Bomb! ** First repress ever, 180gm vinyl pressed by Pallas, original artwork ** While the contexts of sonic creativity that emerged from the United States and the UK during the 1970s have long and deservedly dominated the popular consciousness, when scratching the surface with a greater degree of attentiveness, Germany during this period presents itself as one of the most radical and adventurous environments on the planet. Not only did it deliver a singular canon of avant-garde classical, electronic, and electroacoustic work, but also highly distinct movements of free jazz, countercultural rock termed Kosmische or Krautrock, post-punk (Neue Deutsche Welle, etc.), and industrial music, not to mention the early days of The Berlin School of electronics and ambient music. What often gets overlooked within all the country's incredible and ambitious sounds during this period are those within the idiom of Fusion, blending elements of jazz, rock, and extended improvisational jams. Offering some remedy to this neglect, the venerable Cinedelic's sub-imprint, Free Flow Archive - having already dropped burners by Enrico Rava, Min Bul, Terje Rypdal, Tony Scott, and Gary Bartz in the last couple of years - dives straight in with the first ever reissue of little known ensemble From's second and final full-length, Power On!, originally issued by the German arm of CBS in 1972. Celebrated and chased to the ends of the earth by those lucky enough to be in the know, this absolute stunner threads a remarkable path across its two sides, building upon the territories pioneered only a handful of years prior by Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock, alongside bands like Soft Machine. Comprising three tracks of total fire by a little-known band founded with close ties to, and overlaps with, the ensembles of Albert Mangelsdorff and Manfred Schoof, it's an absolute revelation on nearly every count and a joy in listening from the first sounding to the last. Issued in a beautifully produced, limited edition, fully remastered 180g vinyl pressing, immaculately reproducing the original 1972 edition, once again Free Flow Archive has totally blown our minds with a record that radically alters history as it's been widely known.

Very little is known about the German ensemble From. Over its brief years of activity during the early 1970s, the group included the alto saxophonist and flutist, Emil Mangelsdorff - the brother and regular collaborator of Albert Mangelsdorff - Dieter Von Goetze, Günter Lenz, and Ralf-Rainer Hübner - all of whom had cut their teeth playing in the bands of Albert Mangelsdorff and Manfred Schoof - as well as the saxophonist Gustl Mayr, the organist and keyboardist Klaus Göbel, the drummer Kurt Bong, and the percussionist and vocalist Viktor F. Belgrove, producing two full-lengths - 1971's "0611" Cat Quarter and 1972's Power On! - as well as contributing to the 1975 compilation Frankfurt All Stars - City Jazz Frankfurt-Main Streams, before completely disappearing from view and whatever cultural consciousness may have attended to them. Over the years since the initial release of those albums, they were slowly discovered and heralded by dedicated fans of fusion, many of whom described it as one of the great unheralded artefacts of the idiom, deserving of considerable attention and wishing for the unlikely occurrence of their reissue. At long last, those dreamers have gotten their wish, with the first ever reissue of the ensemble's second and final full-length, Power On!, by Free Flow Archive.

By the time From entered the studio to record Power On!, it seems to have settled into the lineup of Gustl Mayr on saxophone, Klaus Göbel on organ and keyboards, Kurt Bong on drums, Dieter Von Goetze on bass, and Viktor F. Belgrove on percussion and vocals. The group also notably enlisted Horst K. J. Lubitz and Roland Schneider as arrangers and conductors. Foreshadowing the high-fidelity production values and some of the clear aesthetic focus that would come to help define the output of labels like ECM over the coming decade, Power On! comprises three tracks across its two sides, the long-form work, Festival Rock / Use The Bridge, taking up the entirety of the first, and Catalyst and Fog In Rossert which divide the second. Particularly because of the driving force of Klaus Göbel's work on the organ - carving a spine around which the other members of the band unfurl their energies - the album presents a fascinating counterpoint to albums like Miles Davis' In a Silent Way and Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi, while also establishing a close alignment with the roughly contemporaneous explorations of Soft Machine on 1971's Fourth and Elegy by The Nice. That said, comparisons can only get you so far and From's Power On! is very much its own thing, in part because of what feels like an intuitive alignment with, and unique approach toward, Miles Davis' original modus operandi for fusion - jazz players seeding the idiom with elements of rock and funk - rather than the natural directionality embraced by Soft Machine and The Nice's increasing departure from the hallmarks of rock for those of jazz.

Feeling alive and rooted in the meandering processes of real-time and highly tuned improvisational jams, Power On! remains remarkably unpredictable across its three tracks. It's definitely fusion in every recognizable sense, embracing complex chromatic arrangements of tonality and winding, diverging tempo shifts as its pieces develop and evolve, but there is a clear sense of drive delivered by Bong's drums, Von Goetze's bass, and Belgrove's percussion that gives the band an extra muscular energy, played against the brilliant lines of sax and organ. This particularly comes to the forefront within Catalyst, launching the album's second side, which features especially forward and driving work on bass and percussion, as well as some striking work by Mayr on saxophone that is among the most fiery, distinct, and expressive on the entire LP, as well as passages of collective work by the entire band that border on full free jazz, before falling into a bluesy sense of balladry during the track's closing minutes. The closing piece of Power On!, Fog In Rossert, carries forward the album's nearly unpredictable cornucopia of sensibilities and colors into further dimensions, moving from deep driving grooves and soaring melodies, into states of abstraction that momentarily flirt with acoustic ambient music, before launching into passages of laid back funk unity, all of which are marked by striking work by Göbel on keyboards and Belgrove on percussion, offered a striking sense of space and openness by the rest of the band to stretch out.

Casting light on Germany's sinfully under-celebrated movement of early 1970s fusion and prog, much like was done by their peers across numerous idioms of music during that decade, From's Power On! nods to roots beyond the borders of the band's own country, while singularly making and remaking this form of music entirely its own. An absolute revelation, joining an increasingly incredible catalog of killer obscure and neglected gems on the part of Free Flow Archive, there's little wonder that Power On! has been one of those records chased as a closely kept secret by fans of fusion and prog over the years since its original release. This first ever reissue is issued in a beautifully produced, limited edition, fully remastered 180g vinyl pressing, immaculately reproducing the original 1972 edition's cover by the artist Wolfgang Baumann - the man behind many of the wilder covers on MPS releases during this period (Michael Naura's Call, etc.) - it's a wild journey into the realm of virtuosic expression, the likes of little else we can call to mind. Absolutely essential for any fan of 1970s German musical exploration, as well as prog and fusion at large.