined for better or worse, way worse if you ask me although the second one 'Hinten' is still really good.

this is session 2 of the music series -- KRAUTROCK 101, by antonio ramos. all mp3s are available for educational purposes only. if you like it, buy the rest of the record. thanks! - mgt.

1. neu - negativland [mp3]
2. amon düül 2 - archangels thunderbird [mp3]
3. ash ra tempel - amboss [mp3]

Neu, another hugely influential and very german band, kinda like the punk version of the krautrock sound. Started as an offshoot from Kraftwerk in '71, they perfected the driving 4/4 german rythym, becoming a major early influence on techno, not to mention Radiohead, Sex Pistols, David Bowie and Brian Eno, and among other things, they are also generally credited with inventing the remix with the sped up and manipulated versions of tracks on their second record, (although Tubby was rocking 'versions' of roots reggae tracks around the same time so its a tough call). This is from the first of 3 records, all excellent, all re-released by astralwerks recently and easy to find.


Amon Düül II is actually my favorite of all the german bands, they have an amazing, very original, very german sound, drawing heavily on classic gothic folk sounds and mixing it all up with psychedelia. They started from a german hippie commune called Amon Düül. Eventually a group of the best musicians split off calling themselves amon düül II ( the commune continued to release a few more good records without them, see 'paradieswarts duul' 'psychedelic underground' and the amazing but hard to find 'collapsing/singvögel rückwärts & co ' for chaotic drum circle craziness with some early 'sampling' and the occasional blazing guitar work) Amon Düül II released 4 or 5 of the greatest german rock records before succumbing to the inevitable late 70's wanky prog and/or new age mediocrity.


I know this is only the second post, but here is some serious heaviness, HEAVY, it doesn't get any trippier than this. Ash Ra Tempel was like the crazy underground german version of 'Cream'. Manuel Göttsching was the guitar god leader (another huge influence on electronic/techno, see the looped, processed guitar classic 'e2-e4' for the earliest example i've heard of the modern electronic music sound), Klaus Schulze was the crazy drummer and an early experimenter with synthesizers already famous for his work on the early Tangerine Dream records, and Hartmut Enke was holding them both down on bass. All of their albums had two side long tracks, one a Göttsching rocker and one a Schulze slow burner. This is the rocker from their self titled debut album. Its 20 min, but your patience will be well rewarded with one of the sickest kosmische musik experiences ever pressed to vinyl. Slow build to crazy intensity, and just when you think its over it explodes all over again. whoa.

this is installment 1 of a new music series -- KRAUTROCK 101, by antonio ramos. all mp3s are available for educational purposes only. if you like it, buy the rest of the record. thanks! - mgt.

Ok time for krautrock 101, we'll start with the big names.

1. faust - krautrock [mp3]
2. kraftwerk - ruckzuck [mp3]
3. can - dont turn the light on, leave me alone [mp3]

The obvious choice for first track is krautrock's namesake itself, "krautrock" from faust's 1973 lp 'IV'. It pretty much defines the unique style of psychedelic rock the german's owned in the 70's. An awesome wall of guitar and synth noise over a driving repetitive rythym section, it somehow manages to sound agressive/harshly noisy in a peculiarly efficient german way while also sounding spacey and bouncy in a happy hippy almost corny way. Amazing stuff.

Next up is kraftwerk. Everybody knows man-machine, autobahn and trans-europe express but their lesser known first 3 records from before they got all robotic are amazing as well. Here's a track "ruckzuck" from their first lp which has no title, just a red traffic cone on the cover. (you may recognize this one as the theme song from a weird 80's pbs science show they used to show in schools)
[ed. note: the show was "newton's apple" - click here for more kraftwerk references]

And of course you can't forget can. Started as a zepellin-esque american psyche-blues rip off band, somehow things got lost lost in translation and they ended up being one of the most original, influential, and amazing rock bands ever. Their best are the damo suzuki fronted albums 'tago mago', 'ege bamyasi' and 'future days' This track is from 'soundtracks' an odds and ends collection from 1970 that documents the change from the pretty good malcom mooney fronted can of the late 60's to the jaw droppingly amazing damo suzuki fronted can of the early 70's. Listen to that rythym section- silky smooth, stupid clean and slick, yet funky in a german way with suzuki's odd mumbling, some flute, and karoli's guitar all floating on top.