“German acid rock project. The obscure and underrated “Dawn Defender” from 1976 is constantly mysterious, abstract and experimental, delivering interlocking electronic soundscapes punctuated by electric guitar manipulations and echoing effects. The album was originally released Tony Robinson for Pyramid label. A serious “kosmische” krautrock manifestation, a perfect & strange dreamy-like musical journey throw ultra psych textures. Pretty closed to the Cosmic Jokers (first) and A.R & the machines.”
Golem – Orion Awakes (1973)
“An obscure instrumental Krautrock band from the 70s. Ecclectic, psychedelic epic rock with lot of Hammond organs, heavy drums and jamming guitars. Their album Orion Awakes (1973) belongs to Pyramid Records archives. Amazing, catchy improvised free spacey rockin’ trip that can reminds the best efforts delivered by early Pink Floyd, Gila, Dies Irae, Jane.”
Gila – Gila (1971)
“Instrumental improv spacerock extravaganza that can stand proudly alongside better-known works by Ash Ra Tempel, Pink Floyd or Amon Düül II… Gila could jam out the blues with the best of them, but they never found the success that eluded them.”
Verma – Salted Earth (2010)
“Chicago’s coolest new kid on the psych-rock-block brings us a cassetteful of drugged-out atmospheres, scattered with proggy guitar grooves and meandering femme vocals, tense drone and a bit of synth thrown in for good measure. Their influences are all over the place, and they make for one fucking solid product: Try slowing down the bass grooves of Suicide, add two parts Wooden Shjips’ repetitiveness, three parts Black Sabbath darkness, one part horror soundtrack a la Goblin, three parts stoner metal-era Boris, four parts Neu krautscapes, and you’re getting warmer to Verma.”
Acid Mothers Guru Guru – Psychedelic Navigator (2007)
“Kawabata Makoto (guitar) and Tsuyama Atsushi (bass, vox) of Acid Mothers Temple got together with Guru Guru drummer/vocalist Mani Neumeier to form the psych supergroup Acid Mothers Guru Guru. They toured and released Psychedelic Navigator, an album of improvised live material, in 2007.”
Neumeier, Genrich, Schmidt – Psychedelic Monsterjam (2004)
“Live recordings from June/August 2003 by the trio of Mani Neumeier (drums, percussion), Ax Genrich (guitar), both from 70’s German improv/space rock outfit Guru Guru, and Dave Schmidt (bass) known from Liquid Vision, Zone Six, Sula Bassana & Weltraumstaunen. They jam in the tradition of early Guru Guru and rock out extended instrumental tracks of spontaneously improvised psychedelic spacerock including versions of Guru Guru classics (Stone in, Electric Junk, Next time see you at the Dalai Lhama).”
Guru Guru – UFO (1970)
“Guru Guru is one of the most notable German Krautrock bands, existing from the late 1960s to the present. The band has had many incarnations over nearly 4 decades. Drummer Mani Neumeier has remained as the only original member. Mani and bassist Uli Trepte came from playing free jazz in the mid 1960’s with pianist Irene Schweizer and the appear on an obscure out of print album under her name shortly before forming Guru Guru in the late 1960’s. They were joined by ex-Agitation Free guitarist Ax Geinrich as a “power trio” that was clearly influenced by Hendrix, Zappa and LSD and perhaps Karlheinz Stockhausen… Guru Guru were looser, more improvisational and noisy than most of the Krautrock bands of that time.”
The Cosmic Jokers – The Cosmic Jokers (1974)
“The COSMIC JOKERS is an extreme musical trip, a unique adventure throw time and space. The music is for a large part improvised with proto-electronic gadgets combined to bluesy & spacey musical sentences built around the talented Manuel Gottsching’s electric guitar style (always spacey and bluesy). This is real German acid music, a ‘music of paradise’, transcending music, breaking of the materialistic world, a protest against the reality.”
Ash Ra Tempel – Ash Ra Tempel (1971)
“One of the most formidable of the German Krautrock groups, ASH RA TEMPEL were a powerful force led by guitarist Manuel GÖTTSCHING, and also included former TANGERINE DREAM drummer Klaus SCHULZE at various points. Their music is very spacy and psychedelic, in the manner popularized by early HAWKWIND and AMON DÜÜL II. The early albums all had basically one track a side, one more powerful and dramatic, the other of a more atmospheric nature. Their albums are all classics; those with Klaus SCHULZE (“Ash Ra Tempel” and “Join Inn”) are the best. ASH RA TEMPEL’s first release is a classic of the space/cosmic genre.”
German Oak – German Oak (1990)
“In the strange Olympic summer of 1972, the Düsseldorf instrumental group (community of 5 hippies / open mind artists) German Oak entered the Luftschutzbunker (or Air Raid Shelter), in order to record their eponymous first self-titled LP. The purpose of recording in a bunker was to recreate the feelings experienced by German soldiers during the Allied invasion of 1944. The strange acoustic conditions in the bunker made the music, which was a series of long, spacious guitar jams, sound distant and filled with echo… By consequence German Oak’s music is very tortured, dark and weird, dominated by heavy, “distorted” guitar solos & rhythms. The background creates “painful” & “ambient” sequences thanks to delay echoes, electronic “fuzzy” noises & repetitive bass lines.”