D

Georg Deuter is a German born New Age instrumentalist who has released more than 60 albums to date since beginning his musical journey back at the start of the early Seventies. However, his debut album `D' in 1971 was a far cry from the placid and pleasing synth soundtracks he would later adopt, instead it's a pure daring Krautrock classic that sounds like no other album. Deuter's debut is comprised of a series of schizophrenic and psychedelic sound collages, mixing everything from electronic organ drones, acoustic and ethnic instrumentation with inventive production techniques for the time and avant-garde experimentations that are initially bewildering and disorientating, yet utterly fascinating and captivating, truly the result of an inspired artist with a reaching vision.

The surreal four part fifteen-minute `Babylon' is a fragmented and psychedelic work of beauty, a frequently ambient but often jarring and unpredictable soundscape. Pink Floyd- like brooding spacey guitars chime over a gentle cacophony of church bells, babies crying, machine-gun fire and soaring jets. Murmuring bass lurks behind distorting repetitive mantra-like guitar stabs, ethereal glistening organs rise and fall around backwards effect slivers and warping swallowing voices that float amongst cocooning deep space loneliness. This piece shares a similar defiant edge of anything goes that the early Vangelis albums had and the cosmic yet earthy ambience of Popul Vuh.

The rest of the first side contains the plodding `Der Turm/Fluchtpunkt', a compact but heady concoction of tabla beats, panning effects and wailing wordless siren calls, with eerie straining Gong-like glissando wisps and fuzzy guitar-fuelled chugging grooves to bring a Can-esque dirty stomp.

Frantic, heavy grinding sitar drones race through the ten minute opener of the second side `Krishna Eating Fish and Chips', gradually speeding up to become overwhelming, hypnotic and almost maddening. Around the bubbling atmospherics of `Atlantis', a mix of snaking hissing electronic drones, a drumming pattering of tabla-like beats, shimmering unearthly sighs and backwards effects truly sound like a duelling storm between Heaven and Hell. The opening passages of `Gammastrahlen-Lamm' emerge like a bad nightmarish trip, but piercing droning slices, chittering whispers and reverberating machine hum quickly gives way to a thoughtful and melancholic pulsing organ drift that ends up almost meditative and enveloping.

Take your pick - Is this Krautrock, avant-garde, progressive-electronic, world/ethnic music, psychedelic? The answer is purely none of the above and yet all these things at once and more. Despite its many freeform elements, `D' never collapses into manic, splintering and tuneless chaos, instead retaining a trace of subtle melodicism within its explorations, and despite a few moments that take on a `hippie' vibe, there's a constant restlessness, an intensity bubbling under throughout even the most mellow moments. Although the artist would later take his music in a very different, more sedate New-Age direction (which has endeared him to a great many fans around to the world to this very day, to which he should still receive respect for), this evocative, fragile little jewel is easily the equal of the early Seventies Krautrock-electronic hybrid albums such as `Atem', `Alpha Centauri' and `Irrlicht' from fellow German artists like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, and is just as ground- breaking and influential in its own little way.

An essential Krautrock release worthy of five stars.