Music from Germany

Cassiber (phonetically: 'a message smuggled out of prison') crashed like a locomotive into the Deutsche Neue Welle. Founded by Heiner Goebbels, Alfred Harth, Christoph Anders and Chris Cutler (his first major project after News From Babel), Cassiber managed to fuse materials and attitudes drawn from experimental rock, fringe jazz, punk, pop, plunderphonics, improvisation, close structure and musique concrete into an energetic and complex form of studio (and then concert) composition uniqu…

Letzte Tage, Letzte Nächte is probably the most "rock" sounding work of Popol Vuh's production. Recorded by the classic trio of Fricke, Fichelscher and Yun, plus Ted de Jong on tamboura and Amon Düül members Al Gromer on sitar and Renate Knaup on additional vocals, its sounds seem to be more based on power than on ambient. Strong guitar passages emphasize this, with Fischelscher's playing being harder than the Conny Veit ethereal parts on earlier records. The title track is also the firs…

2015 restock. The fourth LP by Popol Vuh was originally released on Kosmische Musik in 1973. It follows the religious theme of its predecessor and features the line up of Florian Fricke with Conny Veit on guitars, Daniel Fischelscher on guitars and drums (he was the drummer of Düül II), Robert Eliscu on oboe, Djong Yun on vocals and Klaus Wiesse on tamboura. Reissued from the master tapes in quality vinyl pressing, full glory laminated gatefold cover and featuring an insert with liners and photo…

Amon (from the Egyptian sun god) Düül (a German-Turkish derivative of Moon) were a 60s student hippy commune based in Munich, in what was then West Germany. Among their various expressions of free living they occasionally performed rudimentary music where anything went, and being at all proficient was more of a hindrance than a way in to one of their performances, which were mainly for their own amusement anyway. Guitarist and violinist Chris Karrer, frustrated at the lack of direction, along wi…

Released in 1970 as a double album, “Yeti“ was a major achievement for Amon Düül 2. In England they won over cult DJ John Peel as friend and supporter; for the readers of the German magazine “Musik Express“ the guys from Munich were the most popular underground band, and “Yeti“ was voted best album of the year. A double album on vinyl, Yeti consists of a set of structured songs and a second disc of improvisations. It's testament to the group's fluidity and improvisational grace that the two albu…

Vast, weightless synthesizer vistas from the German cosmic underground. Von Deyen layers Moog and Mellotron into slow-drifting cloudscapes, poised between Berlin-school sequencing and pure ambience. A private-press reverie, on CD for the first time.

The ex-Kraftwerk composer opens his notebook. 'Off the Record' reworks decades of unused sketches into pristine electro-pop: hooks honed to a gleam, machine-precise yet warmly melodic. Düsseldorf craftsmanship, quietly personal.

LP version. Things come full circle. In 1976 Thomas Fehlmannarrives in Hamburg to study art at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts. In 1979 he attends a guest lecture by Conrad Schnitzler, who demonstrates how the "extended definition of art" established by Joseph Beuys can be applied to music. This proves to be a crucial element in Fehlmann's decision to become a musician. And now, in 2015, over 35 years later, Fehlmann has compiled the fifth installment in Bureau B's Kollektion series, arrangi…

LP version. Bureau B reissue Rolf Trostel's Inselmusik (1981). Rolf Trostel is a protagonist of the so-called Berliner Schule, or Berlin School (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze). On his first album Inselmusik, he explores the sonic possibilities of the recently introduced PPG wavetable synthesizer. The music is based on live performances from the late 1970s by Trostel and Krautrock guitarist Günter Schickert. Formally speaking, Inselmusik is a demonstration of the PPG Wave Computer 360, a synthes…

LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Rolf Trostel's second album Two Faces, originally released in 1982. While Inselmusik(BB 230CD/LP), released the previous year, was intended as a basis for live performance, Trostel composed and produced the five instrumental tracks on Two Faces exclusively for this album. The music is clearly a product of the Berlin School, yet it is more sophisticated and varied than its predecessor. Some new additions to Trostel's instrument collection are audible. Whi…

LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Adelbert Von Deyen's debut album Sternzeit, originally released in 1978. Adelbert Von Deyen is a protagonist of the so-called Berlin School (Berliner Schule) of electronic music. On his debut album, he takes his time to develop sound structures, often drifting, floating blissfully into tonal interference. The listener also requires time and patience, but will be rewarded with a Zen-like state of contemplation. Adelbert Von Deyen's musical backstory follo…

LP version. Bureau B present a reissue of Michael Bundt's Electri City, originally released in 1980. Having played his way through the 1970s in various rock combos (Medusa, Nine Days' Wonder), Michael Bundt embarked on a solo career in the latter part of the decade, releasing three albums which saw him explore the vast potential of electronic music. Delightfully varied and typical of his willingness to experiment, his music orbits around krautrock, Berlin School electronica, space-futurism and s…

LP version. Bureau B reissue Rolf Trostel's Der Prophet (1982). Electronic pop was the musical goal of the Berlin School musician Rolf Trostel on Der Prophet, which was released in the same year as its predecessor Two Faces. Der Prophet is the culmination of this phase of Trostel's oeuvre, which was tightly coupled to the PPG Wave Computer. As on his previous releases, the sonic peculiarities and clanking sounds of wavetable synthesis are emphasized. Yet here they are obviously more interlinked …

LP version. Bureau B present Filmmusik 1, a selection from Conrad Schnitzler's archive. In Conrad Schnitzler's sprawling archive, there are two tapes marked Filmmusik 1975 A and Filmmusik 1980 B. It is hard to say which videos this music belongs to, particularly as the pieces have been left untitled. Perhaps there isn't really any film material at all. The dates are of no great help either, since the tapes feature the same tracks, albeit in varying degrees of quality. Filmmusik 1 presents an ini…

LP version. Includes CD. Conrad Schnitzler (1937-2011), composer and concept artist, was one of the most important representatives of Germany's electronic music avant-garde. A student of Joseph Beuys, he founded Berlin's legendary Zodiak Free Arts Lab, a subculture club in 1967/68, was a member of Tangerine Dream (with Klaus Schulze and Edgar Froese) and Kluster (with Dieter Moebius and Hans-Joachim Roedelius) and also released countless solo albums. Schneider TM (Dirk Dresselhaus) has been invo…

From 1971 to 1977, Peter Baumann was a member of the legendary Berlin band Tangerine Dream. The group were pioneers of the so called Berliner Schule (Berlin School) which had such a profound impact on electronic music. He produced a number of momentous albums at his Paragon Studio (by the likes of Conrad Schnitzler, Cluster, Hans-Joachim Roedelius) and also enjoyed success as a solo artist. His first two solo works are now being reissued with extensive liner notes and rare photographs. The influ…

Tapete present a reissue of Slapp Happy's Acnalbasac Noom, originally released in 1980. Left-wing intellectual film critic Uwe Nettelbeck, who had good connections to Polydor, had set up his own studio in rural Wümme, disrupting the mainstream with pioneering sounds by the likes of Faust, inventively engineered by the "boffin's boffin", Kurt Graupner. By the time Anthony Moore, one of Nettelbeck's charges, approached his third album in 1972, Polydor's accounting department was fast losing p…

*LP version. 180 gram vinyl. Includes CD. Edition of 500.* Tapete present a reissue of Slapp Happy's Sort Of, originally released in 1972. Left-wing intellectual film critic Uwe Nettelbeck, who had good connections to Polydor, had set up his own studio in rural Wümme, disrupting the mainstream with pioneering sounds by the likes of Faust, inventively engineered by the "boffin's boffin", Kurt Graupner. By the time Anthony Moore, one of Nettelbeck's charges, approached his third album in 1972, Pol…

A legendary moment in European free jazz, but which stand as some of the most powerful music of the time! Cien Fuegos present a reissue of Peter Kowald Quintet's self-titled album, originally released by FMP in 1972. Personnel: Günter Christmann - trombone; Peter Kowald - tuba, bass, alphorn; Peter van der Locht - alto saxophone; Paul Lovens - drums; Paul Rutherford - trombone. Composed and produced by Peter Kowald. Recorded by Eberhard Sengpiel at Akademie der Künste, Berlin, on January 19th, 1…

Sektion 1-2 is an extravagant LP-production which depicts the new musical thoughts and craftsmanships of three musician identities who couldn’t be further apart (or better distributed) in age. Together they work on the form. The result is a radical suspended shape of instrumental interplay, exploring unbound rhythms, structures, and harmonies. Even though Neuköllner Modelle draws attention to Free Jazz (a genre of which Sven-Ake Johansson became one of the european pioneers), their methods…