From allmusic.com:
“Walter Wegmüller wasn’t actually a musician, but rather a mystic, artist and eccentric. Some of the cream of cosmic Krautrock backed him up on his one album, Tarot, which is generally considered a masterpiece. This Swiss Gypsy was well known in the late ’60s, where he hung out with Sergius Golowin and visual artist H.R. Giger, and in the early 1970s, Timothy Leary, on the run from the American authorities, hung out with them as well. At this time Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser, rock journalist and head of Ohr Records, decided to start a new label, Kosmische Musik, to release more cosmic sounds, with the idea of having various visionaries on vocals, which soon lead him to Switzerland. After recording the first of these albums, Seven Up, which paired Ash Ra Tempel with Leary in autumn 1972, work began on the second and third records, by Golowin and Wegmüller. By now Kaiser had gathered a stable of musicians, which included Ash Ra Tempel and Wallenstein, to work on these various projects as the Cosmic Couriers.
As Wegmüller had been working on a set of handmade tarot cards over several years since 1968, at the suggestion of Leary he decided to do an album based on the tarot deck. The project started in Switzerland in late 1972, again with Ash Ra Tempel as backing musicians, when Wegmüller suddenly decided there should be a track for each of the 22 cards of the major arcana. Kaiser, becoming more impressed in the project, flew Wegmüller and Ash Ra Tempel to Germany, to add more musicians into the stew. The band Wallenstein and keyboardist Klaus Schulze had just finished the Golowin project, so they joined Manuel Gottsching and Hartmut Enke of Ash Ra Tempel, as well as Walter Westrüpp from the duo Witthuser-Westrüpp, on the Tarot lineup to create a cosmic Krautrock super-group.
The Tarot sessions were recorded in December of 1972 in Dieter Dierk’s studios in Stommeln near Cologne. During one of the sessions, Gottsching, Enke, and Schulze, were waiting for the other musicians to arrive, and decided to record an album. Schulze had left Ash Ra Tempel in early 1971, after their first album, so the record, Join Inn, found that band with their original lineup, with the addition of some spoken vocals from Gottsching’s girlfriend, Rosi Muller, who also provided backup vocals on Tarot.”
Julian Cope:
“This huge double-LP is as all-encompassing as rock’n’roll gets, proving that Krautrock’s greatest strength was its ability to consume all American and British music, assimilate it, and then regurgitate it all as though the Mothers, the Velvets, the Doors, the Stones, the Fugs, the free-rock and free-jazz of Detroit, and the experimentation of Germany could all be thrown into some Kosmiche Pot. They truly proved that it could. Beginning like the Hendrix-y side of early Funkadelic, “Der Narr” is tearing jagged old-fashioned funk like Detroit loved to make. Jurgen Dollase’s piano is cocktail-mayhem — really the Funkadelic LP is the best comparison. In contrast, “Der Magier” comes on like some Kosmiche night-rally, all screaming synths and freaky keyboards before jumping in with both feet to a one-chord driving blues that barely establishes itself before breaking down again as Walter Wegmüller makes his proclamations. But explaining the diversity of this album should not blind anyone to its obvious total cohesion, for there is a unified theme and manner of playing which pushes this music out of the reach of other rock’n’roll musicians. It is the performance — the confidence and the sheer ability to make decisions on the spur of the moment which transcends all other scenes. On Tarot, the commitment is to the project. At no point does the ego of rock musicians become an issue, all are subordinate to the main Trip. I cannot drudge endlessly through the record with detailed descriptions. They would be boring and facile, and no way could I explain individual pieces which are intended to work as a whole. The mix of the music is so unbalanced that even and Elton John ballad would sound extreme in such surroundings. “Die Herrscherin” is pretty pretty cosmic bongo based island music, but it is followed with the New York Lou Reed riffing of “Der Herrscher”, as un-Kosmiche as it gets. The strength of the Cosmic Couriers is their indivudal ability and their lack of need to impress this at all times. R-U Kaiser also shows incredible judgement for recording these magic men. Like Golowin, Walter Wegmüller grabs the attention with the same bollocks as Jim Morrison, and imparts meaning without the need to be constantly in the face of the listener. In other words, he says his bit and lets the music take you out there. On “Der Wagen/Die Gerechtigkeit”, we could be in the middle of an Ash Ra Tempel blitz. I would guess that we are really, there’s just more people to contribute to it and they all reveal the same high level of Unification Of Intuition. The ritual and performance is awesome, the sounds bizarre, threatening, comforting, inspiring and often excruciating all at the same time.
So wide are the parameters of Tarot that Klaus Schultze even narrates “Der Weise” in a delicate boy’s tone which is extremely touching, especially at the end when Klaus, his text all finished, apparently unconsciously begins to hum along with the track. Man, I’m listening to the album as I write this and I have to tell you Tarot is the whole of rock’n’roll in one double-LP. Now “Die Kraft” sounds a bit like Funkadelic again, wild solo guitars over tribal drumming and bizarre deep spoken words. Later on, they’ll launch into a There’s a Riot Goin’ On-period Sly drum-machine piece that still sound so uplifting — I have to admire the sheer Poetic Greed of the Cosmic Couriers. They wanted to do it all, and they fucking achieved!! There’s no point in carrying on this ridiculous attempt. BUY THE ALBUM: IT’S THE SOUND OF THE COSMOS. By Side 4 (CD2), they’re given up on the structure and gone for an early Afterburn. But that’s cool as well, because it’s the greatest craze-out of all. I’ll leave now, I’m gibbering.”
I was working at the golf range one morning when Ian discovered this album and sent it in my direction. I think I listened to it on repeat for whatever remained of my normal ten-hour shift. It’s an album that continues to amaze me, even after countless listens. It can work as a fun drug album with your friends, it can be a late-night soundtrack to put you to sleep, it is good driving music…it’s one of those rare records I think everybody needs to hear at some point in their lives. It has become quite scarce in recent years, so I hope you’ll take this opportunity to investigate. I think you’ll like it.
Walter Wegmüller
Tarot
Disc 1Mediafire Download Link
Disc 2 Mediafire Download Link
01. Der Narr
02. Der Magier
03. Die Hohepriesterin
04. Die Herrscherin
05. Der Herrscher
06. Der Hohepriester
07. Die Entscheidung
08. Der Wagen
09. Die Gerechtgkeit
10. Der Weise
11. Das Glucksrad
12. Die Kraft
13. Die Prufung
14. Der Tod
15. Die Massigkeit
16. Der Teufel
17. Die Zerstorung
18. Die Sterne
19. Der Mond
20. Die Sonne
21. Das Gericht
22. Die Welt
