LEERE HÄNDE

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.