FLY AWAY

MINOTAURUS were an obscure 70's band from Germany, who recorded 2 albums with only one ever being released "Fly Away". Inspired by the story of the Mintaurus living in King Minos' Labyrinth on Crete this 6 piece band deliver an album full of organ roaring progressive rock. This album although essentially a symphonic mindmelt does also blend in psych and space dimensions into their sound. Their overall sound is quite rich with a good chunk of mellotron and deep bass lines. Vocals (Peter Scheu) are sung in English and fit the music quite well. Instrumentally this band were amazing with inspiring and pompous keyboard leads, mellotron atmospheres , great guitar , bass and drum interplay. Overall sound carries allusions to NOVALIS, MARILLION and ELOY.

If you like Camel and early Eloy (Power and the Passion), Ramses, or Novalis (Banished Bridge), you might want to check out this superb one-shot. Great symphonic prog with a variety of shades makes for a pleasant listen with plenty to go back to and grow with on subsequent airings.

The album starts very strongly with "7117"...at first it sounds like we are getting a Hawkwind-ish sci fi piece as the intro grabs your attention before the song morphs into a less in your face and more subtle work, including inspired organ and vocal melodies. Nonetheless, some of this album, such as parts of the title cut, with its mellotron and rhythm guitars swirling about, returns to a sort of Hawkwind-lite approach, and is not diminished for it. "Your Dream" is definitely one of the highlights, a masterful song with a VERY catchy chorus driven by a clean guitar riff. Peter Scheu's vocals are worth highlighting. They are totally sympathetic to the music, like a rough cut gem that suits the amateurish prog fan feel of the whole album.

The rest of the album is of a similar high standard, except for the Jane III-style "Highway", just a boring rocker. The beautiful "The Day the Earth will die" closed out the original disk to which a bonus track was added in later releases, that I have not heard.

Minotaurus is one of many singletons from the thriving German symphonic prog scene of the 1970s, and it is definitely one of the better ones.

I was rather eager to listen to this album when I saw all these high ratings. The first tilme I listened to it, I also succumbed. But after several hearings, I must say that I was not that enthusiast any longer. And here are the reasons why...

A composition like "7117" is very dynamic and at the same time it features some beautiful and melodic passages. The last section of this song sounds VERY much as the finale of "Saucerful Of Secrets" from whom you might know. One of my fave.

Minotaurus style reminds me very much this other German band "Ramses" at times. Although less accomplished, interesting. "Your Dream" is a perfect example of this. One of the weakest song of the album. Again, I am not impressed with the singer. Too monotonous, unimpressive. A great guitar moment will save the song "Lonely Seas" which otherwise would have been too dominated by some of the most boring vocals you can imagine. Actually, I would say typical German vocals, unfortunately.

"Highway" sounds as an old psychedelic song from the sixties. Not really convincing but thankfully short.

The second highlight of this album is the epic "Fly Away". Finally, twelve minutes of good symphonic music. It was about time ! Great bass and druming (although the rhythmic section has been strong throughout the album). Even the singer is not too bad. Nice mellotron as well, which will provide some nostalgic mood. Great and powerful guitar for the finale adds a very nice and pleasant touch to this song.

Minotaurus remains in the good territory with "The Day the Earth Will Die". Very catchy and dynamic song again. Bass is here extremely powerful. Great and complex tempo. The experimental and closing number won't raise the level of this album, I'm afraid.

I can't be as generous as my fellow reviewers. Three stars (and I am rating on the high-end here).

Released in 1978, Fly Away is the only released recording from the sextet known as Minotaurus: Michael Helsberg and Ludger "Lucky" Hofstetter on guitars, Ulli Poetschulat on drums, Bernd Maciej on bass, Peter Scheu on vocals, and Dietmar Barzen on keyboards. It's is a strong album,with super keyboards - organ, mellotron, note-rich guitar playing, and some theatrical vocals. Similar bands and recommended to fans of Tibet , Zomby Woof, even Genesis in places, Eloy, Dragonfly,etc. Many pieces has neo- prog feel, so i can say from the late '70 neo-prog starts to take wings for the next decade the '80. The racks are all great but the opening track 7117 and the title track Fly away are the best. In the end Fly Away is fairly decent album, and sure to be of interest to "neo-prog" fans. 4 stars, great album.

Well the music is pleasantly tasteful even if the cover art isn't. For the love of God put on some underwear ! Actually the being on the cover is called a Minotaur. I must say I was expecting some Krautrock when i bought this, but this is rightfully put under Symphonic. Very enjoyable music though, almost spacey at times with lots of synths, and I love the tone of the guitars.

"7117" opens with synths and processed spoken words as drums come in.This spacey intro changes when a catchy melody comes in with organ and drums leading the way. Vocals and guitar 1 1/2 minutes in. Love the guitar. The tempo keeps shifting back and forth. Some aggressive guitar 4 minutes in. Nice. Some good drum work a minute later. String synths before 6 minutes sound great to end it. "Your Dream" has some good synth work, vocals and guitar to begin with. A calm with string synths and reserved vocals follow. Bass joins in at 2 minutes. It kicks back in with drums leading the way before 4 minutes. Then back to the intro- like section a minute later that i like so much. "Lonely Seas" opens with sounds building as reserved vocals come in. The tempo and sound picks up after 2 minutes. Great uptempo sound 3 minutes in with drums leading the way. Guitar joins in 3 1/2 minutes and it sounds fantastic. Beautiful sound.

"Highway" is a song I just can't get into. Fortunately it's the shortest track on the album. It opens with the sound of a car going by, then uptempo guitar, drums and vocals follow. It's ok I guess. "Fly Away" is the longest and my favourite. For 2 minutes we get synth washes as guitar and light drum sounds come and go. A guitar melody takes over 2 minutes in. Vocals and string synths before 3 minutes. Again the guitar is so beautiful sounding as it goes on and on. Synths join in after 5 minutes. Themes are repeated. A tasteful guitar solo before 10 minutes goes on and on to the end. Amazing tune. "The Day The Earth Will Die" has a Neo-Prog flavour to it. The vocals, string synths, drums and gentle guitar start us off. The tempo picks up a minute in. Prominant organ before 2 minutes. More pleasant guitar after 3 minutes. "Sunflowers" is a bonus track and an instrumental. This song sounds really good with prominant bass and guitar throughout. String synths before 3 1/2 minutes before we get an upbeat ending.

I like this a lot. I feel there's enough good music here to give it 4 stars.

A late 1970s German symphonic prog album performed in a style not too dissimilar to that employed by Anyone's Daughter at the time. A mild Eloy influence is detectable in the guitar work, and whilst the album does not really do very much that's new when it comes to playing a somewhat more accessible version of Eloy's music, they certainly don't botch it either. Buyer beware, however, because the sound quality isn't exactly great. Worth it if you are particularly taken with the proto-neo-prog direction taken by some German bands at the close of the 1970s, but even then Aphrodite's Child's better albums are generally of a higher quality.

Fly me to the moon...

First of all a big thank you to the mellotron lord(John) for introducing me to this album. It is much appreciated, and I´ve spent many a nights playing this whilst looking at the ceiling in amazement. I expect a lot of symph heads around here will relish this German 1978 release, as it combines some deliciously played songs with loads of analogue synths, mellotrons, emotional guitar solos and a serene feel to it, that during the following decade sadly was compromised by studio recordings that basked in Fisher Price plastics and an unholy hunt on "noise" and everything that pointed towards vitality and humanity in the sound quality of our most beloved art form.

Although this was made in the final chapter of the 70s, and the symphonic get together with verse-chorus-interlude-solo-verse-chorus-chorus-solo(s) had been done lord knows how many times, there´s really no getting around just how fluid and vibrant this album feels. The musical history buff, could easily get away with accusing a fair deal of the Neo-prog performers to have robbed Minotaurus off their soundscapes, suave textures and tonal serenity. In fact I´ll go out on a ledge and claim this particular record, along with Babylon´s self-titled, as the first 2 proper releases of said "style". Well, even so - I really couldn´t care less, because what matters, is not the shape of the Roman nose, but rather the green gooey substance it holds imprisoned.

Minotaurus were actually formed in 1972, and played together up until this album was recorded, when the group lost of its guitarists and silently withered away without so much as a tiny splash resonating in the vast musical oceans. So one album in 6 years as it turns out... What one should take away from this information is, that during what seems to be a somewhat longish embryonic state of being, Minotaurus obviously developed some remarkable chops - taught how to play together as a band - and first and foremost got to know the ins and outs of each member. This comes across, when you start listening to Fly Away almost immediately. All the pieces fit perfectly together, and there´s a sense of professionalism in the craftsmanship, that you normally only get from bands who´s been playing together for years on end. Debut? Surely not...

If any of you guys are into early Marillion, Novalis, Camel, Anyone´s Daughter, Atlas and a handful of other melodic symphonic acts which frolic in sweet laden artistries, then you should probably be placing your order for this little gem right about now.

Fly Away contains some beautiful guitar solos, that sit quite comfortably at the table of those emotive string bending wizards such as David Gilmour, Andrew Latimer and Steve Rothery. Combined with a wide variety of hammond organs, mellotrons, synths and other keys that fertilize the ground on which these musical acrobatics take place - huge towering symphonic sun flowers continue to grow upwards reaching for whatever - and melody, verse and soul all put together amounts to a rather stunning venture into music with wings of eiderdown and German wool. The German wool here is procured by Peter Scheu and his slightly accented vocals, that in time will win over even the most recalcitrant fighter of "properly English sung music". I´ve frequently thought of Eloy and Grobschnitt during my listens of Minotaurus, and not only because of the obvious Germanic shadings within the vocal delivery, but more so on account of the recurring psychedelic themes that open up in the music. It´s a subtle thing though, and if you´re not paying attention it will pass you by like the smell of a feminine bowel leakage. Underneath the melodies and structures, a decisively spacey expression oscillates and without any flamboyant gestures or bombastic use of semantics - slowly and comfortably continues to diffuse into the music. Either done with small snippets of percussive features like chimes, or the early Camel like elevator synths, that unlike elevator music doesn´t come off as muzak, but rather sounds like big organic sweeps of bouncy leads that melt through the other instruments and create a wobbly and bubbly psychedelic atmosphere.

Are you a fan of any of the mentioned artists, and haven´t spent all of your money on Christmas presents or indeed that brand new excavator that you´ve been meaning to buy for the last 20 years, then I warmly suggest you go for this sweet and melodiously laden German affair. 3.5 stars.

'See Your Ding Dong Put Some Pants On!

Yes by all means, please throw this dude a pair of boxers or something. Apart from the hypnotic wee-wee cover, Minautorus is not a super-original non-Krautrock german band. I hear lots and lots of Novalis and Eloy, only done in a more boring way. The annoying german accent (like Eloy!) is present all the time only relieved by more or less convincing instrumental passages.

I'm tempted to dissrespect the streetcred given to this record, I find it entertaining at times, some songs have catchy keyboard melodies. I like their thick solo keyboard sound and their use of string synth, it's well done. But again, all this has been heard in (or litteraly stolen from) Sommerabend (Novalis) and Dawn (Eloy) in much professional ways.

Some things have more value in terms of search than musical prowness. This album will fetch some serious dollars if you hunt for it and stands in the 'obscure' bin for sure; an album you can brag about owning mainly because of the cover and the Holy Grail search factor.

Some prog obscurities have more flair so don't break your piggy bank.

MINOTAURUS was one of the latecomers to the prog rock 70s and consisted of the sextet of Michael Helsberg (guitar), Ludger Hofstetter [aka Lucky] (guitar), Ulli Poetschulat (drums), Bernd Maciej (bass), Peter Scheu (vocals) and Dietmar Barzen (keyboards). This German band from Oberhausen was one of many that looked outside of its homeland for inspiration in lieu of jumping on the local Krautrock scene which by the late 70s had been tamed down into more commercial sounds.

This band was short-lived and released only this sole album FLY AWAY in 1978 but due to the eye-catching cover art can also be affectionately referred to as the "I See Your Pee Pee" album! Stylistically FLY AWAY sounds very much like a tug of war between two decades. On one hand it delves into the early 70s for the space rock sounds of Pink Floyd and fellow countrymen Novalis and Eloy but the band seemed to be a bit forward thinking as well given the extra layers of organs, keyboards and mellotron that prognosticate the neo-prog 80s.

With the opening multi-movement "7117" which was supposedly composed to accompany the Stanley Kubrick film of the same from 1976, the band clearly has channeled the proggiest moments of Gabriel led Genesis with a strong keyboard presence, pastoral slow to mid-tempo dreaminess all wrapped up in a Floydian space rock veneer. The vocals are probably the weakest aspect of MINOTAURUS with heavy accented English lyrics that display a very limited vocal range but personally i don't find them as horrific as many others do as the lackadaisical nature of the music itself doesn't really demand a multi-octave performance.

Despite two guitarists on board, the keyboards clearly dominate every aspect of FLY AWAY ranging from spaced out atmospheres to more Emerson inspired virtuosity however this main emphasis on the album is to provide highly melodic compositions that often sound like early Camel only hybridized with Pink Floyd's mellowest moments as well as some of the space rock antics of Eloy. Exceptions are tracks like "Highway" and "The Day The Earth Will Die" which are more focused on late 60s blues rock and sound like bad Deep Purple covers actually.

While considered symphonic prog, MINOTAURUS could be considered one of those bands that bridged the gap between the 70s bands designated as such and 80s neo-prog as some of the faster keyboard runs do prognosticate what Marillion would sound like just a few short years down the road however MINOTAURUS only hints at these developments and never really takes things to a satisfying level. This is certainly a decent album that is filled to the brim with atmospheric charm and the melodies are quite catchy as well but outside of being a highly coveted collector's item, FLY AWAY isn't anything to get overly excited about. It's merely a decent competent slice of late 70s prog that got more attention than it probably would have otherwise due to the dangling shlong on the album cover.