Style: kraut, fusiion
Country: germany
Audio: lossless (ape 964k)
Size: 171+137mb
Issue: Remaster 2001
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
01. Silver Wings 4:14
02. Mind Quake 7:43
03. Backs 6:42
04. Gut und richtig 7:36
05. Wintrup 5:24
06. Jack Steam 5:56
07. Fat Mr. Rich (Demo 1971) 5:43
Peter Wolbrandt (guitar, vocals)
Hellmut Hattler (bass, vocals)
Johannes A. Pappert (saxophone, percussion)
Jan Fride (drums, congas)
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