BRAINTICKET

I would think that BRAINTICKET are the most well known and appreciated non-German Krautrock band out there. They were from Switzerland, and were led by flautist and keyboardist Joel Vandroogenbroeck who was born in Belgium. Their first three albums were legendary, and my favourite of those is "Celestial Ocean" from 1973 but they would disband 2 years after that. I wish they had made a followup album to that one back then, but it wasn't to be.

They did get back together, well Joel and his drummer and two new keyboardists. Making this a three keyboard and drummer setup. And releasing two similar styled albums in the early eighties "Adventure' and "Voyage". Both feature two side long suites. This feels like a Krautrock interpretation of early Mike Oldfield. So of course being like a lot of Krautrock it's less melodic and less rhythmic than Oldfield, going into more experimental territories, slower paced too.

This one did grow on me a lot. The flute is much appreciated and I like the clavinet. I'm not sure what the two members do with their computers here but they are credited with that along with synths. This was recorded live in their small studio and truly feels like a long jam they had that would become "Voyage'. This just isn't on the same level in my opinion as their first three albums, but these two 80's albums have their fans. This second reincarnation of the band is more about improvisation. I feel that Krautrock spirit is still here, I'm just not as "into" this music as I am their more adventerous recordings from the early seventies. Lots of electronics on this one. I do prefer the second side as being darker and more atmospheric. Good album.

I suppose this will be the last studio album from the legendary Krautrock band BRAINTICKET. Led by Belgium born Joel Vandroogenbroeck this band was formed in 1968 and has gone through many lineup changes over the years. Joel passed away in 2019, four years after this one was released. Krautrock from Switzerland? You bet! And pioneers at that, along with being very influential. In a way this album makes me sad because I feel that the original Krautrock spirit that influenced this band isn't here. And I think it left after those two 80's records they released. This thought is based on that comeback album from 2000 called "Alchemic Universe" where we get those modern techno rhythms and sounds that were quite disappointing.

"Alchemist Universe" would not have been a good way to end their careers, so based on that I suppose Joel just wanted one more shot at it, and this is it, worts and all, but better. It's interesting that Joel has dumped his former band here, or maybe they weren't interested, as he has enlisted the band HEDERSLEBEN from Germany to be his backing band. And HEDERSLEBEN is legit. Nik Turner has had them and Joel play on some of his studio albums coincidently. Lots of connections here. I wish they had followed HEDERSLEBEN's style, that trippy, beautiful, psychedelic sound. No, this is modern sounding, slick, polished and calculated. Just not dirty or psychedelic enough to be called old school Krautrock that's for sure.

Their best in my opinion is "Celestial Ocean", that trippy record with spacey keys dominating. That was album number three, while their debut "Cottonwood Hill" is about as "out there" an album as you'll find, especially vocally. And a lot of people point to their second album "Psychonaut" as their best. The only album by BRAINTICKET that is in my "best of" Krautrock list is "Celestial Ocean". Love the cover art for this 2015 release. And this is ambitious for sure, clocking in at almost 76 minutes. It's also a Sci-Fi concept album. On the back cover they give a brief little blurb about each track which is insightful, so I'll borrow from that source.

The album opens with "Dancing On A Volcano" parts one and two which alone takes up over 30 minutes of music. First part is like this tribal ritual followed by the theme of time travel including some "Cottonwood Hill" sections according to the liner notes. "Reality Of Dreams" has this spacey guitar/sitar section leading to a meditative mood with whispers. "Proto Alchemy" has a metal theme in the context of bubbling liquids. "Riding The Comet" is travelling through space, lots of speed. "East Moon" has grand piano playing a minimalist role before some hard rock and jazz/fusion arrangements take over with fiery solos. "Singularity is dramatic and about our present day lives. "Egyptian Gods Of The Sky" is powerful with visions of the night sky. "Brainticket Blues" ends it with lots of bluesy flute from Joel.

A good album, and I'm happy Joel got to do this before his passing.

The legitimate Brainticket sound has been found!

It's amazing to think how little time it took the band to reinvent themselves and completely change the musical concept, as Cottonwoodhill was released in 1971 as well as this album, only a few months apart. Here the band seems to have grown up a lot, providing more uplifting and creative music, achieving a nurturing and welcoming terrain of open nature through unusual instruments such as the tbilat and slide whistle. I am compelled to say that I find the flutes played by Joel Vandroogenbroeck and Martin Sacher very pleasing. In fact, for the year of the album's release, I am surprised at how forward-thinking they are!

Certain songs like Radagacuca or Like A Place In The Sun (my favourite on the album) remind me a lot of the early days of CAN.

It's very striking how much progress they've made in so few months. I think as soon as they released the album (or even before they did), they knew the band sounded too electronic and with a lot of missing principles that needed to be moulded. They have gone from a tedious, incomplete and lacking in personality to a more spiritual, pure and mature sound.

Sure, the band is still the same and you can tell it's them, but here they have taken an unexpected leap in quality and the nature of the sound is much more apparent. Great addition to the musical culture of any fan of progressive rock and its derivatives.

I'm still trying to look for special aspects of Krautrock to really hold on to this sector sentimentally in some way. This initial album from the Swiss has its charm but you can tell that their sound has not yet matured and the band is still searching for it.

On the opening tracks "Black Sand" and "Places of Light" much of the fun is scattered, with almost no vocal intervention. From the outset it can be inferred that this is and will be a very electronic album despite its classical instruments (which seem to play in the background anyway and get overshadowed by the electronic sounds).

Almost the entire remainder of the album is taken up by an extended and quirky 26-minute song divided into three parts and titled with the band's name. The definitive voice that seals the extravagant style of this song belongs to Dawn Muir, who plays an experimental and risky role by singing without singing: She talks, she sobs, she moans, she rages, but she doesn't sing! Perhaps this has influenced Irene Papas and Aphrodite's Child to create the very strange song "Infinity (symbol)". The instrumentation of the song is very poor: Despite the unrelenting Krautrock characteristic based on eternal extensions, it is a tedious riff that fails to create the atmosphere it is meant to create.

3 stars seems to me a fair score for the debut album of this band that on their next album would reach a higher level.

Although the songs of Celestial Ocean segue from one to the next, to me the album has three phases. The first is the hypnotic opening song, "Egyptian Kings," is a promising slice of Krautrock: melodic and odd, based on a psychedelic groove reminiscent of Amon Düül II. The the overdubbed spoken words of Brainticket members Carole Muriel, Barney Palm, and Joel Vandroogenbroeck weave in and out of the track, which is the high point of the album. The final song, "Visions," represents a distinct third phase. "Visions" begins with a Vandroogenbroeck piano workout unlike anything else on the album, almost like "Cans and Brahms" on Fragile. While it sounds very little like Wakeman, and nothing at all like "Cans and Brahms," the first three-and-a-half minutes of "Visions" is nonetheless a showcase with no apparent relation to either the album's theme or the musical style of the foregoing pieces. On its own, though, this showcase - - and "Visions" as a whole - - is very good. In both respects is resembles "Egyptian Kings," and I'm only being slightly facetious when I suggest that an "Egyptian Kings" / "Vision" single would've been preferable to the entire album.

At twenty-seven minutes, the six-song heart of Celestial Ocean seems to comprise a cohesive album, though not a very good one.  It opens with four minutes of seemingly aimless guitar strumming and flute and synth noodling - - apparent filler, to my ears. The "Jardins" → "Rainbow" → "Era of Technology" suite-within-a-suite ends with an electronic section with which the vocals recommence. These three songs represent a microcosm of Celestial Ocean, which intersperses occasional acoustic or electronic parts between hybrid passages. "To Another Universe" is a case in point, opening with electronics over a driving tom-tom rhythm and closing to a Mellotron motif playing over an acoustic guitar. This song is also the last in which vocals play a significant role.

The meandering "The Space Between" and the atmospheric "Cosmic Wind" are oddly happy-sounding new-age slapdashery seemingly out of place on an album dealing with a a mysterious theme. Also odd is the use of western scales here and throughout most of the album. I'm no music theorist, but apparently there are Arabic modes and scales which might have been a better fit. Further separating the music from the theme is the dearth of spoken word in the eighteen-minute stretch from "The Space Between" until the last minute of "Visions."

In short, Celestial Ocean sounds like the result of some talented and very creative people getting their hands on some newfangled synthesizers and a bunch of studio time. Cleopatra Records declares it "the definitive album from Krautrock electronic pioneers, Brainticket!," but I genuinely hope this isn't the case, especially given the potential demonstrated in "Egyptian Kings."

I remembered back in 2000 a brand new Brainticket album, first time since Voyage in 1982. Since that time Joel Vandroogenbroeck recorded tons of library albums on the Coloursound label. By 1984 he moved to Mexico (as he was sick and tired of shoveling snow in the Swiss Winters) where he's lived ever since. I was happy that Joel teamed up once again Carole Muriel, but instead of a modernized Celestial Ocean it was clear that they were trying far too hard to reach the kids by exploring techno. That is those same preprogrammed beats and crummy digital synthesizers that make me never fond of that genre. Sure Ozric Tentacles explored techno but never forgot real guitars, drums and synthesizers and plenty of that rock attitude so their techno explorations never bothered me. Joel could have learned a thing or two from the Ozrics at the time. I have to be honest, I gave this plenty of chances and it left me cold. Thank God, 15 years later comes Past, Present and Future which was a giant relief for me as the techno was ditched and the guitars, drums, real keyboards and psychedelic approach returned. For me, Alchemic Universe is a demonstration why I dislike techno in general. It simply sounded too much like Joel was having a midlife crisis. To me any of their other albums are better and worth getting.

Brainticket opened my eyes to how many top shelf obscure progressive rock groups there are out there. There latest offering, Past Present and Future, comes fifteen years after 2000's Alchemic Universe which saw Joel, the leader, try to fuse his vision with contemporary European dancefloor rhythms. I came around to it, but it generally seems to be regarded as the weakest Brainticket album. If that was the weakest, this must be its polar opposite. This is krautspace 2015 with the emphasis on rock. The Dancing on a Volcano twofer runs through all the progressive gauntlets and emerges victorious. The second *side* showcases jammy guitar and swirling synth songs that work well low volume or on 11. It took me a while to appreciate the depth of this album but it really will reward the dedicated prog rock fanatic. My only quibble is the female lyrics are dispensed by what I'd classify as an amateur. It would seem Joel snuck into the nearest high school and grabbed the first girl (not woman) to add lyrical color to his record. It doesn't detract from the glory for me too much as the music created is awe inspiring. My favorite track has become Reality of Dreams 4.5 stars

It's always hard to get a handle on a band that reinvents itself for every album, but in truth the second LP from the Switzerland-based Brainticket was made by an entirely different group than the one that recorded "Cottonwoodhill" in 1971. Only multi-instrumentalist Joel Vandroogenbroeck remained from the original lineup; his erstwhile bandmates were likely still under medical care after surviving the borderline insanity of that earlier session.

Hearing both albums back-to-back (and they were packaged as such in at least one reissue) can be a tremendous letdown. The band's sophomore effort is a lot more inhibited than "Cottonwoodhill", but let's face it: outside of a tightly-knit straightjacket few things could possibly compare to such an extreme experience.

But just because the music was on a tighter leash is no reason to dismiss it. On its own terms "Psychonaut" is a more or less typical scrapbook of early '70s Head etiquette, complete with tablas, sitar, and Good Vibes, the latter an actual performance credit (along with "Strange Sounds"). Considered in isolation, the album is creative, unpredictable, and sometimes even exciting, from the heavy Krautrock-cum-early Tull jam in "Coc'O Mary" to the atypically haunting "Feel the Wind Blow" to the mildly lysergic flute curlicues in the opening "Radagacuca", later sampled (without acknowledgement) by fanboy Steve Wilson in his faux-LSD trip "Voyage 34".

The full effect never quite lives up to the album's awesome title or Bosch-like artwork. And the long shadow of "Cottonwoodhill" continues to linger over every note, even now. But that's okay: after such an untethered freakout the milder highs of "Psychonaut" can be a welcome relief.

There are some strange musical releases have emerged since the dawn of the recording industry but some are certainly stranger than others. It's always a fine balance, that is to find an utterly alien way of expressing oneself through the possibilities of sound and another matter completely to keep the alienating feel while adding just the right amount of elements that entice the listener to experience it unto completion. While formed in Switzerland with a diverse grouping of different European musicians, BRAINTICKET was the brainchild of Belgium born Joel Vandroogenbroeck whose study of classical and jazz went astray as the psychedelic 60s hit full force, leading him into temptation which ultimately led to the forbidden psychedelic fruit that led to his Krautrock infused band BRAINTICKET. The debut COTTONWOODHILL was famous in the psychedelic scene that the original LP sleeve carried the following warning: "After Listening to this Record, your friends may not know you anymore" and "Only listen to this once a day. Your brain might be destroyed!" While that may have been a nice gimmicky exaggeration and perhaps more true in the year 1971 when it was released, it does however portend to the listener that they are in for one demented, explorative and crazy piece of work.

By some COTTONWOODHILL is one of the trippiest records made of the era, however such claims are subjective of course depending which lysergic pastures one would graze in but unorthodox i believe is an adjective upon which everyone could agree and COTTONWOODHILL retains a distinct identity that sounds neither derivative nor copied decades after its release. It remains an utterly unique specimen tucked into myriad displays of psychedelic free form expression of the era. The album is essentially three tracks with the first two "Black Sand" and "Places Of Light" existing in a more "normal" plane of psychedelic and progressive rock that sounds like they could have even been playing on the stage of Austin Powers' warehouse in late 60s London. The tracks are surprisingly rooted in funk rock with a groovy bass, heavy drumbeat and prominent organ dominance with guitar licks adding the extra touch. While the album is filled with vocals, this isn't the normal type of vocal rock album as the vocals are never straightforward and directly sung. On the contrary they either emerge through the din of a processed electronic effect or are more commonly doled out in spoken narrative form especially by the psychotropic ranting freak outs of Dawn Muir.

While "Black Sand" is a heavy funk rocker, "Places Of Light" is light-hearted 60s sounding affair with Vandroogenbroeck cranking out pleasant flute melodies and keyboard runs. Muir begins her spoken word philosophical rants on this track and in a way the two openers are merely there to whet the appetite for the three part "Brainticket Suite" which takes up a whopping two thirds of the album and utilizes the same frantic groove for the majority of its duration. This groove is the combo effect of Vandroogenbroeck's hyperactive funk organ and the loop effect of Ron Bryer's guitar in sync with Werner Frohlich's slap bass guitar which serve as the anchoring foundation but pretty much everything else is fair game as everything from gargling water sounds, to atmospheric turbulence that sound like spaceships taking off to the seductive vocal rants of Dawn Muir come and go as the hypnotic groove creates a trancelike effect as all the accoutrements whizz on in a frantic flurry of activity. It is in effect an entertaining and skillfully crafted construction of order and chaos very much in sync with the visual imagery of the album artwork.

Upon my first experience of COTTONWOODHILL i was a little disappointed as i didn't find this as "trippy" as i had hoped it to be. There's something about the continuous and unrelenting groove loop that keeps this from taking me into the true lysergic lands of total escapism, but i have to keep reminding myself that this was 1971 when this came out and even so is still very much rooted in the 60s psychedelic scene that it was only a baby step removed from. It's better to look at this one as the mixing of not only the most psychedelic rock of the era but also of the ostinato musical elements that much of progressive rock was utilizing in order to allow various musicians to solo around. In this case, it's not the musicians who are doing the soloing but rather the sound effects, spoken word freak outs and collage of incessant swarms of noise that are the focus however the never changing groove loop with ever changing everything else is quite unsettling at first! While BRAINTICKET would continue to record with an ever changing lineup conquering new musical arenas with every release, COTTONWOODHILL sounds like no other, neither in their own canon or in any other band's for that matter. An utterly unique musical statement at the peak of psychedelic musical freedom. One that should be experienced to be believed :)

Warning: If you own the Purple Pyramid CD reissue of Voyage, you actually own Adventure, as both albums were accidentally swiped when reissued. So the review Im doing here goes actually to the real Voyage, which would be Adventure if you own the CD.

So, with an totally unchanged lineup of Joel Vandroogenbroeck, Barney Palm, Hans Deyssenroth, and Wilhelm Seefeldt, they recorded another album together, in February 1982. While Adventure was recorded during several sessions between May 1979 and January 1980 (and you can tell that, because music on there often had several abrupt changes), Voyage was all recorded all in one night, all improvised (it even states: "There were no rehearsals. We let the music flow out of our hands. We hope you enjoy it"). That's easy to believe, given there don't appear to be as much abrupt change as was on Adventure. To be honest, Voyage didn't quite left my mind blown the way of Adventure, but I still found it very enjoyable. At a time Duran Duran inflicted us with Rio (and that video of some lady wearing a purple plastic bag dress and the Duran Duran guys on a yacht), Joel Vandroogenbroeck seemed totally unaware of the changes, the music is still firmly in the '70s progressive electronic vein. Lots of clavinet, electric piano, Moog, with a more experimental bent than Adventure. Lots of gamelan and other percussion still used. There are some calm moments as well as some really tripped out moments. Listening to this, you'd think it came out in the late '70s. None of the keyboardists seem to come anywhere near a Prophet 5 or an OBXa, sticking to the trusted mid '70s stuff.

Bonus tracks (that is, the CD to Adventure, even though that's not the correct album), once again, of unknown origin. Joel Vandroogenbroeck, by this point, had released a ton of library music albums on Coloursound, but they weren't available to the general public (available to television, radio, and production companies interested), and only with the coming of the Internet had these albums been made aware of to the general public. None of these bonus cuts came from any of these albums. "Machinery (Analog 1970)" isn't from 1970. I'm guessing 1983 (after Voyage), sounds like Joel Vandroogenbroeck finally started including some early '80s polyphonic synths (sounds like an Oberheim OBXa) but the old '70s stuff like the clavinet are still being used. This one is more aggressive than "Skyline (Analog 1970)" (from the CD of Voyage, which is actually Adventure). "3 Worlds" is a really strange piece that goes through three changes. "Robotika" is a strange, percussive mechanical piece, appropriate for such a title.

This era of Brainticket is quite underrated. To me, this is how I wished the early '80s were like, not the era of MTV and Duran Duran. Given Joel Vandroogenbroeck was in his 40s at that time, it's obvious he had no use for stuff like that (his background was jazz, but he was open to the psychedelic and space rock scene of the early '70s, as well as world music, like gamelan), and gladly carried on like the '70s were still happening. His library albums after 1982 did show that he started adjusting to the times by including digital synthesizers (as well as the bonus cuts on both the CDs of Adventure and Voyage).

So if the review doesn't make sense, remember that the albums were accidentally switched when reissued on CD. I should know, years after I bought the CDs, I bought the original LPs, which cleared up a whole lot of confusion for me.

Really, Voyage is worth having but I felt Adventure is better.