SOLAR MUSIC - LIVE

The extensive "Solar Music Pt 1 and 2" from their second album "Ballermann" served as a starting point for the German Grobschnitt to explore in depth the concept of what they defined as their own style: solar music. A combination of Krautrock, seventies Progressive Rock and Space Rock, the fruit of which resulted in an exciting journey into the farthest reaches of the senses and the most acidic cosmic digressions while maintaining a consistent structure and a great sense of unity: "Solar Music - Live" (1978).

From the opening with "Solar Music I", the only track with a few verses sung by vocalist and second guitarist Stefan Danielak (Wildschwein), the instrumental developments follow one after the other in a non-stop trance, where the sound base created by Wolfgang Jager's (Popo) bass and Joachim Ehrig's (Eroc) exuberant percussion and tireless charles is fundamental to sustain the powerful and hypnotic atmosphere that Gerd-Otto Kühn's (Lupo) guitars reinforce, in pieces like "Solar Music II" (including sounds of birds, dogs and pigs), or in "Muhlheim Special" with its guitar wah wah effects (also including a strange speech by Wildschwein and some brief circus notes in the background) and in its continuation "Otto Pankrock", which also adds an interesting counterpoint with Wildschwein's guitar and the significant contribution of Volker Kahrs' (Mist) synthesizers. And it is precisely Mist who stars in the lysergic "Golden Mist", another highlight of the album with a myriad of synthesizers, electric organs and even an accordion, before "Solar Music III", a piece in which the Pinkfloydian sixties spirit lurks on stage from the second half until its final fade-out.

The 1998 reissue includes the very interesting and jazzy "The Missing 13 Minutes", whose title plays with the length of the piece and its having been discarded from the original LP, one more of the constant ironies of which the Germans made use, as much as their bizarre and disconcerting live performances.

With no major repercussion outside the German rock circuit, something regrettable given the enormous musical quality of the album and its impeccable execution, "Solar Music - Live" is a jewel of progressive rock.

4/4.5 stars