MYTHOS

No, it didn't grab me at first but even if you pick something up cheap, a physical format means you keep hold and give it another try. I do wonder if someone streams something and thinks' no, not for me' these days, they perhaps don't go back and give it another chance.

The Tullesque opening shoulda dragged me in (those pesky flutes eh!) but there is an almost too forced jollity. I hear a little bit of Jade Warrior but the second track blends eastern with a more typical kraut influence and this was and is much more interesting...space/folk if you like...and thankfully my (the recipe is a secret) vinyl cleaner gives the atmospherics a clear and hiss free sound. The panning is a bit cliche but it works. The vocalist isn't the best but neither were say the vox in the Incredible String Band and I rather like them! Hero's Death shimmering cymbals in and we could be in an Amon Duul situation and they also invited early BJH to the party. Definitely my krautrock sound/s of choice. I think they gave the 'folk' the song off. With Encyclopedia the doubts creep back in as am sorry but you did the shimmering cymbals thing in the last tracks intro and the bass player has been listening to Wishbone Ash's Vas Dis (ironically) and although the guitar/s don't 'duel', the first 2 Ash albums are nodded to. It just doesn't escape the deliberate or otherwise influences/similarities. Overlaying a bit of electronica feels well like overlaying a bit of electronica for the sake of it. And the sudden 'war' referenced sounds tagged on to a track out of the blue? I will put on German Oak if I want a dark krautrock dealing with our post war trauma album thanks. And finally the 940th, even by 1971, song that starts with Church bells?

I really do want to 'like' this more but they do themselves no favours. I will give the benefit of the doubt that musicians didn't hear anything like the amount of music (as in what was out at the time) as we can today so sometimes they think they were being 'original' when they were just not. Also it is a debut album and bands should be allowed to find their own sound/make mistakes/get the stuff out of their system they needed to he types just as the VDGG bit comes in followed by...oh no...'the gong'.

I would give it a 3.25 for promise but with reservations.

The MYTHOS debut album exudes a mysterious vibe instantly from its lysergic album cover art and the music pretty much follows suit with the only exception being the rather oddball track on the album, the opening "Mythoett" which is a folk rock interpretation of Handel's "Feuerwerkmusik" with Stephan Kaske playing the melody on the flute. The album takes on its more cosmic head trip starting with the the second track "Oriental Journey" which found the band on a lengthy jam session with Eastern vocal chants, sitars and other Eastern sounds crafted into a free flowing Krautrock extravaganza. On the original vinyl LP the track was connected with the following "Hero's Death" but these are two distinctly different tracks and rightfully have been separated on future releases.

While "Oriental Journey" was grounded on planet Earth, "Hero's Death" starts out taking off into space with wild oscillating electronic sounds simulating space ship travel as well as near 10 minute sonic journey into the cosmosphere with a Amon Dull II fueled bass groove and accompanying hard rock guitar and extra sounds to create the ultimate trip. Kaske's freaked out vocals are perfectly suited for the somewhat paranoid and meandering musical flow that takes an improvisational jamming session and augments it with moments of light fluffiness led by the flute and atmospheric synthesizers and then returns to a harder edged rock bombast to fuel the proper contrast. The bass groove provides the anchoring effect while the guitar has free reign to employ bizarre pick slides, heavy bluesy riffing and stunt guitar tricks while the percussion maintains an oddly timed progressive rock feel.

Originally swallowing up the entire second side of the vinyl LP on the 1972 release, the two-part "Encylopedia Terra" is the highlight of the album which tackles ecological issues and the failure of humankind to exist as stewards of the planet. The narrations were inspired by H.G. Wells' novel "The Time Machine" where a man travels 3300 years into the future in the hopes of finding a better planet but ultimately finds one that had been completely destroyed. The two parts swallowing up over 17 minutes of running time naturally allows the musical flow the proper time to ratchet up incrementally. Starting out as a cosmic heady psychedelic primordial ooze the track morphs into a harder rocking structure with heavy drumming bombast that implements military marches, bluesy guitar licks and a heavy bass groove as the atmospheric keyboards provide the ever-changing cloud cover. "Part 1" culminates in a total breakdown that offers the perfect freak out before morphing into the second stage of the act.

"Part 2" picks up as a mellow comedown after the bombastic conclusion of "Part 1." Distant bells provide a rhythmic drive while chirping birds and trippy synth runs build up into a more rock oriented Kraut-groove a la Amon Duul II. The flute once again becomes an important melody maker but ultimately the guitar dives in offers some riffing counterpoints to bring the track into full rock regalia. The melodic grooves offers a free flowing menu of musical variations before the the track culminates in the spoken word poetry from the "Time Machine" novel. As Kaske recounts the tale, the music becomes a mere backdrop that almost becomes a lullaby and then just like that the album is over as the Krautrock journey abruptly ends but not forgotten.

True that the album suffers a bit from the odd choice of opening with "Mythoett" which seems woefully out of place in the company of stranger kosmische Kraut jams but MYTHOS is an album that always hits me in the right place and comes off as the ultimate freaky journey for those seeking them out. While not a perfect release and doesn't have the immediate effects that bands like Can, Neu! or Amon Duul II may have had, MYTHOS nonetheless offers a true unadulterated Krautrock experience that offers a musical experience that matches the visual freakery of the album cover art. Overall MYTHOS provides a peaceful journey with pleasant melodic undercurrents that occasional climax into overpowering militant bombast with heavy rock guitar and percussive domination. The thematic developments perfectly envelope the MYTHOS moniker that evokes epic tales of cosmic exploration that result in both harmonic bliss as well as melancholic agony. The album may not have gone down as one of the Krautrock scene's most essential examples of the genre but personally i've always loved this one quite a bit and listen to it on a regular basis.

The oddest track here is actually the opening number, 'Mythoett,' a reimagining of a Händel piece. Based only on this song, you'd expect that Mythos would be prog-folk album. While 'Mythoett' is technically a power-trio song, Kaske plays flute rather than guitar. This is followed by the longer-form 'Oriental Journey,' during which the instrumental configuration changes from sitar/acoustic guitar/drums to flute/bass/drums to sitar/bass/drums. Segues among these movements are marked by sections sung by Kaske and a passage dominated by ethereal sound effects.

The traditional 'power trio' arrangement (i.e., with electric guitar) first appears on 'Hero's Death,' parts of which remind me of early-1970s King Crimson. 'Hero's Death' forms a bridge between the somewhat lighter opening songs and the more heavy and experimental Side Two. Like 'Oriental Journey,' but unlike the remainder of the album, it contains sections sung by Kaske, and contains some cleaner three-piece arrangements similar to those on the first two songs - - but with the electric guitar replacing the sitar and flute. 'Hero's Death' also introduces the kind of freak-and-roll sections in which 'Encyclopedia Terra Part 1' will culminate.

Side Two is comprised the two sections of 'Encyclopedia Terra,' the whole of which the band appears to consider its magnum opus. 'Part 1' opens with a musique concrete collage of ominous chords underlying the singing of birds - - implying a peace whose end is inevitable. Following the introduction of the rhythm section, a plaintive guitar enters at about two minutes, and the three instruments converge in a syncopated pattern at four. Soon enough, the guitar begins going rogue, as they say, and is joined by a second overdubbed guitar as the band departs King Crimson territory entirely for the crazy, fractured environs of Krautrock à la early Ash Ra Tempel. At this point, the war is on. Eventually, the martial syncopation returns. The final three-plus minutes of 'Part 1' is comprised by synthesizer- generated effects simulating air-raid sirens, warplanes, falling bombs, and explosions, over Hildebrand's equally violent drumming.

And then, finally, there's 'Encyclopedia Terra Part 2,' which, from a structural point of view, is like the 'Soon' section of Yes's 'Gates of Delirium' (from 1974's Relayer). The birds are back (shades of 'Close to the Edge,' which was also released in 1972), now joined by church bells. A Moog-ish, monophonic synth lead appears and the power trio is reintroduced, eventually joined by the flute, a second track of bass guitar, and, around 2:30, the electric guitar. The tempo is slower than on 'Part 1,' giving this track more of a heavy-prog feel. The group settles into the main vamp - - again, a Crimsonian affair - - for a minute, beginning around 3:30. The final three minutes of the album is a rhythmless ethereal synth passage over which Kaske recites a story about the future of mankind.

Mythos is a solid album. Overall, the sound is decent for an album recorded in late 1971 (I purchased my copy from emusic.com, so I don't know whether it is the 1994 CD release (which seems probable) or a later remaster). The production (by Dieter Dierks) is good, if a bit unsubtle in the reverb department. The instrumental performances are strong throughout. To me, this would be a four-star album if the compositions were a bit more inspired. As it stands, Mythos is an enjoyable period piece.

What keeps Mythos of deserving a perfect score is..er... I can't find a serious star-eating fault to their first offering. They captured pretty well the Kosmicke way of thinking with obscure lyrics, sang with pupil dilated eyes from the bottom of a cavern. Trippy to say the least, they have all the ingredients of psychedelics topped with nice touches of mellotron and tasty flute. Closing your eyes and headphones are a must if you want to grab the vibe and the prophetical speech in the end is a great, mystical way of ending an album.

The perfect soundtrack if you wander in the Grand Canyon after dropping an acid tablet. I wouldn't be surprised if you get the munchies after listening to it!

An obscure but fascinating object.

Finally, we have the second half of the album closed with a two part track, "Encyclopedia Terrae." The epic song is an instrumental psychedelic paradise with lots of freaky workouts reminiscent of early Pink Floyd and Ash Ra Temple. It closes with a spoken word story, which is very "of the time" so to speak. It talks about the "killing and fighting" of mankind and how a man built a time travel machine to go into the future to try and escape it, and fails, suggesting (accurately, unfortunately) that it is part of human nature to be violent.

One of the things that struck me most was how well the album sounds. The recording and production is very good for 1972 West Germany, and gives this one a little bit of a boost in the process. It is certainly not a ground breaking masterpiece by any means, but a very good offering of truly psychedelic Krautrock from the early 70's. Mythos would completely revamp its line up after its debut, save Stephan Kaske, and their follow up, "Dreamlab," is not as strong in my opinion. I give their self-titled debut 4 stars.

Three different cores, three different distribiuting labels and three stylistical changes is the story of Mythos until 1977.These were some ''Strange guys'' indeed, or better said Kaske was the strange guy, as he refused to settle in a particular style and this third album finds his band attempting a blend of a classic Kraut Rock sound with more synth-drenched soundscapes and experiments, propably far from the true cosmic flavor of German acts of the style and more into a HAWKWIND meet ELOY style.The edgy and neurotic synth splashing of ''Aeronaut'' might give the listener the idea of Mythos becoming a late-70's progressive joke, but soon things will get better.There are too many styles in here to classify the album, the basic principle is still a Teutonic-inclined insistence on rhythmic textures with changing tempos and breaks into acoustic territories, propelled by the narcotic drumming and the mascular bass plays.But among the mass of these principles Kaske would introduce the epic atmospheres of ELOY from the ''Ocean''-era along with some sharper Hard Prog links, characterized by the fiery electric guitars and the odd synth lines.Occasional Folk and symphonic underlines are added via the flute and keyboard parts and the long tracks present a tight mixture of stylistical variations, performed with consistency and coherence and swirling around spacious and rockin' interventions.

This one belongs definitely among the most original late-70's prog outputs.It's spacious, energetic and even poetic music, but above all it's solid Kraut-Prog Rock with some fascinating instrumental work.Strongly recommended...3.5 stars

Their music is quite varied going from pastoral to heavy rock to electronic and so far. It would be great if they were put together, but actually those styles are featured on each track. So Mythoett is the pastoral bit, with flutes reminding me of Jethro Tull´s Bourée. Hero´s Death is heavy rock, while Oriental Journey is filled with sitars and (surprise!) eastern rhythms. Vocals are all electronic processed and they made me think of Eloy around the time of their Floating period, only even more on the fake side of it.

The second side of the original LP is more of experimental music, with only two trakcs, the instrumental Encyclopedia Terra part 1 being the most interesting, mixing elements of ambient/space rock/electronic with various sound effects. The second track has a long spoken story and both the theme and the music around it dated badly.

In the end I found this CD to be more promising than anything else. Clearly they were still green on the songwriting department. But since they proved to be capable musicians I guess I´ll look for their follow ups to see how they developed from here. As it is, this disc is clearly for the krautrock fans and collectors only.

Rating: 2.5 stars. .

It couldn't be a better choice of a label with Mythos presenting a largely different sound than on their debut, stripped down from the evident Classical influences and leaning towards a folkier direction, always surrounded by the typical Kraut Rock rhythmic tones.This time the focus is on psychedelic experiments, hypnotic soundscapes and pastoral arrangements with acoustic/electric guitars in evidence and constant use of flutes, delivering smooth textures with poetic singing and trippy synthesizers, which are every now and then overpowered by an already familiar JETHRO TULL attitude, based on harder electric riffing.''Mythalgia'', which is also the longest track, appears to be the only evident link with the previous album, although coming in a much more cosmic enviroment, featuring a more pronounced Mellotron, fiery flute drives but also a stretched, psychedelic soundscape with synth effects, pastoral flutes and acoustic guitars after the middle.Unfortunately Mythos would never reach the absolute inspiration of their debut, as this one's missing the unpredictable twists and tension of ''Mythos''.''Dreamlab'' has also a stronger Kraut Rock vibe with a bit of a loose execution and an obvious sense of abnormality during its pieces with nonetheless some clever ideas on combining Psychedelic Rock, Folk Music and Kraut Rock.

Nowhere near the monumental debut of the band.But this does not mean that ''Dreamlab'' is far from satisfying.It's well-played Kraut/Psychedelic Rock with powerful flute work and nice electroacoustic moments, not to mention Kaske's original voice.Recommended.