LEERE HÄNDE

Ihre Kinder's third record "Leere Hände" from 1970 was a pleasant experience. Like my father I like very much German stuff and these songs is beautifully sung in German by the singer Sonny Hennig. What is presented here is two language version of the record but I only review the German songs. Ihre Kinder (Your children) is called Krautrock but it's progressive in a more political way than musical, almost like the Swedish Progg. Anyway this is very nice music and I am happy to write the first review of it and hope many will follow.

Done in the early seventies the music is full of the clear sound of rock, mixed with emotion and som progressive touches. Those toaches is for example the flute and the keyboards which are palpable over the full album. Ihre Kinder made up by Olders Frenzel(drummer), Sonny Hennig (vocalist, keyboard player), Muck Groh(guitarist), Georgie Meyer(flutist, bells, vocals), Walti Schneider(bassist, vocals) and Ernst Schultz(guitarist, bassist, percussionist, vocals).

The best song is the title track "Leere Hände" which is a little proggy but very nice pop song with clever keys and great singing. That is a track you want to play again and again. The second best track is "Strasse ohne Ziel" which perhaps has a deeper and more proggy feeling, also a beautiful song. "Ich kann dir nichts geben", "Hilf mir" and "Nimm deine liebe" would I also consider very good tracks. The others are also worth listening.

This is a quite easy achieved record from the Germans "Ihre Kinder". I love the sweet voice and the great compositions. It's music with skillful song writing, not especially progressive but attractive. To me it works very well and they're getting my four stars. 3,77 becomes 4 when I round it up. You can also listen to the songs in English, "Empty hands" for example is very good.

I originally picked this up because guitarist Muck Groh was part of this band. I liked what he did after this with the band AERA and later GROTESK. Lets just say I much prefer those two later bands over this one. And "this one" is an early entry to the Krautrock catalogue, releasing their debut in 1969, and perhaps the first Krautrock band to sing in German. I know EULENSPYGEL also sang in German, releasing their debut in 1971, and there were certainly others.

I understand there wasn't a panel of Krautrock experts guiding the bands on what not to play, and what to play. But the English singing for most of these bands was part of the protest against the lame Beat music of the 60's in Germany. The popular music of the day consisted of German vocals with short and catchy tunes. So to counter this, many Krautrock bands would sing in English, and have these long and experimental songs. This makes me think of the RIO movement and how those five original bands from five different countries actually had a meeting in Switzerland to discuss what the RIO movement was all about. There was little agreement, even on why they were playing this stuff. So yeah, Krautrock was in a sense the wild west back then. Add the electronic bands too who drifted into Krautrock.

So this 1970 album originally was under 40 minutes and eleven tracks. All German singing and quite catchy. Surprising and disappointing. This would be re-issued with each track doubled with the English and German versions, doubling the length of the recording in our cd age of course. I kind of like a lot of this but there's no way I'm going more than 3 stars.