DON'T CALL US - WE CALL YOU

" Two more sides of freak rock", as one German music magazine refered to this album when it was released in 1973. Nevertheless, the band actually started to sound tighter and livelier partially as a result of the addition of the jazz influenced Hans Hartman who replaced Bruno Schaab on bass. Meanwhile, guitarist Ax Grenich also started refining his playing and becoming more "compositional" although the sillininess and psychedelia remained to a certain extent as did Mani Nuemeier`s wonderful improvisational drumming.

At this point the band seemed to be maturing and more serious musical experiments were actually taking place with Grenich featuring acoustic guitars and even the banjo as evidenced on Guru Guru LTD, a jazz/blues concoction. The opening track, Africa Steal the Show was more reminiscient of the bizarre sort of material they had been producing on the previous four albums while Round Dance was an interpretation with of a traditional Indian ghost dance inspired by the visit of an indian tribe but with the Guru Guru avant garde touch which can be compared to contemporary material from fellow Krautrockers CAN with whom they toured with often back in the glrious `70`s. Das Zwickmaschinen is an all out psychedelic trip also sounding at times like CAN. 200 clichés is more or less a straightblues/rock number. So expect a very diverse & interesting album without any of the tracks being connected musically or otherwise.

Included with the new release in 2006 is a bootleg recorded by a fan at the Krefeld Music Festival in September `73 with the Don`t Call Us We Call You line up. It contains material from the `72-`73 period the most noteworthy tracks being a 34 minute critical mass blowout of Ooga Booga and 16½ minute meldown of the strangely wonderful Der Elektrolurch. Remastering wizard EROC ( ex drummer of Grobschnitt ) has done an excellent job here although some tape hiss can still be heard. It is roughly equal in audio quality as the Essen 1970 release in 2003. Nice to hear more early live stuff from Mani and friends on this 2006 re-issue.

Don`t call Us We Call You is definitely a must for fans of early seventies psych and was the last chance to hear Guru Guru in total freak mode before streamlining their sound to incorporate more rythmic and structured approaches on the subsequent 1974 Dance of the Flames album.