Joel Vandroogenbroeck

Belgian born Joel Vandroogenbroeck has been very much a wanderer, establishing a jazz career in Germany in the 60's, creating the phenomenal Brainticket, and then moving on to Italy and Switzerland. Over the years he's been nothing, if not seminal, influential, and very prolific. Aside from Brainticket he did much work in Italy as a session musician, and since the late-70's he's been travelling the world researching ancient and obscure musical cultures. An unlikely outlet for much of this work was the library label Coloursound from Munich. Strangest of these works was the dark and disturbing BIOMECHANOID, inspired by and sporting a H. R. Giger "Biomechanoid" painting. The MEDITATIONS albums ventured beyond Brainticket's CELESTIAL OCEAN on a more atmospheric level, whereas INDUSTRIAL RETROSPECT recalled the Brainticket of the era, namely ADVENTURE and VOYAGE. His ethnic studies resulted in albums like BIRTH OF EARTH, LOST CONTINENTS, MESOPOTAMIA EGYPT, etc., and there's also the medieval styled MIDDLE AGES. As evidence that Joel hadn't lost his jazz roots, there was also the fusion project simply named "Joel".

BIOMECHANOID
LP Coloursound CS 1

MEDITATIONS VOL. 1
LP Coloursound CS 3

MEDITATIONS VOL. 2
LP Coloursound CS 4

BIRTH OF EARTH
LP Coloursound CS 7

LOST CONTINENTS
LP Coloursound CS 8

INDUSTRIAL RETROSPECT
LP Coloursound CS 13

MESOPOTAMIA EGYPT
LP Coloursound CS 22

MIDDLE AGES
LP Coloursound CS 43

SOUTH EAST ASIA
LP Coloursound CS 46

Paul Vincent

After his first successful project as leader: Hallelujah, and when not busy with other projects, Paul Vincent (a German, by the way, despite his name) also tried out sessions with local Munich musicians. His solo debut MAKIN' OUR OWN SWEET MUSIC (not VINCENT as previously detailed) despite being a similar cast to Niagara's S.U.B. album, was a very patchy affair, bridging pop through to progressive realms, only really redeemable for two tracks.

Paul Vincent (guitars, tambourine, vocals, harp, oboe), + Keith Forsey (drums, congas), Gary Unwin (bass), Martin Harrison (drums, tambourine), Sylvester Levay (pianos, harmonium, saxes), Angelika Tiefenböck (choir), Helga Amper (choir), Monerl (choir), Ralf Nowy (saxes), Munich Opera Choir

MAKIN' OUR OWN SWEET MUSIC (1/73)
LP Ariola 86672 (1973)

FLIEGENDER ROCK & ROLL ZIRKUS
LP Ariola 88752 (1975)

STERNREITER (1981-1982)
LP Philips 6435 152 (1982)

Vinegar

A classic obscurity, Vinegar played a psychedelic spiced rock, in the realms of Tractor or Elias Hulk, but with a very Teutonic sound, lots of instrumentals and guitar textures akin to Gomorrha. An unknown gem from an obscure and innovative band.

Bernhard Liesegang (bass, vocals), Rolf Zwirner (guitar, violin), Wolfgang Grahn (drums), Ralf Modrow (organ, vocals), Dagmar Dormagen (vocals, flute), Jochen Biemann (guitar)

VINEGAR
LP Phonofoly WP 710101 (1971)

Virgo

A not so distinctive, yet very lively jazz-rock band, Virgo were closer in style to many American bands of the era, with the accent on rhythm, texture and an abundance of solos, with an up-front catchy melodic style. The mainstay of the band was keyboardist Henryk Darlowski, who in the early days gave the front seat to the sax player, though from LUTELLO on he added synthesizer to his output, and a guitarist was also featured. All their albums are interesting, though with little in the way of individual style or experimentation.

Bobby Stern (soprano/tenor saxes, percussion), Henryk Darlowski (piano), Reinhard Glöder (bass), Lothar Scharf (drums, percussion)

VIRGO
LP Vertigo 6360 624 (1975)

FOUR SEASONS
LP Bacillus BAC 2047 (1976)

LUTELLO (2/78)
LP Bacillus BAC 2053 (1978)

...MOVE ON
LP Bacillus BAC 2065 (1979)

Virus

Originating from Bielefeld in Northern Germany, Virus were one of those legendary Krautrock bands that took the Pink Floyd type of space-rock sound onto new uncharted realms. Virus' debut REVELATION was aptly titled, being full of invention and surprises within long tracks that sported extensive guitar work-outs, swirling organ, free riffing and lots of interactive musical interplay, no less so that on the very free adaptation of "Paint it Black" and a most astonishing diversion on a "Saucerful Of Secrets" theme! But, like Gila or Tangerine Dream, Virus were by no means plagiarists, what they did was to venture beyond such influences and come up with a style all of their own, resulting in a powerful cosmic excursion that's largely instrumental and full of surprises. Certainly an album of revelations! A few Virus members meanwhile formed the hard-rock psychedelic band Weed. But, as to who exactly were the band on THOUGHTS, there's no documentation whatsoever. Reputedly featured is the very unfeminine sounding female vocalist Elga Blask. And the music had changed somewhat to, to a more hard-rock and blues style, akin to more song oriented Frumpy but with a wild psychedelic edge, with lyrics about drugs and paranoia, much closer to Pilz label-mates Dies Irae. A justly legendary band.

Reinhold Spiegelfeld (bass), Bernd Hohmann (flute, vocals), J. Dieter Krahe (organ), Wolfgang Rieke (drums), Werner Monka (guitar)

REVELATION (5-7/1/71)
LP BASF CRC 015 (1971)

THOUGHTS (12-14/7/71)
LP Pilz 20 21102-9 (1971)

featured on: HEAVY CHRISTMAS

Vita Nova

An obscure international Munich band (relatively unknown until recently), Vita Nova were fronted by guitarist and multi-instrumental Polish born talent Eddy Marron and Hungarian keyboard player Sylvester Levay. They played a complex fusion of classical rock and fusion styles, and aptly in keeping with their name all the lyrics were in Latin. Hints of Eddy Marron's later work in Dzyan can be felt, along with strong psychedelic touches, hints of Pink Floyd, Egg, Arzachel and the likes of many early Italian bands. After also moving in to jazz, and also becoming a member of Nowy, Sylvester Levay has since become a top soundtrack composer in Hollywood!

Eddy "Ugly-Ugly" Marron (guitars, bass, zaz, lead vocals), Sylvester "Lysy" Levay (organ, piano, clavinet, percussion, vocals), Christian von Hoffmann (drums, percussion, vocals)

VITA NOVA (2/71)
LP Life LS 5010 (Austria, 1971)

Adelbert von Deyen

One of the first synthesists to seriously attempt to emulate the pioneering work of Klaus Schulze. With much more limited resources and with great enthusiasm he created some fine examples of cosmic synth music. His debut STERNZEIT was his answer to CYBORG era Klaus Schulze, with two side-long tracks, each a semi-static swirling and gliding mass featuring string synthesizer to the fore. NORDBORG offered two contrasting, less Schulzian bleak musicscapes. But, arguably most accomplished was ATMOSPHERE, which rolled these many facets and more into a complex music combining rhythm and atmospherics. It's especially notable for the 33 minute suite that covered 1½ sides! For no apparent reason, or maybe he was fed up with being called a "Schulze clone", further Adelbert von Deyen releases offered very different musics. The first big change was ECLIPSE, a most obvious dedication to Pink Floyd's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON, complete with Roger Waters style songs. PLANETARY was the finest of this later era with a varied set of sequential and melodic tracks. Little of his later output has much to commend it, as all such LP's are collections of short melodic/rhythmic synth tracks, with little originality or character.

Adelbert von Deyen (synthesizer, organ, string-orchestra, electric piano, guitar)

STERNZEIT (3-8/78)
LP Sky 019 (1978)

NORDBORG (1979)
LP Sky 029 (1979)

ATMOSPHERE (8/79-6/80)
LP Sky 041 (1980)

ECLIPSE
LP Sky 062 (1981)

PLANETARY (1982)
LP Sky 076 (1982)

INVENTIONS (1982-83)
LP Sky 082 (1983)

Credited to: von Deyen/Schuetz

featured on: UMSONST UND DRAUSSEN PAPENBURG 1983

LIVE (1980-83)

IMPRESSIONS (1985)
LP Sky 097 (1985)

DREAMDANCER (1987)
LP Sky 122 (1987)

Date: 2015-12-18; view: 1163