Guru Guru – UFO (1970 Germany)

I knew it was the best album in the stack. It was only a matter of time to when I could get home and hear it. Home to the United States that is. It was London, May of 1987, and I had picked up a pile of records from the Virgin Megastore, plus many others from our swing through Continental Europe. But I knew “UFO” was going to be the big winner. It was the Pop Import release of course, but even those were extinct in the record stores back home in Dallas. The day-glo gatefold cover of an orange flying saucer against the textured yellow background. The Ohr/ear symbol at the top (perfectly simulated with the new Captain Trip Japanese mini-LP release – right down the exact slickness of the cover). The giant ear on Uli Trepte’s profile. Even the birthdates were telling. 1940, 1941 and 1945. To say, at the time of recording, roughly 25, 29 and 30 years old – pointing to the value of experience over youthful naivete. The track names ‘Stone In’, ‘Girl Call’, ‘Next Time See You at the Dalai Lhama’, ‘UFO’, and ‘Der LSD-Marsch’. The liner notes in English: Soon the UFOs will land and mankind will meet much stronger brains and habits. Lets get ready for that. – P. Hinten . There were German notes as well, and they looked cool too. It had to be everything I imagined an unhinged German psychedelic record to be. I had read about it, and now I had it my hands. I could barely wait to fly home. Jet-lag be damned, it was on the home stereo the moment I walked in the door. It was an experience I would never forget.

Blam, blam goes Ax Genrich’s massive fuzz guitar. BASH goes Mani Neumeier’s gong/cymbals/percussion. Uli Trepte adds a bass line, and we’re already in MID JAM form 15 seconds into the recording! And it gets only more intense from there. Brain frying acid guitar as the pace picks up and moaning wordless chants cascade over the mayhem. This isn’t a mindless jam ala the Acid Mother’s Temple. Everything is coherent, with a purpose, the work of 3 experienced road-warrior jazzers. They were already masters of their trade, but applied to a new kind of instrumental psychedelic free rock. ‘Stone In’ is 5:42 of perfection. Maybe the greatest opening sequence in psychedelic history. ‘Girl Call’ follows and is no less powerful, allowing us a viewpoint in what might have been the first minute of ‘Stone In’, before launching into another insane jam. The transition from the heightened tensions of ‘Girl Call’ to the fast paced Eastern oriented jam of ‘Next Time See You at the Dalai Lhama’ still sends shivers down my spine. By the end of Side 1, I can say with some conviction: It is perfect.

We theoretically flip the record over and visit the lengthy title track. Here Guru Guru shows their abstract side. An exercise in psychedelic decomposition. Rhythmnless. Intense to the point of painful. Out of the abyss rises “Der LSD-Marsch”, and the acid guitar trio is back in form, igniting your stereo in flames. If it went another hour, it would only be better. I can think of less than 10 albums I’d say that about.

21 years after that first encounter, I hear “UFO” better than ever. A true all-time classic that has transcended time.

Mythos – s/t (1971 Germany)

I recently spoke in reverent tones about Germany’s Ohr label in the Annexus Quam “Osmose” review. We continue our Captain Trip Japanese mini-LP tour with Mythos’ debut, yet another classic from the Ohr creative freak factory. The cover’s cartoon art is quite telling: We have some sort of winged eyeball ruler sitting on a treestump (or is a rockpile?) with legs crossed, wearing a nifty pair of what looks like PF Flyers. What he’s thinking about or what’s he’s doing there is anybody’s guess, but there’s a better than good chance his brain flew away after digesting the contents of the album. The back cover may be even better: Four eyeballs wearing viking helmets stand ready to do battle with knives and… carrots … and … ice cream cones. Honestly they look like Marvin the Martian hit a tab of acid after taking in Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen”. All in day-glo yellow and pink. You don’t even need to hear a note and already know it’s a classic.

We begin with the 3 minute ‘Mythoett’, where band leader Stefan Kaske shows off his somewhat Tull-ian flute demonstration. A classically motivated piece, the bass and drums drive the piece forward for a pleasant, if not overly creative opener. Acoustic strumming with an Eastern motif introduces the appropriately named ‘Oriental Journey’. Kaske’s voice enters and is heavily processed. In later albums, his voice was not processed. Let’s just say – be grateful it’s affected. Sitar is added as well, giving it the right amount of exoticism. After a couple of minutes, we hit our first “Ohr moment”, as spacey flute and bass guitar are put through the mixer in a completely zoned out cosmic way. Cymbals bash, and hand percussion thumps. It’s Krautrockian. It’s Ohrrockian. It’s the work of the Cosmic Joker meister himself: Dieter Dierks. Scorpions be damned. To this point, however, the album is relatively “normal”. Then comes ‘Hero’s Death’, and it’s time to get all freaky. And downright heavy metal, with a diabolus in musica guitar riff. Disembodied voice enters in while Kaske goes Edgar Froese on us. Which means play the guitar as loud as hell and we’ll worry about notes later. You will drown in the strings mellotron against flute mid-section. The heavy metal returns. Fierce, driving and floating. The album cover art is starting to make sense. Bum-bum-bum-bum-badum badum goes the bass. Bum-bum-bum-bum-badum-badum. Epic.

And we’re only now getting to the side long track: ‘Encyclopedia Terrae’. We’re not in Kansas anymore Dorothy, but in the land of the mutated Marvin the Martian. The planet Ohrian. The death march snare drum. The matching bass. The harmonious guitar. Loud, acid guitar thank you. Not Number 9! Bring me K-9! Then Mythos sounds the air-raid alarm. It’s serious and it’s for real. Synthesizers emulate war sounds while snare drums snap in the background. Bombs are everywhere – no place is safe. The viking eyeballs are winning! In the aftermath we hear church bells and chirping birds as we walk amongst the ruins – synthesizer and bass mournfully play along to the beat. Where better to insert a mellotron blast?

Echoed electric guitar strums as Kaske narrates in heavily accented English: A long time ago there was a man who didn’t want to live in this world of killing and fighting anymore. Fully convinced that mankind would improve and become more peaceful during its evolution, and being a man of genius, he built a machine which would enable him to sleep as in death. A hundred years later the machine was supposed to wake him at which time he hoped to find a better world, one that would be worth living in. One hundred years passed…. The machine woke the man, but although nearly everything had changed, mankind hadn’t. So the man turned his machine and kept returning to it until the 32nd time, when he awoke to find that there was no more life on Earth. (music stops except one sparsely played synth) There was no bird in the sky, no fish in the sea, no tree and no flower. Man had killed all the plants, all the animals (guitar strums again) and at last even himself leaving the Earth a dead bowl in the universe. Seeing this, the man sat down on the bleak ground and tears ran down his cheeks. His lungs inhaled the deadly air and darkness closed in about him as he followed all the others to a place of no fighting and no killing, no grief, no envy and no sorrow. Would you like to know the name of this place? It’s called Eternity and the only gate you must path (sic) through to enter it is the one which separates life and death.

Word.

Annexus Quam – Osmose (1970 Germany)

The Ohr label. No other name evokes the musical experimental wanderlust such as the almighty Ohr. No mistaking its distinctive pink ear and green letter design, and catch phrase “Macht das Ohr Auf!” (Roughly translated “The Ears Open”). And Super Stereo Sound! Bands with names like Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Guru Guru, Embryo, Mythos and…. Annexus Quam. As if that wasn’t enough, speaking of Annexus Quam, how about a crazy gimmix cover that opens on all 4 sides so as to make a 3D pyramid? These eye and ear catching displays of creativity had to be beyond exciting for those clued into the German underground in 1970. How many were is anybody’s guess, but 20 some years later, anyone who had an inkling of rock’s experimental history, were clamoring to unearth any of these treaures of the past. And 20 years past that, most of the 30+ some albums from the label are enshrined into the conscientiousness of anyone who claims hipster status. And we’re still in the discovery phase here, as far as overall awareness is concerned.

With that in mind, the good folks at Captain Trip, the well suited name for this Japanese freak label, have embarked on a program to reissue some of these long lost Ohr classics in the mini-LP format. Only the first two Ash Ra Tempel albums and the entire Ohr catalog of Tangerine Dream has so far been treated to this most meticulous of all CD packaging concepts. And given what was said above about Annexus Quam’s pyramid, it is way past due then that “Osmose” be given the lovely packaging treatment.

Not that the prior CD reissue, Spalax’s multi foldout digi-pak was a slouch, and they are to be commended to have done more than a straight jewel box creation. But there are albums of beauty, and then there are albums of BEAUTY.

With the packaging out of the way, it’s time to focus on the music, which isn’t something Annexus Quam were always keen to do. This was especially apparent on their ill advised followup album on Ohr, “Beziehungen”, a tedious free-jazz noise fest that was at once unbearable and frighteningly tedious. Fortunately for all concerned, their debut would have none of it, and “Osmose” stands as a testament to the original forebearers of creativity, an era that has yet to be revived much less surpassed. This despite the multitude of experimental individual recordings that are dumped each week at our feet only to find they are made by talentless hacks sitting at their laptops and strumming a $6 pawn shop loaner and crooning out of tune lefty ballads for the sick and tired and poor. That is to say, tunes about themselves.

Not so Annexus Quam though. They’re in a ramshackled flat, rigged up as a day camp studio, dragging in every instrument they can find or invent. If they can play the instrument – great. If they can’t, even better. These 7 dudes were experienced jazzers on the circuit, in with the now-sound and out with the old. Flip on the recorders man, we’re ready to play! So much was the intense deep planning for this set, that they even named the songs ahead of the recording. “Let’s go with ’1.A’ ’1.B’ ’1.C’ and, oh I’ve exhausted my brain now, so let’s just go with ’2′”. Play.

Trombone, sax, flute, fuzz guitar, percussion, drums, organ all at once, obviously anxious to get started from the dense pre-planning sessions on song titles. Ritualistic and tribal. Grandiose. Majestic. Each of the sounds are panned from speaker to speaker, as Ohr producer Julius Schittenhelm is having the time of his life twiddling every knob he can find. And then some. It’s a religious experience that can go for hours, and perhaps did in real time, though unfortunately “1.A” is cut short at a mere 4 minutes.

For “1.B”, Annexus Quam finds the early groove and jams, while disembodied voices hum, no, haunt, over the proceedings. Organ, sax and percussion are in the drivers seat. I repeat, it’s a religious experience that can go for hours, and perhaps did in real time, though unfortunately “1.B” is cut short at a mere 3 minutes.

“1.C” introduces a somber melancholy, as trombone and a fuzzed out sax (or is it a clarinet?) carry the lyrical lines, and a guitar mournfully plays somewhat unplugged in the background. There’s that organ again WAAAA-AA-AAA. WAAAA-AA-AA. Hard to phonetically grasp the effect, but it’s so very Krautrockian in its execution. Then the disembodied voice returns. The overall effect evokes a dreamed out trance of epic proportions. It’s at once vivid and lucid, but ultimately blurry. Or “brurry” in its current state. The perfect blend of ingredients for the Ohr styled Krautrock recipe. The band settles on the floor and begins the raga trance, with an Indian like scale played on the electric guitar, while percussion and what sounds like an amplified violin soars on top. The intensity builds as the flute adds an urgency that wasn’t there. Where are we going anyway? Annexus Quam will take us there, wherever it is. I repeat, it’s a religious experience that can go for hours, and perhaps did in real time, though fortunately “1.C” is 10 and a half minutes of bliss and happiness.

Now we get to Side 2, flip the record (hypothetically speaking of course), and begin the long journey of the verbosely named “2″. It starts in almost academic waters, with a solo piano motif. Before too long the bass and percussion join in and it’s time to begin another jam session as the trombone and guitar begin to wreak some havoc. Will we get the phased organ and disembodied voice? Yes! But instead of closing off the session as on Seite 1, they let this one dally on. To loiter about. Perhaps they’re sprinters and not marathoners? Hard to say, but it does get a mite slow going for some of the last 10 minutes or so. It was a foretelling of the future of Annexus Quam. The endless jam. Not a religious experience. The potential to be a Top 50 album of all, only to let the sand slip through the fingers of time.

In the end, Annexus Quam are an understated bunch, never really reaching the insane climaxes of their brothers in undergroundia like Tangerine Dream, Guru Guru or Ash Ra Tempel. Instead they have given us another aural glimpse into a point of time. A crystal clear snapshot of an urban flat, Germany, 1970. And we were all there to witness it. Through a 3D pyramid.