GILLES ZEITSCHIFF

Here is an other concept album around « acid test » and levels of consciousness by Rolf Ulrich Kaiser (the producer and invisible member of the Cosmic Jokers). The Kaiser reiterates the use of esoteric, drug inspired recitations already mentioned in his « Tarot » and « Lord Krishna Von Goloka » projects and give the job to his female partner Gille Letmann. The result is not as sensational as in the previous recordings but offers as usual a great dose of Cosmic / Psychedelic effects with the help of ancient Krautrockers. A Further exploration in synthesized/ acid rock based guitar sounding which provides a kind of cerebral climate. Not the most powerful album signed by the Kaiser but greatly significant for listeners who want to get in touch with the unique Germanic / Intergalactic rock music.

this is probably one of the worst Krautrock albums of all times (and believe me, I am a big fan of Krautrock, and I like the other albums of the Cosmic Jokers a lot). what's more, the lyrics are so childish and ridiiculous, building up a cult around acid-guru Timothy Leary (with whom the band was associated; he appears on Ash Ra Tempel's "Seven Up"). lines like "Tim bleibt in der Schweiz. Tim bleibt bei uns" ("Tim stays in Switzerland. Tim stays with us") really make one laugh in their naivety. as to the music: the Cosmic Jokers need side-long epics for their music to flow. the short tracks on this album are not something the band can shine in. an album which is a curiosity, but that's all. just goes to show the hype of Rolf Ulrich Kaiser and his marketing of "Cosmic Music"

In the start Ms. Gille Letman introduces the group over a cosmic soundscape and tells some wonderous stories for some time, after the concept album of short tracks emerge. The styles of the tracks vary from cosmic blues, short mellow scenes, acid rock and experimental drongings to celestial cosmic visions. But there are some factors here which reduce the listening pleasure quite much for me; The tracks building up the album sides are very short (unlike in the previous records), and the ideas do not evolve to the full potential but create a chaotic mix of emotional excerpts jumping from mood to another displeasingly. They work more like a background to the voices which are constantly narrating the album in Germany, and as I am not very good in German I do not understand much of it. There are some beautiful moments in the record, but the listener is in my opinion constantly disrupted and prevented from enjoying them. When compared to the other albums of this group which I have heard, this album was a disappointment, sounding little like a really stoned mix-up of Ash Ra Tempel's track's with Rosi's narration and their "Seven Up" album done with Timothy Leary.

Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser was the founder of Ohr Records and the Kosmische Musik label, and those two labels have released some legendary Krautrock albums during the seventies. Rolf with the help of Dieter Dierks brought in the who's who of the Krautrock sub-genre, and held jam sessions between February and May of 1973. The dark side of this is Klaus Schulze and the others, not knowing they were being recorded during these sessions, let alone being released to the public. Schulze filed legal action after finding out, as the musicians were not getting royalties. The albums were pulled until the the legal action solved that. Having said all of this, there are so many "wow" moments with the five albums worth of material that they released from these sessions, and all were released in 1974.

"Galactic Supermarket" is my favourite of those followed by the self-titled debut. Both of those feature two side long tracks while here on "Gilles Zeitschiff" we get the music broken down into fourteen songs. Kind of like the "Sci-Fi Party" release where we get eight tracks, and that one grew to a four star album in my world, and I feel it's better than this one. My issue with this record is that they chose to use the mellow, electronic based music from these sessions. Plus these songs have way too much of Rolf's girlfriend Gilles speaking over the music with that echo. Which is why this album has her name as the title of it, and she's on the cover, clearly as fried as the rest of them. It's interesting that she gets writing credits on ten of the fourteen tracks though. She is also given equal billing on two album covers as the name Sternenmadchen is her alias, meaning Starmaiden.

There are male vocals too by the way, as this is the most vocal heavy of the five releases. Sergius Golowin, Timothy Leary and Walter Wegmuller help with those. Lots of atmosphere on this one. For the krautrock fan, is this not like having one of those wonderful dreams? Having all of this incredible talent in the same room jamming away, blitzed on acid. Imagine if you were an RPI fan and something similar happened with the greats from those seventies bands hanging out making music back in the day. Of course you can apply this to your favourite sub-genre and imagine. This happened, worts and all, I'm so glad it did.

This is the only one of the five I've not given 4 stars to, but I also don't have "Planet Sit-In" which sounds similar to this one.