Until last week, I’d never heard of this album. Ian sent it to me. Maybe he was trying to inspire me to rewrite my list of ten albums he turned me onto, because this one definitely would make that list. I’ve listened to it a half-dozen times in the last week. It’s that good. Mike Prete from Progweed writes, “Comprised of what was then the band Uriel, Arzachel contained some of the earliest protagonists of the prog world using faux names as to not violate their existing contract. What we have here is one of the earliest recordings to fall under the ‘prog’ umbrella. As can be expected from the recording date, the music here is more along the lines of psych, rather than typical symphonic prog or canterbury. Sprinkling clouds of Hammond drift along under lethargic vocals to be cut by distorted guitar and spiral into a cacophony of squealing sounds. Mont Campbell and Hillage alternate vocal duties singing of spacey mysticism (hey, what do you expect – it’s still the late 60s). Hints of what to come later in Egg and Khan surface every now and then; “Garden of Earthly Delights” resembling to the former and being very similar to “Seven Is A Jolly Good Time” with it’s lush organ and jerky vocals, while “Leg” typifies the British blues jamming influences of the latter. The closer, “Metempsychosis” brings to mind early Krautrock such as Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel; dissonant, spacey organ sounds, whirling guitar riffs, and driving, pulsating rhythms.”
Arzachel
Arzachel
MediaFire Download link
Track Listing:
01) Garden Of Earthly Delights
02) Azathoth
03) Queen St. Gang
04) Leg
05) Clean Innocent Fun
06) Metempsychosis
I don’t remember how I uncovered this album, but it was one of the earliest non-Can, Neu!, or Ash Ra Tempel Krautrock-related albums I heard. I’ve since sold many of my snobby friends on it, so I figure it’s probably a good idea to share it with all of you as well. The Mutant Sounds blog (if you haven’t bookmarked that site, do so now. They share some incredibly hard-to-find albums. I’ve even caught coworkers looking at it when trying to figure out what the hell they’re holding in their hands) put this album up for download last year (what took you so long?). They had this to say in their review/description:
“Kollektiv was an almost unknown Krautrock formation hailing from Krefeld and originally consisted of Waldo Karpenziel (drums), his twin brother Jogi (bass), Jürgen Havix (guitars) and Klaus Dapper (flute and sax) who played before together with Ralf Hütter (who founded pre-Kraftwerk band Organisation soon after) in a band called The Phantoms. Waldo, Jogi and Jürgen started playing together in a school band already back in 1964. After listening to Frank Zappa, Blodwyn Pig and King Crimson records, and a couple of jazz musicians like Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery and Cannonball Adderly, they gradually got bored by Beat music and decided to do something completely different. They started using effect machines (sometimes homemade), a zither played with drumsticks on an amplifier, metal sheets and rotating discs, and a bowed bass. To make a long story short Kollektiv had been a Krautrock band in its very original sense doing really inventive music mainly based on improvisations of minimal themes, often in excess of 10, 15 or more minutes. The music presented here is much more diversified and elaborate than the one of Neu! and moreover despite all free-form and loosely structured nature much more enjoyable and comprehensible. A Klaus Dapper interview published in Sounds magazine in 1974 explained, “The high complexity in harmony and melody of jazz music and its overvaluation of instrumental virtuosity is quite disturbing for some of us and a non-expert can easily get the impression that it’s a kind of competition between musician and listener which is successful for the former if he plays more complicated than the latter is able to support. In several domains of rock and pop music on the other hand melodies, lyrics, arrangements and improvisations are sometimes that much uninspired and poor. We’re trying to find a blend between those genres and other forms of music (free-form and electronic) without taking over those mistakes mentioned. Our music has a structure which is simpler than it’s used to be in jazz, instead we pay more attention to tones and moods. It’s predominantly improvised music what we’re doing. Even most of the themes and determined parts are originally based on improvisation. We broaden the common range of tone colours by using sometimes a rather strong electronic alienation of guitar, flute or saxophone. According to our experience our music is well appreciated by both jazz and rock fans since each of them can find sufficient elements of their preferred style respectively.â€
Kollektiv
Kollektiv
MediaFire Download Link
Track Listing:
01) Rambo-Zambo
02) Baldrian
03) Försterlied
04) Gageg – A) Andante
05) Gageg – B) Allegro
06) Gageg – C) Preβluft
I don’t know a damned thing about Lynx other than they were fucking incredible. Their unofficial MySpace page says something about how they all met in the Boston area, but it’s a first-hand account, and the grammar is poor. Splendid E-‘Zine writes, “Lynx’s instrumentals are plucky from the first track, growing more introspective as the album progresses. The Boston-based band is somewhat reminiscent of Tristeza. Their strong point is drums and guitars, including steel guitars. The voices Lynx can mimic with guitars are intriguing: “In Snow” begins and ends quietly, building slowly with the repetitive fingering, whereas “In Sand” uses bass to create a more ominous tone. Back to back, they’re nearly companion pieces, making them even smarter than they sound. “Explosive Diarrhea” is as nauseating as its title, repeating the same unconnected themes over and over again. There are two really obvious musical jokes on the listener: “Pyrnx” fades in and out in the opening of the track, while “Raisins”, a quieter and seemingly more cohesive track, ends softly with the sound I knew in cartoons as pterodactyls. If you’re a musician, Lynx’s subtleties should please you.”
Lynx
Lynx
MediaFire Download Link
Track Listing:
01) Look At That Table And Make It Spin In Your Head
02) Mrs. Lynx
03) Explosive Diarrhea (Part 1, Part 2)
04) In Snow
05) In Sand
06) Aries
07) Prynx
08) United States
09) Raisins
Like any obsessed Smashing Pumpkins fan who came of age in the mid-’90s, I learned about the Frogs at an unnaturally early stage of my life. I think I was 13 the first time I purchased one of their albums (the Billy Corgan-produced Starboy EP). From that moment on, I was sold on the Frogs as the greatest band I’d ever heard that none of my friends knew. I used to spend hours clicking through their official website reading lyrics and song titles. Their albums were called things like My Daughter The Broad, and the one called Racially Yours contained the most offensive songs and lyrics I’d ever read, plus there was an ugly picture of a guy in blackface on the cover. I would laugh to myself as I read the words to songs rife with stereotypes and cruel jokes aimed at gays and minorities. I couldn’t understand if they were being ironic or not.
When I was a sophomore in college I went to Montreal to record a handful of songs I’d written with Ian and Josh at Breakglass Studios. During that time span, a short trip to a record store called L’Oblique netted me a beautiful vinyl copy of It’s Only Right And Natural. I still show it off to friends who haven’t heard The Frogs. It has always been a great party record. If you don’t know who The Frogs are, please enjoy this record. If it offends you, you’re not getting it. Long live The Frogs.
The Frogs
It’s Only Right And Natural
MediaFire Download Link
Track Listing:
01) I’ve Got Drugs (Out Of The Mist)
02) I Don’t Care If You Disrespect Me (Just So You Love Me)
03) Hot Cock Annie
04) These Are The Finest Queen Boys (I’ve Ever Seen)
05) Rosy Jack World
06) Someone’s Pinning Me To The Ground
07) Baby Greaser George
08) (Thank God I Died) In The Car Crash
09) Gather ‘Round For Savior #2
10) Richard Dick Harris
11) Men (Come On Men)
12) Dykes We Are
13) Been A Month Since I Had A Man
14) Homos
