“A remastered ‘official bootleg’ documenting Diagonal in its second formation – playing live in support of Wolf People in 2012 at the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds. A very different beast to the current band line-up, this Diagonal shared territory with the likes of Magma and ‘Red’ era King Crimson. Hot from the release of their second album ‘The Second Mechanism’ Diagonal were in top muscular form, sonically blasting West Yorkshire with unique, pulsating heavy prog.”
“When a power trio can share the stage comfortably with the likes of John McLaughlin and Black Sabbath, you know two things: They rock hard, yet provide enough harmonic content and improvisational daring to make it interesting. Norway’s Hedvig Mollestad Trio does precisely that on its sixth album. Recorded live in the studio, Smells Funny is a metal-jazz excursion that often tips into the Sonny Sharrock zone, fueled by Ellen Brekken’s rumbling bass, Ivar Loe Bjørnstad’s insistent pulse and Mollestad’s hellacious chops and fertile imagination… When Frank Zappa famously said, “Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny,” he was referring to a moldering of the music. The Hedvig Mollestad Trio aims at providing an antidote with this audacious outing.”
Kraut fusion jams by German krautrock band Embryo recorded live in Bremen 23.9.1971.
Kraut fusion jams by German krautrock band Eiliff recorded live in Köln 18.10.1972.
“Five young guys from Munich. Skilled and tight on their instruments and deeply rooted in the heritage of all kind of wild forms of jazz, krautrock and psychedelic music. The kids began to jam together when starting to study music in 2012. Being from Munich, a town where legendary Kraut Rock bands like Amon Düül, Guru Guru and Embryo came from, the Karaba guys are obviously influenced by these german kraut and psychedelic sounds.”
“Peter Michael HAMEL founded BETWEEN, an international band specialised in improvisational / « ethnic » rock music. The name Between comes from the fact that Hamel’s music is originaly “in-between”, always making a combination between “popular music” and “serious music”… “And the waters openened” recorded in 1973 carries on improvisations and acoustic exploration, played in a rather “spacey” rock atmosphere, sometimes closed to krautrock, weird flavour.”
“A key band in the early history of Kraftwerk, Ibliss featured pre-Kraftwerk Organisation members, and Andreas Hohmann the original Kraftwerk drummer. They played heavy trippy Krautrock fusion with the accent on percussion.”
“Munich supergroup project fronted by Klaus Weiss. Klaus had become fascinated with the possibility of creating a drum orchestra out of the wealth of Munich rock and jazz drummers, and thus Niagara was born featuring percussionists from all backgrounds.”
“The band has been growing or cultivating a certain sound over the years, and I feel this has found its best form so far on ‘Dust Breathing’. This album sort of mirrors ‘States of Mind’, where I wanted to make the band into more of a collaborative group, and to step down from the bandleader role. The members have such strong musical personalities that the only way I had of getting that out of them was to open the gates and just record for days. We did some collaborative songwriting and lots of free improvisations, with the composition done in the post production, editing and mixing process. On ‘Dust Breathing’ I have tried to distil the type of music we created together on ‘States of Mind’, carefully keeping in mind the balance between composing/pre-directing/controlling and letting all band members act as equal contributors.”
“Norwegian trio Krokofant plays energetic and explosive jazz rock that is both free and structured.
Krokofant consists of Tom Hasslan (guitar), Jørgen Mathisen (saxophone) and Axel Skalstad (drums). They are heavily rooted in the 1970 jazz rock sound, with strong references to King Crimson, early Mahavishnu, John Zorn and Peter Brötzmann. An expression that hits both rock audiences and freejazzers. With a drummer sounding like a turbocharged hybrid of Keith Moon and Elvin Jones, Krokofant plays precise and heavy riffs that are redeemed by jarring and strong improvisations. Long, wild saxophone solos are matched by extremely creative, virtuoso guitar playing, without compromising on interaction and groove.”