Coo-Coo, Coo-Coo!

Being released privately by the group and Josef Alterbaum (who recorded and mixed it) and pressed in limited quantities makes it almost impossible to find on original vinyl. The wonderful person I got my copy from bought it directly from the group when they were touring Germany in 1978.
The music is somewhere between Krautrock and proper Jazzrock (with Jazzrock being the stronger part in the mix)) and I guess it will appeal to Jazzheads as to Kraut-Fans. Partially very funky and then there's that Ethno vibe in some of the tracks that we love a lot. Supposingly Gert Lueken is responsible for these vibes. He wrote, arranged and played synths, piano, percussion and clarinet on Tri Atma records some years later! In 1975 he played live with the Krautjazzers Thirsty Moon (highly recommended too and a lot easier to find... reissues!!!)
Over at Green Brain and Friends they say that the guys were also responsible for the Malcom Locks LP but I couldn't find any more information on that, so I dare to call it a rumour. If you know more, please TELL US! Cheers!

Get some info here
and the link from the comments.

Expect the Unexpected . . .

Okay, here we have some fresh sounds from the 70s. I'm sure anyone keeping track of sounds in the blogosphere are aware of Lem's 'Machines'. Alex Cima and Bryce Robbley composed the music for this effort and added some fairly leftfield lyrics to some of the tracks. The record was a private release on Wavefront Records (the only release on this label). The machines were various electronic music making devices: synthesizers, vocoders, Syndrums, arpeggiators, etc. Cima went on to produce some grail vinyls and Robbley was caught up in a Moebius strip (more on that later). All this occurred in 1977 on the left coast of North America.

Gelatenheid

Here's a lovely Jazz LP from the short lived "Dutch Treat" led by infamous Jan Huydts on keys and synths. Check out his recordings with the group "Third Eye" if you don't them already - amazing fusion stuff.... now Tranquility is the name of this album here and that's what it sounds like. A lesson in subtle finesse. Short and precise song structures instead of noodling it to death ... and then comes the drum solo....  but still you'll have your gentle wahwah guitars, funky flutes and bossa synths. Off to dreamland ....  Cheers, Basso

check out 678records who released never heard before tracks from Jan Huydts (together with Rob Franken and Henk Zomer) called KEYBOARD CIRCLE. they have soundclips and these sound amazing.....

Cosmic Alchemy

First solo lp for Claude Perraudin released in 1977. Most of his credits have been as guitarist on other artists productions starting in 1967 with Serge Lama. He also produced several Library works for Patchwork starting in 1973. Perraudin played all instruments on Mutation 24 including guitars, bass, synthesizers, drums and percussion. If you have a close look at that hour glass on the sleeve, it appears the mutation is a sex change. Hmmm

Mutation 24

My favourite SNOWBALL

Okay the picture may not fit the music, but I had to ....... I usually don't post single tracks, but in this case (and maybe a few more in the future) I'll make an exception. I do this because I just found another copy of an LP that I almost forgot about. Strange enough, because one of the LP's tracks always accompagnied me (on my mp3 player) for almost 4 years now. Unfortunately I didn't name that mp3 properly. It just said "Tender Storm" and every time I lisened to it I was tenderly blown away. And every time I listened to it I thought "You'll hav to go through your records to find out what this is" and of course forgot about that a minute later. Yesterday I saw a copy of an LP that I already had (at a decent price) and listened to it. You already guessed it: There it was. "Tender Storm" on Snowball's (Kristian Schultze, Curt Cress, ....) Defroster LP from 1977. I love it!!!!!





PS. Four years ago I placed this ca. 150x150x150 cm sized snowball on the local
doggy lawn in the town I studied. It was then coloured by several four-legged artists.

Dreamlike Land

Richard Schneider Jr.' s "Dreamlike Land" is my favourite LP for quite a while now.
Please excuse that I won't say anything about the style of this goody. Just imagine Jaki Liebezeit on Drums, a guy called Jumpy (Helmut Zerlett) on keys & synths, almighty Wolfgang Maus on Bass and an ironic Mr. Schneider on Glockenspiel, Acoustic 12 String guitar, Synthesizer, Tubelar Bells, Tambourine & Cowbells ........ See you at the beach!

Cheers,
Basso

Schlüssel on Calig

"Schlüssel" is the german word for key. It's the one that unlocks the door.
Another german word for key is "Taste". It's a part of the piano.
There's not much info about Key in the net (my first time using this common phrase), so I'll have to work with whats' given on the backcover. Key consists of 5 very young musicians. My guess is that they all are students at that time. The leading figure seems to be Markus Stockhausen, son of Karl Heinz Stockhausen, and he's 20 years old when recording that particular album. Actually he's the only one of the group I have ever heard about, but as you probably know my knowledge is very limited. The liner notes by Manfred Schoof report about an exciting and interesting young group ..... all compositions were written by members of the group ...... group of great promise....
The only thing I might add is that I like this LP because of the playful variation of styles. Even within the tracks. "Please be good to me" starts off rather powerful switches into funky and slips into a more loveboatish Bob James part.
My favourites are the modal "Birds flying" and the free ballad "Rheda".
It's yours.

Key (1977 Calig)
recorded @ Dierks Sudio Stommeln
Recording Engineer: Justus Liebig

Bouillabass versus Lauren

The Crew's 3rd release on Calig featuring Lauren Newton.
There's a lot more freedom in here and it's not my cup of tea.
But ( and this is a very big but) "Bouillabass" is a monster of a tune
and I like "Flying Bird" just as much (check out KEY's same titled LP
from 1977 on Calig including the wonderful "Birds Flying").
Please understand that I cannot say too much about the rest of the tracks
except from "great instrumentation" or "interesting structures" and a "voice".

Cheers,
Basso

Blow that trombone, Jigga

Sorry for that stupid title!
This is Jiggs (Oliver Haydn) Whigham's second album under his own name.
The first one is "Values" on the infamous MPS label from the black forest and
is really hard to get nowadays. Besides from that album he appeared on a bunch
of great MPS records like most of Peter Herbolzheimers Rhythm Combination & Brass joints or on Charly Antolini's funky "Soul Beat" or on Peter Trunk's massive "Sincerely P.T." on the superrare Aamok lable ( I will probably post that in few weeks time). I like this one more than his first, because it's a great mix of up and down, slow and fast, jazzy and funky, latin & even a feel of boogaloo.

Produced and arranged by Jiggs Whigham
Jiggs Whigham - trombone, percussion
Ferdinand Povel - saxes, flutes
Rob Franken - piano, fender rhodes
Nils Henning Orsted Pedersen - bass
Grady Tate -drums

Recorded in Cologne , January 24th 1976.
Released 1977 on Telefunken

download link on request