AGITATION FREE

Review #168!

Full of beautiful, melodic improvisations, this album shows the often-guised soft side of Krautrock. This album has foreshadowing of all kinds of genres that were to come, like post-rock, progressive electronic, and modern experimental. This LP is eclectic in every sense of the word. They expand on so many genres in each song, it's hard to pin a genre down before any others. From the first track, the epic pre-post-rock track 'First Communication', you can tell this album's bound to be great. By the second track, 'Dialogue and Random', you hear the band's experimental mind at full play. By the third track, 'Layla Pt. 1', you hear the hard-rocking, structural approach that Agitation Free takes. By part two of The third track, you experience experimental bliss as Stefan Diez nears shatters a guitar. At the fifth track, 'In The Silence Of The Morning Sunrise', you gladly don't hear silence; you hear a mind-blowingly chill, yet complex guitar solo over 'Echoes-esque' backing bass tracks. In the sixth and longest track, you hear electronic sounds that slowly build from pure noise to melodic musical grooves enough to put you in a trance. In the final track, you hear the only vocals on the album. The track, aptly titled 'Haunted Island', is truly eerie. The wind noises, the droning synths, and everything make for a spooky listen. And just as much as this song is scary, it is great, like the whole album is. I could not recommend this one more. Prog on!

3.5 stars. AGITATION FREE might be my favourite Krautrock band, I mean they are right up there with AMON DUUL II for me although not nearly as adventerous as ADII they are just so darn melodic, trippy and spacey. Those first two studio albums are classics then add "Last" and "At The Cliffs Of River Rhine" my two favourite live records by them and we have a lot of 5 star albums. Hearing that they were releasing a studio album in 2023 had me cautiously optimistic with a lot of that based on that live record they released in 2011 but recorded in 2007 which was amazing. Except for the second guitarist that five piece on "Shibuya Nights" was the original lineup. Once again the second original guitarist is not here but his replacement on that live one is back but also we have a new bass player so three of the five original members are here.

If you were expecting this to sound like the old AGITATION FREE your going to be disappointed. Not that it's a bad thing that they have created something different here but to my ears this sounds nothing like them. So that first listen was interesting. I didn't know what to make of it because I thought it was good but knew I needed a lot of time with it. This is very much World music with electronics being front and centre. We have three of the guys adding electronics besides other instruments. The ethnic vibe is strong my friends. This is truly unique sounding but that doesn't mean I like it or even get it. Those many listens helped of course but I'm just not warming up to this one. So the 3.5 stars is part respect(that half star) and part I'm just not enjoying this enough so... a 3 star rating here.

I have to say that it doesn't even sound like Ulbrich playing lead guitar here and Rausch the drummer while really impressive again has that World music sound going on here with the different percussions he uses. Hoenig is Hoenig on the keyboards and he produced and mixed this record too. He even adds electronic percussion. There are so many sounds on this album that I'm just not into. I miss that warm, melodic 70's sound they mastered so well. Hey I get it it's been 50 years but just rating this on it's own regardless of what they did in the past this for me isn't a 4 star record but still I am impressed.

Jamming is one of the things that I like in Krautrock, especially when it's well balanced. A bad example of jamming is the ridicolous trippy debut of Amon Duul. "First Communication" is a good one, instead. The two guitars and the bass sound like the early Wishbone Ash, but the dissonant note, likely played by mistake at about minute 2 witnesses the fact that it's a jam and possibly a one- take recording. Despite this fact, the track is well structured. Ok, it's a few chords progression, but the first part of "Sometimes World", to mention Wishbone Ash again, hasn't much more. This track is relaxing, if it was meant to be trippy, that's surely a good trip. Possibly, I would put it on while driving (if only my wife allowed this kind of music when we travel by car).

"Dialogue And Random" is totally different. Just electronic noises of the kind that make "Invisible Connections" by Vangelis. Not as iconic as "On The Run" by Pink Floyd. It's a sort of bridge between the chaotic final of the first track and the beauty of the third.

"Laila part 1" Has again an initial Wishbone Ash vibe due to the 12 strings guitar, but the electric guitar riff is another story: it's rock with a touch of psychedelia, maybe a bit late as it's 1973 and it sounds as it came from the previous decade. By the way, it's my pot. I love it. "Laila part 2" is a surprise. It still reminds me of Wishbone Ash but also of CAMEL. If somebody told me that's a track missed from Moonmadness, I could believe it. Here Rausch and Diez show that they are also good instrumentists. There are few fast guitar passages where a good technique is on display, while the drums are similar to the style of Andy Ward that I don't think it's an easy thing.

"In The Silence Of The Morning" runs on the same binaries. A repetitive bass line, metronomic drums, dissonant 12 strings guitar trippy electric guitar and a subtle background of keyboards. Another good trip that the dissonant chords played by Ulbrich make more interesting.

Probably there's something that I don't get, but I often skip "A Quite Walk". To me it's like a failed attempt to experimentalism. It has good moments, but I find it inconsistent. Probably if it was accompanied by colorful images it would have a different impact. The bouzuki part sounds Indian even if it's a Greek instrument and not a SItar, and it's the best part of the track. Does anybody remember George Harrison's solo stuff?

The album is closed by "Haunted Island". The only track featuring lyrics and vocals. Thow voices, one whispered and a bass note at the end of each sentence before organ and drums create a crescendo of suspance. When the bass enters, we are almost in the Eloy realm. It's not Atlantis sinking, or is it? The final explosion closes the track too suddenly. It's a pity.

The weak parts of the album are well counterbalanced by the goods, there's some musicianship that's not always ensured in Krautrock, so even who is not too much into this subgenre can enjoy about 40 minutes of good vibrations. With or without smoking stuff.

We can feel such a hallucinogenic atmosphere via a combination of free jam sessions and sensitive production. One of Krautrock masterpieces "Malesch" released in 1972 by a German psychedelic giant AGITATION FREE can be called as a supermixture of worldwide music scenes. Apparently in the whole album, weird electronic tendency, tribal oriental melody streams, heavy guitar-based rock vibes, indo-raga moments, heartwarming mellotron buffers, repetitive percussive movements are spread out based upon flexible freaky jamming psychedelic sound ground. In addition, the creation sounds not simply improvised nor inspired but also well planned and calculated ... at least for me. We would get intimidated into silence by their colourful, kaleidoscopic sound variation. Not continuously pushy but sometimes mellow and dreamy.

"Khan El Khalili" is a slowtempo, improvisational jamming with long trippy repetitions mainly by acoustic and electric guitar talks plus smooth rhythmic section plays, upon a keyboard-oriented silky flying carpet. And the titled track also has mysterious melodic dissonance. Such a smoke melodic screen like this is crazy impressive, but wondering why we can accept their tricky, camouflagic attention so easily. On the contrary, the first "You Play For Us Today" is full of indo / raga percussive improvisation, nervous guitar navigation, and sarcastic electronic seasoning ... this soundscape is quite authentic in the Krautrock world. "Sahara City" is a simple, desert, dry-fruity one, that reminds us all of AF members would have played under contemplation. The latter phase has deeply heavy, cool strain atmosphere. The following "Ala Tul" is more and more of inspiration filled with tribal percussion and hazy structure. The last "Rücksturz" is melodic catchy electro-guitar dancing that should be suitable for the epilogue of this fantasy.

Honest to say, this impressive album launched in the early 70s should be more and more appreciated.

AGITATION FREE formed all the way back in 1967 but didn't really find a unique niche in the Krautrock scene until the members found exotic ethnic influences through the group's travels throughout countries like Eygpt, Greece and Cyprus which led to the unique sound heard on the band's debut "Malesch." The album immediately stood out from the band's Krautrock contemporaries for its bold percussive drive augmented with psychedelic jams and progressive electronic influenced drones and spaced out timbres and tones. The group enjoyed a successful tour and has remained a well-known band because of the interesting fusion of ethnic sounds and the German Krautrock scene.

So cool was the debut that it is quite surprising that the band so radically changed its sound for the sophomore album uncreatively titled 2ND. While the psychedelic freeform jams and experimental Krautrock elements are still in abundance as are the electronica and drones, the Middle Eastern percussive drive had been completely dropped and instead replaced by a rather unimaginative standard rock drumming style and in the process makes 2ND sound a bit more generic than the 1st. Another big change was the replacement of guitarist Jörg Schwenke with Stefan Diez however the stylistic shift goes way beyond just a new member joining the ranks.

Due to the interest and exotic nature of "Malesch" which kept the band on the live circuit, the band had a difficult time finding the time to record 2ND but finally locked themselves away in the studio in July 1973. The band took a completely new approach on this one and focused more on spaced out jam sessions that implemented bluesy guitar riffs lazily flowing along with bass grooves and more standard rock percussion. While the keyboards and mellotrons are still around, they pretty much provide intros and other sections outside of the context of the main jamming sessions and therefore the album feels a lot less integrated than the previous one and without the strong percussive backbone that gave "Malesch" such an exotic feel, this one just seems a bit too free floaty for its own good.

Once again the tracks are completely instrumental with the sole exception of the ending track "Haunted Island" which contains the spoken word vocals of drummer Burghard Rautsch which narrates a tale of what the title suggests. 2ND truly resonates in the heady psychedelic era of Krautrock but for some reason this album doesn't connect with me as much as it does with others. I exponentially prefer the debut release "Malesch" and when it comes to this rather Can inspired groovy form of Krautrock, AGITATION FREE seem a bit amateurish on 2ND. For all its trippiness, the album seems to lose some of its psychedelic affect by the rather standard bluesy rock jamming and the rather uninventive drumming while the rock parts are hampered by the rather unfocused electronic experimentation. It just doesn't sound very dynamic despite nothing resonating as overtly bad.

Personally this one just sounds like a few steps down. The debut featured complex chord progressions that developed into pleasing melodies whereas 2ND just sort of jams along aimlessly with boring blues scales and nonchalant grooves and percussive drive. While the album received critical acclaim during its release and has remained popular in cult circles, the album failed to sell well and the band folded in 1974 although they would reform in 1998. Perhaps the closest track that matches "Malesch" material is the nine minute "A Quiet Walk" which features more experimental touches aside from the predictable jamming and even includes a more dynamic percussive drive not quite adopting the ethnic influences of its predecessor but has the most interesting guitar workouts as it includes not only an electric guitar but also a 12-string acoustic along with the more exotic sounds of a bouzouki.

I've owned both AGITATION FREE albums for many years and i've tried to give this one a fair chance on many occasions as most of the time albums that don't hit me at first have to grow on me, but after every single listen i can only think about how much more i love "Malesch" and during the playtime of 2ND i just sit there and rearrange the album in my own mind to make it interesting. I really don't understand why so many find this album to be so innovative. There were literally many dozens of more interesting Kraut bands cranking out far superior material. After many years of giving this a chance, i have concluded that it's just not an album that deserves all the praise that is heaped upon it. While not outright bad, it's a piss poor followup to one of Kraut's most innovative albums of the early 1970s. For yours truly this one is a major disappointment and to my ears this is the epitome of an AGITATION SPREE.

The second Agitation Free record is said to be quite different from the debut, which has some eastern influences. I myself hear a fairly logical continuation in style. Slowly paced instrumental melodic rock improvisations with the sense of 'being in the moment' as their greatest asset. Atmosphere & soul are key, rock is just the sound. With the lush timing of a cool jazz quintet, Agitation Free recorded some of the most relaxing krautrock pieces ever. Opening track 'First Communication' impresses as a classic spacey krautrock track. Love the acoustic guitar in the second halve. When it comes to combining the sound of the different instruments, this song is not representative of what's to come. Still a strong track! The album's center pieces 'Layla part 2' and 'In The Silence Of The Morning Sunrise' are my favorites. They take the listener to a whole other universe without making to much of a fuzz about it. Just a great rhythm, one great melody and two guitar players soloing the blues in the night sky. Lovely organ sounds. This is what world peace sounds like. Somehow it reminds me a bit of 'In A Silent Way' by Miles Davis. The ethnic 'A Quiet Walk' is a nice piece with an Irish Bouzouki. 'Haunted Island' is a bit darker and less remarkable, but still a good track. Whereas the debut album of Agitation Free 'Malesch' would benefit from the brake-out moments, this album sees the perfection of musical atmospheres that are perfect without any contrasts. This is a real treat for home stereo listeners.

Attempting a comeback after 25 years can be a risky venture, especially for an aging band so closely tied to a vanished zeitgeist, in this case the restless counterculture of early 1970s Germany. But Agitation Free got it exactly right for their improbable late '90s reunion, striking an ideal balance between nostalgia and change.

The classic AF lineup last heard in 1974 was still intact, minus keyboard guru Michael Hoenig, who at the time was occupied with crummy Hollywood soundtrack commissions, emulating his idols in Tangerine Dream. His absence would force the remaining players to pursue a bigger, brighter sound, far removed from the band's Krautrock roots but entirely appropriate for the more streamlined musical climate of the 1990s. 'Accessible' can be a dirty word in Progressive Rock circles, but it works here, and the band's jammy instrumental vibe wasn't compromised in the slightest.

The title track opens the album on an unexpected (and very pretty) acoustic guitar phrase, courtesy of Gustl Lütjens. The added saxophone is another surprise, alerting listeners that the band was no longer living in the past. Or at least not entirely: some of that spacey early '70s DNA resurfaces in the awkwardly titled "She Sells Seashells at the Seashore", one of two cuts breaking the ten-minute threshold. The past is likewise present in "Nomads", a groovy dream of Arab caravans recalling the band's travels throughout the Near East before recording their first album in 1972.

Both tracks reference the same cosmic heritage, but without sounding at all retrograde. Ditto the climactic "177 Spectacular Sunrises", closing the album on a drifting meditative note consistent with the band's Krautrock origins, but updated to the uncertain end of a turbulent millennium.

It's too bad that perfectly timed curtain was then spoiled by an atypical bonus track: the hard-rocking encore "Keep On": not a bad song, but all-too conventional after the uncanny voyage preceding it.

The reformation was brief, and another decade would pass before the band was heard again (see: Shibuya Nights"). But if this ends up being the final Agitation Free studio album it'll be remembered as a worthwhile valedictory, especially for a group more than two decades away from home.

The second posthumous live album from the Berlin-based Krautrock jam band is another winner, despite having a more conventional playlist compared to the far-flung explorations of "Last", which appeared shortly after the group first split in 1974.

This one arrived over twenty years later, but the belated release date wasn't accidental. Guitarist Lutz Ulbrich was in the process of getting the band back together in 1998, and dusting off an old concert recording was an expedient way to rekindle interest in a cult act out of the public eye for almost a quarter century.

The live tapes were restored from a much-bootlegged radio broadcast (recorded in Cologne on February 2, 1974, nine months before the breakup), and sound excellent for their age. The setlist, for better or worse, was drawn almost entirely from the band's 1973 sophomore LP "2nd", faithfully reproducing over half the album (and in sequence). The single digression is the album's long, opening improv "Through the Moods": classic Agitation Free, showing the group at its telepathic peak.

It's true that the concert renditions stick pretty close to their studio role models, unlike the extended jams on "Last". But the performances all have that vital spark only attainable on stage, revealed here through the intertwined guitars of Ulbrich and Gustl Lütjens, and held in place by the textured aura of Michael Hoenig's keyboards: otherworldly icing atop an already cosmic torte.

At least one re-issue (the '08 Revisited Records CD, without the original Maxfield Parrish-meets-Roger Dean artwork) includes a nine-minute bonus, "Big Fuzz": an embryonic and at times almost funky jam from a show two years before the Rhine River gig. The sound quality takes a nosedive, but the extra track is a welcome slice of high-water Krautrock, like the full album an unexpected gift to fans, freshly exhumed from the vaults.

Agitation Free streamlined its sound for its 2nd long player. In the dust go the middle eastern mystic rhythms that permeated the debut, in come lilting dual guitar melodies and spaced-out harmonics. The result is a crowning achievement for German rock and must have album for progressive rock collectors.

Three compilation worthy cuts - "First Communication", "Laila pt. 2" and "In the Silence of the Morning Sunrise" - highlight this set, with the last two album cuts pushing this record into all time classic territory. The vagina album cover puts it over the top.

Sorely underexposed in the progressive rock arena, all of Agitation Free is recommended, but this one should be on your shelves if you own 100 prog albums.

Found a used CD of this in Eugene, Oregon, which I thought that was great, I've been meaning to get some Agitation Free, but the problems of course, are they are not always easy to get a hold of, although not so if you're looking for a reissue online. I already have Malesch, still don't have 2nd, though. I first knew of Agitation Free back in 1995 when I bought a copy of Michael Hoenig's Departure from the Northern Wasteland (LPs of that are fairly common and cheap, I wouldn't be too surprised if a copy occasionally turns up in a thrift/charity store). Then that year I discovered, before briefly joining Tangerine Dream for a few tours in 1975, he was in Agitation Free.

Last was a live album recorded in 1973 and '74, but it was only released in France in 1976 on the Barclay label at the time. Agitation Free was probably the most clean-cut of the Krautrock groups, in that they had a more polished and professional attitude than many of the others, who took a more rough attitude and approach. This album gives me an impression that they were trying to be Krautrock's answer to the Grateful Dead. Had the Dead been German, chances are the Americana, folk and country elements of the band would be completely absent for a more spacy approach, and that imagination can be fueled on a version of "Laila II" (originally off 2nd), where they go into an extended jam that could remind one of a Krautrock Dead with extended, almost Jerry Garcia-like guitar solos, but with a spacier approach, and lots of spacy synth effects. "Soundpool" is really just an extended version of the last song off Malesch. "Looping" is a more experimental piece, a bit less structured, probably because it was improvised on the spot. It's nice to see live material existing of this band, although it's pretty safe to say by 1976, when this album was finally released, the band was history. Michael Hoenig collaborating with Manuel Göttsching for Early Water (which was never released until 1995, likely to do with the demise of Rolf Ulrich Kaiser's record labels after the Cosmic Jokers lawsuits) and then Hoenig recording and releasing the popular (in EM circles) Departure from the Northern Wasteland before moving to Hollywood and scoring music for film and television. I have to say Last is worth having if you like Agitation Free.