The Ordinary was a British band formed by luminaries of the indie and post-punk such Anthony Clough (bassist, keyboards, flute) member of A.D.H., Andy Boot Quartet, Casual Labourers, New 7th Music, Spiral Sky, Sun Dial, The Door And The Window and WeR7), Ashleigh Marsh (keyboards and percussion), member of Casual Labourers, New 7th Music and WITS), Dave Morgan (drums), member of Alternative TV, Casual Labourers, Kandide, Primal Scream, Schuman The Human, Spacemen 3, Sun Dial, Take It, The Jazz Butcher, The Loft, The Physics House Band, The Weather Prophets, Twelve Cubic Feet and Western Electric) and Gary Ramon (guitarist and vocals), most famous for his Sun Dial project. Besides this 'Conventional Sound' cassette, The Ordinary released the 'Ad Ordinary' cassette, with archival studio recordings from 1981-1983.
Label:
Not On Label (The Ordinary Self-released) – ORD 1
Format:
Cassette, Album, C60
Country:
UK
Released:
1981
Style:
Experimental, Krautrock
Tracklist:
A1 Airwaves 9:36
A2 Silent Night (In Africa) 4:46
A3 Rules 5:01
A4 One Step Behind 1:20
A5 Hello/Goodbye 7:40
B1 I'm Warning You 2:37
B2 Health And Disturbance 5:30
B3 Arrived 5:52
B4 Shaking All Over (Dub) 4:37
B5 War On What? 9:53
Notes:
"Rock radicals" are busy preaching liberation through unliberated music and the un-pretentious are the most pretentious of all. What makes them think that they have found "the answer"? Such is the world in which we work.
"But all this comes as an after-thought. Please accept this in the spirit in which it was intended - a selection from the past (coincidences noted) to bring us to the present. We now wish to play live and record in private considering release afterwards. We are also interested in playing with other people. If you are interested in any way please write to..."
Claustrofobia, from Spain, presented an arty and theatrical synth-pop, similar to Kan Kan or Artery, typified by "La Espia Que Me Amo", further enhanced with traditional flamenco guitars in "Sueños De Donna". "Sombras En La Alcoba" navigated towards a mixture of dark-wave and the noir soundtrack-theme, while "Amor Sensible" was even more eclectic, a blend of disco beats, ambient spooks, incantations, and a middle-eastern chorus. Eclecticism isn't a panacea though, and it's only till "Rapsodia Bajo El Volga" that we encounter a real highlight, a ghostly and cursed piano theme, accompanied by a dejected vocal delivery and desolate sound-effects. All the while, "Lagrimas Por Un Bolero" was their most violent moment, but again behind the paroxysmal wall of synthesizers and guitars lay a fondness for the traditional Spanish ballad. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label: Wilde Rekords – WR-004
Format:
Vinyl, LP, Mini-Album
Country: Spain
Released: 1984
Style: Synth-pop, Minimal, Darkwave, New Wave, Minimal Synth, Post-Punk, Krautrock
Tracklist:
A1 La Espia Que Me Amo 3:20
A2 Sueños De Donna 1:30
A3 Sombras En La Alcoba 3:00
B1 Amor Sensible 3:13
B2 Rapsodia Bajo El Volga 4:40
B3 Paris Nostalgic (Tango) 5:30
B4 Lagrimas Por Un Bolero 6:15
Notes:
"Rapsodia Bajo El Volga", "Paris Nostalgic" and "Lágrimas Por Un Bolero" recorded live at Sala Metro, Barcelona, in a 4-track Fostex.
Born out of the complex mid-1970's Berlin Krautrock underground, Rollkommando became best-known as the synthi-industrial duo of Jörg Reimann and Holger Klupsch in the early-1980's. Their style was both playful and experimental, and definitely inspired by Cluster, Kraftwerk and Conrad Schnitzler (a close friend of theirs). Despite their potential wide appeal, Rollkommando refused to compromise and never really made any serious headway beyond issuing a few cassettes. This release was not limited, but the label only sold 44 copies. [SOURCE: DISCOGS]
As most Krautrock enthusiasts are aware of, Achim Reichel was one of Germany’s biggest pop stars in the 60s before he dived headfirst into the burgeoning psychedelic scene that turned progressive as the 70s hit, however on his debut album with A.R. & MACHINES, 'Die Grüne Raise', the songs still had a lot of pop compositional style wrapped up in extended psychedelic tripped out effects and more lingering passages that qualified them as progressive. On 'Echo', the band dropped a lot of the pop influences and instead opted for longer sonic journeys into blissful psychedelic jams that found subtle instrumental interactions slowly parade into infinity. On 'AR3', Reichel attempted to bring back more conventional song structures, perhaps missing the instant gratification of pop stardom but fell short as the band had lost their hit making mojo and watered down the Kraut aspects a wee bit too much.
On 'A.R. IV', Reichel and his Kraut crew once again revert back to the long sonic journeys that delve into long psychedelic meandering jams that carry a somewhat funky groove as the backbone. While the album was broken down into four tracks, the first three constitute the “Vita” suite that allowed a strong bass groove and overabundance of percussive drive to meander on for over twenty minutes with a series of ethereal flute and jazzy sax to give it a multidimensional feel. The electric piano and keyboard effects kept it grounded into the progressive world of psychedelia as the tracks, while technically separate actually run together seamlessly and generate an instrumental journey into total blissful escapism. While vocals are scarce, there are segments where Reichel belts out some lyrics but thankfully these passages end quickly as i find them to be the weakest link of the band’s unique musical journey.
The finale is saved for the super long twenty-three minute suite “Aqua” which consists solely of the track “Every Raindrop Longs For The Sea” that finds an extended groovy psychedelic jam sallying forth like there is no end to time. The formula is the same as side one with an energetic bass and percussion section accompanied by the driving rhythmic force with healthy doses of electric keyboard runs, blues funk guitar and the airy flutes and a constant background sound of ocean sounds including seagulls lurking in the distance. The sax also returns for the extra jazzy touch. There is a very carefree vibe to 'A.R. IV' with little or no attention paid to any sort of compositional style whatsoever. It is simply the sort of heady improvisational psychedelic jam that was common for the days. 'A.R. IV' is a massive improvement over 'AR3' as it captures the mood of the experimental sound journey that was intended. This is one that is a nice free floating escapist’s journey into the clouds.
This is the type of music that isn’t made to blow you away. This is very much an introspective journey that builds through a solid rhythmic flow that allows an atmospheric backdrop to shape shift much like clouds slowly changing shape as they roll by in the sky. 'A.R. IV' was basically a group of ten musicians getting together (granted not all at the SAME time) and trading off licks around a solid groove. While this album doesn’t have the same compositional prowess as other prog outfits of the day, there’s something very soothing about it that makes feel one with the universe. At this time Reichel was heavily into spirituality and yoga practice and that’s exactly what emanates from this long drifting odyssey in musical form. 'A.R. IV' would also find the band A.R. & MACHINES winding down as Reichel would continue as a solo artist, releasing one more psychedelic Kraut album before drifting into traditional German folk music. [SOURCE: RATE YOUR MUSIC]
Label:
Zebra – 2949 008
Format:
Vinyl, LP
Country:
Germany
Released:
1973
Style:
Krautrock, Jazz-Rock, Prog Rock, Space Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Jam Band
A free form rock band founded by a small community of 5 German hippies / "avant garde" artists back at the beginning of the 70's (Wolfgang Franz Czaika, as Caesar, is credited with "Lead- & Rhythmguitar", Ullrich Kallweit, known as Ulli "Drums / Percussion". His brother Harry Kallweit known as Harry, contributes "Electric bass / voice", Manfred Uhr AKA Warlock on "Organ / fuzz-organ / voice" and Norbert Luckas AKA Nobbi on "Guitar / A77 / Noises"). Their self title effort was published in 1972 in Düsseldorf at Luftschutzbunker (Air Raid Shelter) studio. The cover of their self title album (a militaristic image which is a portrait of the third Reich military force) provides an illustration of anger expressed by the WWII's young generation against their parents. By consequence German Oak's music is very eerie, dark and weird, dominated by heavy, "distorted" guitar solos & raw bluesy rhythms. The background creates "shadowy" & "ambient" sequences thanks to delay echoes, electronic "fuzzy" noises & repetitive bass lines. A funkadelic / jazzy felt punctuates with discretion this grandiose, "creepy" instrumental album. In a rather discretion they also released the moody, cloudy and experimental epic-kraut 'Niebenlungelied' (1972). [SOURCE: PROG ARCHIVES]
Label:
Witch & Warlock – W&W 006, World Wide Records – W&W 006
Format:
CD, Album
Country:
Germany
Released:
1995
Genre:
Electronic, Rock
Style:
Krautrock
Tracklist:
1 The Heroic Deeds Of Siegfried 6:08
2 Nibelungenlied I: Siegfried & Kriemhild 7:25
3 Gunter & Brunhild 3:59
4 Hagen Von Tronje 5:39
5 Siegfried's Death 4:10
6 Dankwart, Ruediger & Hildebrandt 4:22
7 Dietrich Von Bern 3:25
8 Nibelungenlied II (12:12) A) Kriemhild & Etzel B) Final Fights And Death
