some reviews from Gibraltar:
An excellent seventies jazz/rock/spacemusic band. Two of their mid seventies works, Andy Nogger and one other were released through Jem in the USA. I think. Hellmut Hattler's bass playing is excellent, the guitarist is superb, and they have a sax player who I think at times uses effects pedals and wah wah and can even sound like a keyboard player sometimes. They added keys later on. First couple LPs were classic space rock, and then they got a very refined sound, very fun, funky rock with a really spacey feel. Later LPs added keyboards to the original guitar, bass, drums, sax lineup. I think the Live double LP really stands out as a high point in their releases. The two LPs that made it out in the US are good, but I think are weakened a little by the vocals. I'm inclined to almost compare them to Steely Dan because of their excellant musicianship and pristine production on the later works, but they don't really sound at all like Steely Dan. The later LPs tend to get more slick and faster and faster to a point of near technical over-indulgence. Kraan is a primarily-instrumental outfit that blends the very best elements of fusion, funk, space and progressive - led by bassist extrordinaire Hellmut Hattler - into a unique style of their own. The early albums (through Let It Out) featured Johannes Pappert on sax, who did some pretty inventive stuff using special effects. With Let it Out they added a keyboardist and subsequently Pappert left, so the later albums have a slightly different feel. Most of their tracks are instrumentals, the few vocal tracks tend to be fairly eccentric. A good place to start is the Live album (a double LP on single CD) which contains the best material from the first three, or Let It Out. Talk about "get the funk out!": I have Kraan's Live and have heard a little of Tournee. Live is a fantastic album that owes as much to jazz/funk as it does rock. There are two players that stand out immediately: Peter Wolfbrandt on guitar and Hellmut Hattler on bass. Wolfbrandt's guitar is clean, refined, and very tasteful, whether he's in a funk or rock groove. Hattler's bass is all OVER the place. He must have six fingers on each hand! Johannes Pappert is the sax player and he usually sounds like anything but a sax. At times I thought it was a violin and other times sounded more like a synth, just like Miles Davis during his mid-70's funk/fusion era. Jan Fride, the drummer, sets up a rock solid groove. It's really hard to imagine this is four piece music. On Tournee, the sax is replaced by a real set of keyboards and the drummer changed. The funk groove is still there but no so pronounced, while the fusion groove is enhanced, reminding me somewhat of Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group. I don't know about the rest of their work, but these two are excellent. Great space-rock/jazz-fusion mix. Led by the restless guitar and raucous rock vocals of Peter Wolbrandt, and featuring the monster bass playing of the bespectacled Helmut Hattler (he may be one of the top five bassists of all-time!), Kraan made a spacy jazz/prog type of music with some Middle-Eastern themes, yet retained true rock power. No keyboardist at this early stage, but alto-sax player Johannes Pappert often makes his instrument sound like a synth, violin, flute or oboe. This lineup reaches its peak on Andy Nogger, which is virtually swimming in crazy sound-effects. "Stars," "Holiday am Marterhorn," "Nam Nam" and "Yellow Bamboo" are all among the band's best song. The double Live album is a great introduction to the band if you can find it, including tracks not available anywhere else, and extended versions of "Nam Nam" and "Andy Nogger." Let It Out adds ex-Karthago keyboardist Ingo Bischof to the lineup, and starts to carry on toward more conventional fusion territory, but not too far. The American (Passport label) issue of this features several remixed tracks. Wiederhoeren treads further into straight fusion, but the amazing "Vollgas Ahoi" and the Caravan-like title track proves they can still jam with the best of them. Tournee is another live album. I heard some of a much later album, very conventional indeed, and not too interesting. -- Mike Ohman Regarding Wiederhören:I think this albums on more funk edge, thus it is somehow forgotten by prog society, music alike first three albums is very spacey and funky but very progressive, needs to be listened carefully. All of them plays incredible, apart from Hellmut Hattlers superb bass playing, drummer Jan Fride's perfomance is amazing. Wiederhoeren is the best Kraan album. Get it listen it and listen and again listen as the name of the album suggests. WIEDERHÖREN ["Listen Again" in German - Ed.] -- Emrah Yucelen
Wiki:
The musical style of the album suggests a cross between Hunky Dory-era Bowie, Elton John's early 1970s albums and some decidedly Jaggeresque vocals. Lyrically the album combines science fiction imagery, sexuality themes and tributes to female movie icons. The daring (for 1973) opening track, "Take Me I'm Yours" is an overtly S&M fantasy ...take it out on me baby, I'm ready, for your troubles I'm expedient, you're the master, come on faster, to your nature I'm obedient...
Other highlights include the glamour praising, "I'maman" and the risque closing track, "Blow Away": ...and all the pretty boys lay in the passage of every song that etched its way from out my bleeding heart....blow blow blow away, blow blow blow away...its very gay to blow away
01. Take Me I'm Yours 4:17
02. Be Still 3:42
03. World Without End 3:47
04. Space Clown 2:38
05. Earthling 3:36
06. Movie Queen 1:54
07. I'm A Man 3:40
08. Inside 3:52
09. Morning Star Ship 3:31
10. Rock Of Ages 2:23
11. Blow Away 5:00
Personnel:
Jobriath
Billy Schwartz
Steve Love
John Syomis
Andy Munson
Ken Bichel
Peter Frampton
Carl Hall
Tasha Thomas
Rhetta Hughes
Heather Macrae
Zenobia
Peggy Nestor
Gerhard
from Tapestry of Delights:
Formed by former Nice bassist and vocalist Lee Jackson when The Nice split in 1969. The name was taken from a district of New York. Musically they were more pop-orientated than The Nice, but they built up a good live reputation through relentless touring. Their debut album on Charisma made little impact although it did contain a fine version of an old Nice favourite Cry Of Eugene and another highlight was a similarly gentle, atmospheric song Insomnia. They re-emerged a couple of years later on Vertigo with 5th Avenue Bus, an album of melodic, well constructed and somewhat orchestrated pop-orientated material. This format was repeated on Ragamuffin's Fool, which was housed in a poster sleeve. After a final effort, Bump And Grind, they disbanded, but in 1974 Jackson formed Refugee, who cut an album for Charisma. After this he disappeared from the music scene for good. The Aardvark's Dave Watts also had a spell in Jackson Heights.
Style: psych
Country: us
Audio: lossless (ape, cue, log, scans)
time : 40'03" Size: 247 mb
from Fuzz Acid & Flowers:
This group was from Columbus, Ohio. They started out as a combination of two local groups, The Ebb Tides and Tree. They continued as Tree and won a recording deal from Mercury as a prize in a local band competition. Craig Fuller was added to the group after some of the material for the Ultimate Prophecy had already been written. The album credits two people who don't play a note on it - Phil Stokes on bass (the actual bass player was Kenny May - he was replaced after the recording), and Sterling Smith on keyboards (also joining after the recording, there are no keyboards on the album!). The line-up with Phil and Sterling did record some unreleased material. The album did very well in the St. Louis area as there was significant radio play there. After a period of time, J.D. Blackfoot left the group and the rest of the band continued to play as Osiris. J.D. assembled a new group and recorded the two Fantasy label LPs. Some of the musicians on those albums were in other sixties Columbus area bands like The Four O'Clock Balloon and The Myrchents. The group Osiris sort of metamorphosised into two other groups, one of them being the Load, who recorded an album Praise The Load, which is keyboard driven progressive rock like ELP. The Ultimate Prophecy album is arguably the best rock album ever from Ohio. Side one shows off Craig Fuller's country/folk roots which he expanded in Pure Prarie League. Side two features lyrics by J.D. Blackfoot and drummer Dan Waldron as they search for "the Answer". Most of the music on side two was composed by guitarist and original Tree member Jeff Whitlock. J.D. himself spent two years in New Zealand between 1972-74. He and his wife went there for a month's holiday in 1972 and liked it so much they stayed much longer. Indeed, his second album, The Song Of Crazy Horse, was recorded at Auckland's Stebbing Studio with local luminaries such as Billy Kristian on bass and Frank Gibson on drums. Indeed, it won New Zealand's 'Best Album Of The Year Award' in 1974 and remains highly collectable. He also released an EP, Nobody's Business/Let Her Go/Stay The Night Away/He Walks On Past (Bison B-77), 1984. Blackfoot, who changed his name to Van Dervort in 1970, sold the worldwide rights to Fantasy Records some years ago, but retained exclusive rights to the New Zealand market. Currently living in Columbus, Ohio, he still makes recordings. Craig Fuller and Phil Stokes later co-founded Pure Prairie League. Fuller was later a member of American Flyer together with Doug Yule (Velvet Underground), Eric Kaz (Blue Magoos) and Steve Katz (Blues Project). They released two albums for United Artists in 1975 and 1976 of average country rock produced by George Martin. Later still, Craig Fuller became lead singer for the reformed Little Feat in the early '90s.
wiki :
Before the release of the second album, Draško Nikodijević left the band and was replaced by Slobodan Trbojević, who was an electric bass player from jazz band "Ptica" and Džuboks magazine journalist, as well. The second album was recorded from August 1979 until January 1980. Vrt svetlosti (The Garden Of Light) was produced by Aleksandar Pilipenko.[2] Cover art was designed by Vuković and designer Dejan Popov, but the first version of the cover was refused by PGP-RTB. The album featured five tracks: "Igrač" ("Dancer"), "Čarobnjaci" ("Wizards"), "Vrt svetlosti" ("The Garden of Light"), "Lunarni Modus" ("Lunar Modus") and "Sanjaš" ("You Are Dreaming").[2] "Vrt svetlosti" (The Garden Of Light,1980) was promoted live on TV at fashion show in hall Beko in Belgrade. In 1982 director Stanko Crnobrnja make a short movie about them called "Na svoj nacin". Their last public appearance was in 1985, in the Sava Center Concert Hall in Belgrade, on the occasion of the celebration concert dedicated to the anniversary of the music magazine ITD with music critics Aleksandar Zikic on guitar and Slobodan Boba Trbojevic on bass/vox. Recordings for the third album with the work title ISP III were never released, but can be heard on the band's official MySpace .
Igra Staklenih Perli (79), Vrt Svetlosti (80), Inner Flow (9?, recorded '75), Soft Explosion Live (9?, recorded '78), Drives (9?, recorded '78)
This band was from Belgrade and this was part of Yugoslavia when they recorded their LPs. Igra Staklenih Perli (79) is a real collectors item here in Europe, and you have to pay some $100 if you find a mint copy of it. But it's worth that! They made some Psych-Prog stuff, maybe like Hawkwind, but much more intense and with better vocals (somewhere i read they have trippy guitars and a spacy organ!). There is also a bit of Pink Floyd (Meddle) in this music, but nevertheless they are quite unique. Highly recommended!! (if you can't find the original, there was also a repro available by Kalemegdan Disc one or two years ago!). Vrt Svetlosti (80) is said to be quite bad, but its impossible to find, so i can't tell you more about it. -- Achim Breiling Avant-garde space-rock, compared to Can. First 3 are archival material released in the '90s.
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