CLUSTER

One of the earliest German Krautrock acts which debuted alongside Amon Düül's "Phallus Dei" and Can's "Monster Movie" in the year 1969 was the Osnabrück based TRIKOLON which released its sole album the very same year but has not enjoyed the same resurgence of interest. Unfortunately this band has fallen into the obscurity bins with only rare collectors giving it any consideration at all. TRIKOLON was the predecessor of the longer-lived Tetragon which produced three albums in the early 1970s. Formed by keyboard virtuoso Hendrik Schaper who also added vocals and trumpet sounds on TRIKOLON's one and only album CLUSTER, this band that also included Rolf Bettberg on bass and Ralf Schmiedling on drums has mostly been obscure due to the fact only 100 copies of its album were pressed and sold at live shows. Presumably this entire album was recording in a live setting.

Sounding more like a proto-form of symphonic Krautrock, TRIKOLON could rightfully be considered Germany's answer to bands like The Nice with a dominant classically infused organ presence. The album originally featured four lengthy tracks but the 2003 reissue from Garden of Delights also included a sprawling 22 minute and 22 second bonus track titled "Fugue." The album covers a variety of moods with the opening "In Search Of The Sun" sounding more like a mix of Walter Carlos' moog dominated "Switched On Bach" with the more psychedelic pop rock feel of The Doors however despite Schaper's exquisite virtuoso keyboard performances, he proves that his vocal style was a bit too weak to cover such demanding material.

The second track "Trumpet For Example" tackles a more surreal and psychotic vibe albeit a bit jazzy as well with a heavy trumpet presence in the beginning while the latter half of the track points in the direction of a more cerebrally based psychedelia that the Krautrock scene would soon fully adopt with a vengeance. "Hendrik's Easy Groove" eschews the organ sounds and is actually a live performance with a rowdy audience clapping and screaming as Schaper delivers a solo classical piano recital and showcases his virtuosity Keith Emerson style only in an acoustic fashion. A few minutes in Schaper throws in some nice snippets of the Dave Brubeck Quartet's masterwork "Blue Rondo a la Turk" and then proceeds a series of differing stylistic shifts including some boogie-woogie and other collage effects.

The last track on the original vinyl was an interpretation of "Blue Rondo"once again by Dave Brubeck but unlike the previous track which was a solo piano, this one is given a complete makeover and dressed up for the psychedelic 60s with tripped out fuzzy organ, heavy rock bass and drums and sounds more like a lysergic heavy psych of early Deep Purple. Pretty groovy all in all and is virtually unrecognizable as the cover tune it is until the main melody makes a reprise from time to time. Probably the most Krauty of the album with a bombastic groove that sounds like The Nice dropped a few tabs and went on a magic mushroom hunt! The bonus track "Fugue" is exactly what you would expect, namely a monstrosity of a classical interpretation of rocking the classics much in the vein of Walter Carlos' "Switched On Bach" only interpreted by The Nice. Not bad and the perfect bonus track as it simply extends the album's original intent.

TRIKOLON like many of the similarly minded proto-prog artists of the era all suffer from sounding extremely dated as this particular style of rock interpretations of Western classical compositions was en vogue for a few short years before being eclipsed by the surge of creative explosiveness that transmogrified the psychedelic 60s to the prog complexities of the 70s. With that dated organ sound augmented by rather by-the-books rock instrumentation, it all sounds so primitive by today's standards but at the time was all the rage and despite The Nice getting the lion's share of credit for this style of early rock the classics, TRIKOLON was definitely in the same league however this is definitely one that is better appreciated as a historical artifact rather than something you would pull out for regular listening pleasure. For what it is, it's really good but this style of classical interpretation just doesn't float my boat for the most part.

3.5 rounded down