ROCKOPER PROFITGEIER

Floh De Cologne are one of the lesser known contributors from the German underground movement, commonly known to us as 'Krautrock'. Sure, musically, they share a rough, psychedelic sound not far from AMON DUUL (closer to the original incarnation, as opposed to Duul II), but also features the classic Vox Continental organ sound (associated with THE DOORS) and an eccentric, humourous bent not far away from FRANK ZAPPA, unfortunately though the texts and lyrics are all in German, making it a bit lost on most of us non-German speaking folks. Overall, the 5 musicians present are proficient on their instruments (particularly main organist, Markus Schmidt), but seem to employ an in-band policy of chopping and changing who-plays- what, and they convey their voices with a lot of character - often modifying their expression, depending on what it is they're saying and how the music is structured behind the voices. It's fair to say that the music is somewhat secondary to the texts, but this arrangement strikes me as highly creative, genuine and even fun to listen to. 'Profitgeier' is performed live 11 January, 1971 in Neumunster, and in Windrose-Dumont studio over the following couple of days, hence, there's very little in the way of audience noises and live interaction. Listening to this, I find little in the way of offensiveness or weakness, I really enjoy it - side 2 features some pieces which are extended and serve the band well, especially 'Die Luft gehort denen, die sie atmen' segueing into the 7 min+ title track. This album is quite excellent actually, and highly recommended for all those adventurous Proggers. Krautrock, yeah, where else could you file something this diverse and unique ???