TÜRKIS

By 1977 Klaus Kreuzeder had found himself all alone in the Aera line-up with the other members following different paths.Muck Groh went on for a solo career and to form Grotesk and Christoph Krieger would appear many years later in Groh's Jazz/Funk project Neue Aera along with the former drummer of Aera Wolfgang Teske.Kreuzeder found some talented replacements like Missus Beastly's founding member Lutz Oldemeier on drums, Cyklus' Matz Steinke and Achim Gieseler on bass and keyboards respectively, Helmut Meier-Limberg on percussion (another one to join Neue Aera later), Freddy Setz on drums and various keyboards with Locko Richter, also from Missus Beastly, guesting on bass and Groh playing guitar in one track of the upcoming album.''Turkis'' was released in 1979 on the familiar Erlkoening label.

Looking on the front cover of Aera's third album already you get the feeling that something different is going on.And the truth is that Kreuzeder decided that the group should take a more Jazz Funk direction with this work, apparently hurting the impressive history of the group.The majority of the tracks feature playful, kinky sax parts, lots of percussion, the more commercial GENTLE GIANT-like clavinet vibes with the funky bass lines leading the way.A complete lifting for Aera, on which the turn of the decade had a huge impact, the Germans abandoned their monstrous Kraut-Folk-Fusion amalgam of the past for a slick and more accesible Jazz Fusion style with no evident links to the German Jazz Fusion scene.They even show some tendency to produce melodic parts in the process, which was very strange for anyone having listened to the early efforts of the band.The title-track still shows hints of the past with some blisterring breaks and the display of atmospheric textures, creating a more flexible sound, but the 11-min. ''Dracula'' is propably the only track to hold the interest of the listener.Semi-improvised Jazz Rock with technical bass work and charming sax parts over a neurotic keyboard rhythm, opening the way for a laid-back Fusion mood with jazzy synths and light organ and yet another nice sax execution by Kreuzeder.

Definitely a dissapointment compared to the first couple albums of the band.Well-played stuff, but sounding very pale and less intricate than both ''Hand und fuss'' and ''Humanum est''.''Dracula'' will save the day, but the rest is standard, percussion-heavy Jazz Funk with no particular highlights.Recommended for die-hard fans of the style...2.5 stars.