Micro album reviews 03
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Here we are again, with three more short reviews of not short albums.
It's the Krautrock edition this time around.
Agitation Free's "Malesch" (1972) [1]
This is the debut album of a relatively big name in Krautrock - not
as universally known as e.g. Neu or Can but actually much better than
them, to my taste anyway. The band were successful enough preforming
live before recording this to score funding from the Goethe
foundation to take a trip to Lebanon, Egypt, Greece and Cyprus, where
they alternated between performing and making a whole lot of field
recordings of both music and everyday life in these countries. Upon
returning to Germany they recorded this album, interspersing their
music with said field recordings. Really good balance, IMHO, between
guitar-centric and synth-centric music (the latter courtesy of none
other than Michael Hoenig, pre-Tangerine Dream and pre his solo
work), with enough variety in style to never get boring but also none
of the just plain too "weird/experimental at the time, cliched and
uninteresting 50 years later" stuff you find in a lot of this kind of
music from the 70s (e.g. every track with recorded vocals played back
in reverse ever). Completely instrumental from start to finish, like
the vast majority of their later work, too. I'm a solid fan, of this
album and of the band. Conventional wisdom online seems to hold that
their second album (imaginatively named "2nd") is better than this.
I'm not sure I agree. Not that 2nd is bad, it's not. It's good.
Just not sure it's better. Embrace both!
Alongside the band's official website (surprisingly still regularly
updated!) there's a nice fansite[2] which contains a lot of historical
details gleaned from an informational CD-ROM accompaniment (!) to a
90's CD re-release of one of their albums, which talks about the
other bands of the time which the Agitation Free folks played with
and hung out with - which includes both the other two bands whose
albums are reviewed below. In fact, this fansite was how I first
learned about Kraan! Great resource, with classic period web design
to boot.
Ash Ra Tempel's "Inventions for Electric Guitar" (1975) [3]
Despite being released under the Ash Ra Tempel name, this is actually
founding guitarist Manuel Göttsching's first solo album (which were
subsequently released under the "Ashra" name). Göttsching when on
to have quite the career, eventually moving from just playing the
guitar to mastering synthesisers, too (with which he started off in a
relatively typical 70's Berlin School style but later basically
invented ambient/minimal techno with the incredible album E2-E4).
But his early solo work (this and the later "Blackouts" album) is
defined by mind-blowing solo guitar work. This album obviously
predates anything like the modern looper pedal, but a very similar
effect has been obtained using tape delays and (according to the FAQ
at ashra.com) playing while watching a large stop watch! Really
spacey stuff. The opening track "Echo Waves" (about 18 minutes long)
is more energetic than anything that follows and is, IMHO, the
highlight, but the whole thing is good. If you like this, check out
"Blackouts", too - each of them fits without much waste on one side
of a 90 minute tape, if you're into that kind of thing.
Kraan's "Let it out" (1975) [4]
Kraan are a little jazzier, a little more cheerful and a little more
poppish than your average Krautrock band - to the extent that you
might question whether they belong in the genre or not, which I guess
depends on whether or not you think it *is* a clearly defined genre
with actual defining musical characteristics or whether it's just a
sort of wastepaper basket that people can drop any music from a
particular place at a particular time into. Well, whatever, I like
'em, which is increasingly rare for me these days when it comes to
bands whose work features singing as a matter of course. Compared to
their contemporaries, Kraan distinguish themselves in part by making
regular and strong use of the saxophone. Surprisingly, these guys
are still around and still performing, and I understand that these
days they are squarely in the jazz / fusion arena, which doesn't
surprise me at all. I'm only familiar thus far with the material
from their first four albums, of which this is the last. Their style
seems to have remained more or less the same during this early
period. That's not a complaint, I enjoy the style and they do it
well, just letting you know that if you dig it too there's more where
it came from. I chose this album to in particular mention here
instead of any other mostly because lately I've just been really
enjoying the title track "Bandits in the Woods", but really, this is
more of a "check out Kraan" post than a "check out Let It Out".
[1]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iai7_F5nZyQ
[2]
https://www.agitation-free.de/index.html
[3]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DtqR98Pbl8
[4]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDJmbqCH7Sk
