HARMONIA LIVE 1974

A live document of a HARMONIA concert held in Griessem, Germany March 23rd 1974. There's no crowd noise at all and all the tracks here aren't on their first two classic albums which I also find interesting. This is an archival release finally hitting the shelves in 2007. The music here is fairly even with little in the way of breakouts. This trio which combined Rother(NEU!) with Roedelus and Moebius(CLUSTER) would always peak my curiosity and this album is no different. I just find myself mesmerized almost with the music here. It is samey and trippy with organ, piano, percussion, synths and Rother's guitar that keeps these soundscapes moving along.

"Schaumburg" has these beats and spacey sounds with guitar expressions helping out. I like the ethnic vibe here and it's very repetitive. "Veteranissimo" is the longest track at 17 1/2 minutes. Beats to start as faint keys join in. The beats are more intense before 4 minutes but they fade back again. Synths seem to be buzzing here. An electric beat after 6 minutes and there seems to be organ here too as the relentless beats continue. It gets pretty quiet after 8 minutes but beats continue. It gets louder and lots more depth 15 1/2 minutes in. It lightens again as it fades out.

"Arabesque" has a nice full sound to it with organ, bass-like sounds, synths and more. The guitar will leave it's mark as well. "Hola-Polta" has these repetitive beats with synths over top and it all sounds pretty cool. Another sound joins in, maybe the electric percussion but I'm not sure. The sound does get louder then fade back on and off throughout this one. The beats are non-stop though. "Ueber Ottenstein" ends it with uptempo percussion as synths join in in creating atmosphere. Guitar and piano follow. Some loud guitar expressions I believe will come and go. Some twittering synths as well.

Tough to know what I'm hearing on this one all I know is that it works. It will always remind me of my trip to get skinny jeans on a whim over a week ago.