GERMAN OAK [AKA: DOWN IN THE BUNKER]

One of the true Krautrock gems that swept into creation during the wild excesses of the early 1970s, GERMAN OAK delivered the kind of psychedelic fueled nightmarish soundscapes that proto-industrial dreams were made of. This collective of German hippies who formed a commune in Düsseldorf created that which some have designated as bunker rock, a term which refers to the space jams crafted by the five members who participated in the depths of an underground bunker. Unlike most Krautrock artists, these guys took the opposite approach of escaping the atrocities of Germany's recent past and instead adopted them as a launching pad to transmogrify into the new realities of the modern era.

While only existing for a short time, GERMAN OAK spent a great deal of time in the Luftschutzbunker, or Air Raid Shelter in order to employ the uncanny acoustic qualities that the location allowed which was perfectly conducive to the creepy dark mysterious sounds oozing out of Germany's psychedelic Krautrock and Berlin School movements. The band recorded enough material for two albums and a number of bonus tracks but only released its self-titled album during its existence in 1972. The second album "Nibelungenlied" followed as an archival release in 1992 and the bonus tracks have been tacked onto many of the reissues. The original album remained one of those true obscurities for decades as only a limited number of copies were pressed and most remained unsold until the rest of the world caught up to the epic sounds that emerged during those years.

Various reissues over the years have been retitled "Down In The Bunker" as record labels latched onto what set GERMAN OAK apart from the multitude of similar seekers of taking the world of psychedelic rock to the farthest out trips possible. The original album featured only four tracks. The opening "Air Alert" and the closing "Out Of The Ashes" featured heavy organ swell bombast with wild unruly bass bantering, acid guitar freakery and bombastic percussive drive but these two tracks were short and were designed merely to bookend the two sprawling middle tracks that both exceeded the 16-minute mark. The quickened tempos of the intro and outro connote a sense of urgency and channels the lingering panic of a terrorized population ready to flee at a moment's notice during the cold and torturous days of the second World War.

The bulk of the experience lies with the two sprawlers "Down In The Bunker" and "Raid Over Dusseldorf." The first of which takes a lallygagging stroll in slow tempo mode as pseudo-jazzy drum rolls provide the canvass upon which an acid guitar lick revolves in a receptive cyclical loop and as a bantering bass provides a more accessible funk groove. "Raid Over Dusseldorf" picks up the speed and features the only true rocking experience on the album with a heavy bass / drum rhythm section joined in by more standard rock guitar riffing. Very much a psychedelic jam, GERMAN OAK were seasoned enough musicians to add the spice which made a near 16-minute track interesting with creative variations of percussive patterns, fuzzed out guitar effects and the beefy funk field bass grooves which kept it all unified.

One of the odd mysteries surrounding band are the accusations of it being one of the first cryptofa bands, a word that means "a covert fascist" or those who hide in the shadows in celebration of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazi regime. Despite such claims there is really no evidence to support this. While most post-war Germans were driven to escapism which ultimately led to the surreal soundscapes of the world of Krautrock, many stared the evil past square in the eye in order to purge the evil spirits of the past in a form of musical catharsis. This is an all instrumental affair save the few spoken outbursts of enthusiasm that pop up now and again. The fascination for the fascist years presumably as an educational stance is evident by the black and white album cover art.

In many ways the style of music presented by GERMAN OAK was the ultimate expression of the entire Krautrock scene. The collective efforts of hippie ideals engaging in crafting the most spaced out fuzzed fueled DIY jams as possible with no regard to what would become of it. The music certainly did fall on deaf ears at the time and it would've been safe to assume that these recordings would've been lost to time had the rest of the world not surely but slowly sought out the lost sounds of the era that took a nation by storm for a brief moment in time. This one is a bit confusing since some reissues even changed the names of the titles but for my money's worth this mysterious little slice of bunker rock is one of the most unique in the entire classic Krautrock scene made all the more mysterious by the echoey bunker reverberations that sound were as effective as any fancy shmancy studio effects.