GALACTIC SUPERMARKET

In the spring of 73, one Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser brought musicians from Ash Ra Tempel and Wallenstein together for a couple of impromptu jams. He recorded and released those sessions without ever consulting or paying any of the musicians involved. Not to their liking obviously.

Galactic Supermarket was the second album released from these 1973 sessions. It features the same line-up joined by two women - high on LSD - that provide the occasional echoed scream. Kaiser had already used up the best stuff on the first release, but there are still gems her, especially in the first half.

Kinder Des Alls I is a rocking workout that sounds like a draft version of ideas fit for an Ash Ra Temple release, but it's not of an equal quality standard. Good for fans still.

Kinder Des Alls II is easily the highlight of the album. Mellotron choirs start with a variation on the 'choir theme' from A Saucerful of Secrets. It's joined with percussion and effects. In the second half Schulze takes the lead with droning organs and synths doing an abstract and dissonant interpretation of what preceded. This is as good as what you will find on Irrlicht and Cyborg, but it's only 6 minutes long unfortunately.

It's mixed in with Kinder Des Alls III that continues the desolate feel of part II. The stoned girlfriends wake up and excite the band for a dense dissonant piece with pounding percussion and some good runs down the keyboards from Schulze and Dollase.

The three parts of Galactic Supermarket give ample reasons to the artists to be mad at Kaiser. Not only did he rip them off, he also released material here that none of the artist can have been really happy about. Göttsching is merely strumming some chords here while Schulze twists some random knobs on his synths. Pure chance music, without much coherence or purpose and I seriously doubt if Schulze or Göttsching would have released this if they had any say in it, at least not without further refining the good parts. The last 3 minutes of Part III bring a short moment of focus that is worth zapping forward to.

Despite its questionable origins, this second Cosmic Jokers album still contains some excellent moments of inspiration amidst lots of disjointed jamming that never should have seen the light of day. If the first Cosmic Jokers album was generally recommended to fans of Ash Ra Tempel and early Schulze, TD, Floyd; then I would recommend this one just to the Cosmic Jokers fans.