Chapter VIVIRIDIAN
Kommune
Krautrock, kosmische and the British space-rock underground
Showing all 045 works
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001
So Far
Faust
By the time Faust recorded So Far in 1972, the band were under pressure from Polydor to bring in some return on investment.
Album 1972 Open ↗ YouTube -
002
Outside the Dream Syndicate
Faust & Tony Conrad
Faust curbed their noisier instincts and distilled their hypnotic rhythm to an unrelenting chug on their Tony Conrad collaboration Outside the Dream Syndicate (1973), a monochrome exploration into the hypnotic power of repetition, the album a symbiosis of two differing sonic worlds.
Album 1973 Open ↗ YouTube -
003
Tubular Bells
Mike Oldfield
Signing with Richard Branson at Virgin – a label yet to hit pay-dirt with Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells – Faust found themselves, again, on an imprint that let them get on with minimal fuss and maximal funds.
Album 1973 Open ↗ YouTube -
004
Faust Tapes
Faust
Their first release with Virgin was the cut-price Faust Tapes released in 1973 for forty-nine pence.
Album 1973 Open ↗ YouTube -
005
Faust IV
Faust
By contrast, Faust IV was magisterial.
Album 1973 Open ↗ YouTube -
006
Psychedelic Underground
Amon Düül
Psychedelic Underground (1969) was culled from a forty-eight-hour freak-out and is far west of lo-fi: proto-blues metallic chugs; wailing, howling vocals, layers of fuzz – it’s sub-basement knockabout stuff, primal, scuffed and – taken in large doses – rather tiring.
Album 1969 Open ↗ YouTube -
007
Phallus Dei
Amon Düül II
It was the end: Amon Düül II rose from this chaotic scene like a dervish, making one of Krautrock’s defining albums – Phallus Dei – in 1969.
Album 1969 Open ↗ YouTube -
008
Yeti
Amon Düül II
After such tumultuous and anarchic majesty, Amon Düül II were in the ascendency and their next album – Yeti (1971) – was another seminal document of the period, a sprawling double that married the tempestuousness of Phallus Dei to (slightly) straighter structures.
Album 1971 Open ↗ YouTube -
009
March of the Lemmings
Amon Düül II
The slightly ponderous double March of the Lemmings (1970) didn’t match the giddy dance of the aforementioned but contained thrilling moments nonetheless; by contrast Wolf City (1972) was something else altogether: a concise, punchy half-hour that saw them strip back to rockier fare, albeit shot through with their trademark bizarre pomp.
Album 1970 Open ↗ YouTube -
010
Wolf City
Amon Düül II
The slightly ponderous double March of the Lemmings (1970) didn’t match the giddy dance of the aforementioned but contained thrilling moments nonetheless; by contrast Wolf City (1972) was something else altogether: a concise, punchy half-hour that saw them strip back to rockier fare, albeit shot through with their trademark bizarre pomp.
Album 1972 Open ↗ YouTube -
011
Ash Ra Tempel
Ash Ra Tempel
Produced by Conny Plank – who mixed down live, riding the faders as the band played – Ash Ra Tempel was a lesson in equilibrium: equal parts tumultuous whirlwind and settled dust, dervish motion tempered by stasis.
Album 1971 Open ↗ YouTube -
012
Seven Up
Ash Ra Tempel
One of the weirder moments of happenstance arose when he put out Ash Ra Tempel’s Seven Up (1973) – a collaboration with countercultural guru Timothy Leary.
Album 1973 Open ↗ YouTube -
013
Join Inn
Ash Ra Tempel
Ash Ra Tempel recorded two further albums – the heavy groove of Join Inn (1973) and the poppier Starring Rosi (1974) – before Göttsching went solo for the spectacular Inventions for Electric Guitar (1975).
Album 1973 Open ↗ YouTube -
014
Starring Rosi
Ash Ra Tempel
Ash Ra Tempel recorded two further albums – the heavy groove of Join Inn (1973) and the poppier Starring Rosi (1974) – before Göttsching went solo for the spectacular Inventions for Electric Guitar (1975).
Album 1974 Open ↗ YouTube -
015
Inventions for Electric Guitar
Manuel Göttsching
Ash Ra Tempel recorded two further albums – the heavy groove of Join Inn (1973) and the poppier Starring Rosi (1974) – before Göttsching went solo for the spectacular Inventions for Electric Guitar (1975).
Album 1975 Open ↗ YouTube -
016
E2-E4
Manuel Göttsching
Göttsching’s minimalist bent was, later, to reach an apex with E2-E4 (1984).
Album 1984 Open ↗ YouTube -
017
Klopfzeichen
Kluster
Their two 1971 records – Klopfzeichen and Zwei-Osterie – were defined by naked dread.
Album 1971 Open ↗ YouTube -
018
Zwei-Osterie
Kluster
Their two 1971 records – Klopfzeichen and Zwei-Osterie – were defined by naked dread.
Album 1971 Open ↗ YouTube -
019
Eruption
Kluster
After a third, similarly oppressive, album – Eruption – Conrad Schnitzler left to pursue a prolific and wildly inventive solo career while Moebius and Roedelius continued under the name Cluster, alongside producer Conny Plank.
Album 1971 Open ↗ YouTube -
020
Cluster
Cluster
After a third, similarly oppressive, album – Eruption – Conrad Schnitzler left to pursue a prolific and wildly inventive solo career while Moebius and Roedelius continued under the name Cluster, alongside producer Conny Plank.
Album 1971 Open ↗ YouTube -
021
Cluster II
Cluster
The following year’s Cluster II was notably cleaner and more cerebral.
Album 1972 Open ↗ YouTube -
022
Musik von Harmonia
Harmonia
The Rother sessions resulted in the two Harmonia albums Musik von Harmonia (1974) and Deluxe (1975).
Album 1974 Open ↗ YouTube -
023
Deluxe
Harmonia
The Rother sessions resulted in the two Harmonia albums Musik von Harmonia (1974) and Deluxe (1975).
Album 1975 Open ↗ YouTube -
024
Cluster and Eno
Cluster & Brian Eno
He worked with Roedelius and Moebius on a number of occasions, most notably on the superlative Cluster and Eno (1977) on which Eno’s disciplined peace and command of wistful melody is married to the Germans’ outré experimentation, expansive drones offset against innocent piano melodies and sweeping ambient atmospherics.
Album 1977 Open ↗ YouTube -
025
Affenstunde
Popol Vuh
Debut album Affenstunde (1970) was a haunting instrumental set built around the spooked drone of Fricke’s Moog: indeed, Affenstunde was the first album that was based almost entirely around the machine.
Album 1970 Open ↗ YouTube -
026
Zeit
Tangerine Dream
There is practically nothing in the way of traditional melody or progression on Affenstunde: like Tangerine Dream’s dark cosmic masterpiece Zeit, say (itself heavily influenced by Fricke, who guested on the album), it’s concerned with textural layering, space and density.
Album 1972 Open ↗ YouTube -
027
In den Gärten Pharaos
Popol Vuh
There is nothing quite like it in the wider Fricke discography, although the next Popol Vuh record – In den Gärten Pharaos (1972) – is generally held in higher critical regard.
Album 1972 Open ↗ YouTube -
028
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
Werner Herzog
The first collaboration between Herzog and Fricke was Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972).
Film 1972 Open ↗ IMDb -
029
Tanz der Lemminge
Amon Düül II
First used by Amon Düül II on Tanz der Lemminge (1971), it was an ingeniously bastardised Mellotron.
Album 1971 Open ↗ YouTube -
030
Hosianna Mantra
Popol Vuh
He offered the operatic, harpsichord-driven Hosianna Mantra in 1972, and recorded various records based around sacred texts throughout the late 1970s.
Album 1972 Open ↗ YouTube -
031
City Raga
Popol Vuh
His later records were something of a mixed bag, to say the least, 1990s recordings like City Raga (1995) veering perilously close to woo-woo new age territory, lacking entirely the nocturnal mystery of early Popol Vuh.
Album 1995 Open ↗ YouTube -
032
Popol Vuh Remixed and Revisited
Various artists
Stereolab were huge Krautrock fans and contributed to the 2011 Popol Vuh Remixed and Revisited album, as did producers like Tim Hecker and Russell Haswell.
Compilation 2011 Open ↗ YouTube -
033
X In Search of Space
Hawkwind
The following year’s X In Search of Space (1971) was the real thing, both musically and conceptually.
Album 1971 Open ↗ YouTube -
034
Hawkwind: Do Not Panic
BBC Four
In the BBC 4 documentary Hawkwind: Do Not Panic, Lemmy recalled Dik Mik sitting and reading the manual for his ring modulator ‘on stage, while he was playing’.
Documentary Open ↗ IMDb -
035
Doremi Fasol Latido
Hawkwind
Doremi Fasol Latido (1972) was a rawer vibe than In Search of Space.
Album 1972 Open ↗ YouTube -
036
Space Ritual
Hawkwind
Reaching number 3 in June 1972, the profits were funnelled into the infamous Space Ritual live show, a multimedia bombast involving strobes, disorientating lights, surround-sound PA, dancers and props.
Live album 1973 Open ↗ YouTube -
037
The Time of the Hawklords
Michael Moorcock & Michael Butterworth
He churned out books at a fearsome pace (check his essay ‘How to Write a Novel in Three Days’ for detailed discussion of his frenetic method) and collaborated with writer Michael Butterworth on two deeply eccentric Hawkwind-themed novels – Time of the Hawklords – and its sequel The Queens of Deliria (in which Hawkwind have to save the world from the music of Elton John).
Book Open ↗ Goodreads -
038
The Queens of Deliria
Michael Moorcock & Michael Butterworth
He churned out books at a fearsome pace (check his essay ‘How to Write a Novel in Three Days’ for detailed discussion of his frenetic method) and collaborated with writer Michael Butterworth on two deeply eccentric Hawkwind-themed novels – Time of the Hawklords – and its sequel The Queens of Deliria (in which Hawkwind have to save the world from the music of Elton John).
Book Open ↗ Goodreads -
039
Hall of the Mountain Grill
Hawkwind
Both Hall of the Mountain Grill (1974) and Warrior on the Edge of Time (1975) were more progressive than anything the band had attempted before.
Album 1974 Open ↗ YouTube -
040
Warrior on the Edge of Time
Hawkwind
Both Hall of the Mountain Grill (1974) and Warrior on the Edge of Time (1975) were more progressive than anything the band had attempted before.
Album 1975 Open ↗ YouTube -
041
The Sound of Confusion
Spacemen 3
A demo tape – For All The Fucked Up Children Of The World We Give You Spacemen 3 – was recorded in 1984 and contained future single ‘Walking with Jesus’ while debut LP The Sound of Confusion (1986) distilled the Spacemen sound to a heavier, dronal essence through the application of ragged overdrive and a distortion tone at once brittle and warm.
Album 1986 Open ↗ YouTube -
042
The Perfect Prescription
Spacemen 3
Second album The Perfect Prescription was markedly more laid back, softening the band’s sound somewhat with more melody.
Album 1987 Open ↗ YouTube -
043
Playing with Fire
Spacemen 3
Kember had, by the late 1980s, got into the Turkish saz – a stringed instrument similar to the lute that produces a strong drone – and 1989’s largely beatless Playing with Fire was a chilled affair that carried Eastern and gospel influences (a mood Pierce would fully explore later with Spiritualized).
Album 1989 Open ↗ YouTube -
044
Dreamweapon: an Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music
Spacemen 3
Most hard core, however, was an infamous gig – later immortalised as the live album Dreamweapon: an Evening of Contemporary Sitar Music (named after the Angus MacLise sessions of the 1960s) – that took place in 1988 at the Watermans Art Centre in Brentford.
Live album 1990 Open ↗ YouTube -
045
Playing the Bass with Three Left Hands
Will Carruthers
Will Carruthers thought he was playing too, although, as he recalled in his memoir Playing the Bass with Three Left Hands, when he went to switch off his bass he found ‘that it was impossible to switch it off.’
Book Open ↗ Goodreads
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