RAT ROADS

This album is actually the remaining numbers from the recording sessions of their third album Four Letter Monday Afternoon. As that album was already a double vinyl - there was enough material to have made it a triple - and this is not really the bottom of the drawer stuff either as one could fear, but the tapes remained untouched for decades. Funnily, this album is their second posthumous release (although Never Too Late was indeed meant to be released back in the days, where this one was not, but it was recorded before NTL) is it is yet another step towards their jazz-fusion trek. But the group was still officially a quintet, not having absorbed Ingo Schmid and Peter Dechant as full members. Behind another spooky artwork (again from Drechsler's now ex-wife), hides another amazing OOF album that deserves your full attention.

If I call these tracks "leftovers", believe me, it is just an expression because there is absolutely nothing that they would envy to any of their other albums. Indeed, I'D Like To Be Free and the 12-mins Table Talk starts this compilation in excellent fashion, especially with Herring's superb organ work on the later, even if the jamming takes us back to FLMA. The self-tiled track is a bit long in evolving and the first part seems a bit muffled, but once the group liberates itself in the finale, all hell breaks loose. Fallen Apples is a superb and reflective slow guitar piece, with with Ingo's baritone sax answering it.

Straight Ahead is an organ-driven boogie (Herring plus Tatcher on this one) with a superb trumpet solo from guest Povlika. Moran sings only on two tracks and to be truthful his voice is now anything but irritating (to those that ever thought it) and the group plays ever more tightly because of it. The 12-min+ Climax is their peak and could have been easily fitted on a side of Four Letter if their Hunchen 55 had been shortened by half (this number did add up to 48 min and it was.....tooo long). Climax starts fantastically slow and slowly rises to greatness through a series of fun brass interventions, including a superb trombone section. The last two short titbits so the compilation absolutely no favour, and as a matter of fact pretty well ruin a bit yet another superb OOF disc.

Musically this is right up with the rest of the session, so if you appreciated Four Letter, this one should pass as another letter in the mail (easy, I meant). It does have that unfinished touch to it, though. I was mentally torn apart because of the ratings system: my heart giving it high marks because I love the band and the music developed and the signification of the star rating system: this excellent and essential if you are a fan. But in a way, this is for fans only...... So between a 4 or 5 on one side and a 2 on the other side (rating system) so my brains let my mind win.

This is OUT OF FOCUS' second posthumous release. The tracks here were leftovers from the "Four Letter Monday Afternoon" sessions. Man they recorded a lot of material during that time and it's all outstanding. A bit more of a free form/jamming style here and it's fantastic.

"I'd Like To Be Free" opens with a guitar melody then a fuller sound arrives before a minute. Nice organ and bass section follows.Vocals join in too then sax. Great sound before 4 minutes with the guitar and sax standing out. Bass and organ lead briefly around 6 minutes again. Piano late. "Table Talk" opens with horns with no real melody as they come and go. Drums and bass join in for support. Organ before 4 1/2 minutes. Horns dominate before 7 minutes. This sounds incredible ! "Rat Roads" builds with horns and drums but it settles back quickly as the organ floats in the background. It picks up before 4 minutes then kicks in with gusto. "Fallen Apples" is a short mellow tune with horns,keys and gentle guitar.

"Straight Ahead" has a good rhythm to it with organ playing over top. Horns join in and dominate. "Tell Me What I'm Thinking Of" is led by vocals, drums, organ and bass.The chorus just sweeps me away. So good. Guitar before 1 1/2 minutes then the horns join in. Just a gorgeous track. "Climax" opens with the horns sounding like they're warming up (haha). We start to get a melody before 5 minutes and they seem to jam the rest of the way. "Kitchen Blues" is 30 seconds of mainly horns while "Good-Bye Honey" is a minute of the guitar, bass and drums standing out.

Another exceptional release from these talented Germans. Well worth checking out.

The second batch of "songs" (many existing in varied states of development or as unfinished jams) gleaned from the cutting floor of 1972's sessions for their Four Letter Monday Afternoon album (the band's last). Man! This band had so much untapped potential!

1. "I'd like to be free" (7:15) strummed guitar chords open this tout seul until tenor sax joins in playing a simple variation on George Gershwin's "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess. The rest of the band gels around this theme, sprouting a very pleasant motif that gushes forward with solid momentum, thick bass and thin drums supporting Moran Neumüller's Bob-Dylan/Damo Suzuki-sounding voice singing, once again, in English but this time with less vehement social commentary, more a laid back statement of dreamy desire. The instrumental soloing in the. fourth and fifth minutes is excellent, separated by SPENDER DAVIS GROUP/BLOOD, SWEAT & TEARS-like bridges. A very pleasant and melodic song that could have made many radio listeners quite happy (but would, of course, require some editing in order to fit radio time formats). (13.375/15)

2. "Table talk" (12:03) opens like a DON ELLIS song with layers of multi-instrumental stuff going on all at the same time--including what sounds like a horn section--all seeming separate but eventually falling into a merger that works really well together even thought they still sound separate. (Very difficult to explain. Think of three bands on stage at the same time--bass and drums, keyboards and guitars, and horn section--each launching into their own totally unique song, at first somewhat awkwardly but eventually, somehow, entraining with one another into a multi-layered sound that works!) One of the coolest songs I've ever heard in my life. It's like Miles' Bitches Brew only everything makes sense and sounds good! (25/25)

3. "Rat roads" (5:16) a song that starts out as another slower, more spacious variation on the Gershwin "Summertime" theme that eventually speeds up and gels into a kind of Brazil '66 "Newlywed Game" theme song. Nice but definitely feels like an extract of an unpolished, incomplete song. (8.875/10) 4. "Fallen apples" (2:18) gentle tenor sax sax accompanied by gntle arpeggiated electric guitar chords and some cymbal and brush play. Pretty, (4.5/5)

5. "Straight ahead" (4:39) organ-led but not Brian Auger's version, more like a punched-in excerpt from a long jam that was recorded and achopped up and hashed out to make several songs on these later releases. Nice palette and performances but not a proper song; just a jam. (8.875/10)

6. "Tell me what I'm thinking of" (3:58) jazz chord progressions over which Moran sings. Kind of like "Take Five" with vocals. (8.875/10)

7. "Climax" (12:47) another song of multiple streams of individual musicians working independently--as if warming up or tuning their instruments--that smooths out for the second and third minute before beginning to take shape--to turning into something cohesive--in the fourth minute. It almost becomes Steve Reichian before the trombone, rhythm guitar, saxes and keys begin to merge over drummer Klaus Spöri's "Shaft"-like cymbal play. Bassist Stephan Wiescheu carries forward the trombonist Hermann Breuer's repeated pattern as the horns seem to go their own separate ways but then goes his own way when Hermann returns to carrying his mathematic melody line again. This is when the drums finally get to break out and, with the rest of the rhythm section, present a hard-driving motif over which the horns continue to add their loose change. At the end of the ninth minute we're left with only bass and drums and two electric guitars: one jazz strum-leading while the other picks delicately from behind. A cool song that the band has pulled off here: so creative! The final 90 seconds sees the gaggle of horns almost coming together for the first time. (22.125/25) 8. "Kitchen blues" (0:59) sounds like something that was recorded back in the 1930s. (4.3333/5)

9. "Good-bue honey" (0:31) sounds like something from a live, on stage jam. The guitarist in the lead sounds as if he's trying on some Chuck Berry. (4.25/5)

Total Time: 50:57

So these are the songs that didn't make the cut to be included on the 94-minute long double album release back in 1972. Man! They had a lot of material! I find it quite interesting how founding member and Hammond organ expert Hennes Hering has been almost completely removed from the band's sound palette--here represented on only a couple of songs.

A-/five stars; an odd smattering of many outcasts from the Four Letter Monday Afternoon recording sessions now edited and released 30 years later. The mercurial album has somehow earned a masterpiece metric--based largely on the mind-blowing beauty of the album's second song. On the whole I would not call this album a masterpiece. "Table Talk," however, is, as I've said above, one of the most amazing songs I've ever had the privilege of laying witness to-- thus making the acquisition of this album as a listening experience a HIGHLY recommended experience to seek out for yourselves.