ATEM

Final album for the Ohr label. Apparently by this point, Edgar Froese was getting unhappy with Rolf Ulrich Kaiser marketing everyone on his label as freaks, and in fact Kaiser would shortly change the name of Ohr to Komische Musik (of course, things would only get worse when Kaiser released those COSMIC JOKERS albums, against the wish of some, especially Klaus Schulze). Anyway, the band continues the same, unusual spacy "music" they did their previous two albums. Only know, Edgar Froese started to include Mellotron, which he put to good use on the the title track, "Fauni Gena", and "Wahn". This is also what I consider their most accessible Ohr album, which isn't saying much (just that it's a single album, rather than a double like "Zeit"), as the music is still just as unstractured with hardly anything call conventional. I love how the album opens up, with strange wind sounds, before the Mellotron and drums kicks in. After several minutes going like this, growing ever more intense, there's this loud explosion, where the music quiets down to strange pulsing and droning sounds.

A lot of this sounds quite sinister, no doubt helped by the cover (done by Edgar Froese). "Fauni Gena" is Edgar Froese's Mellotron tour-de-force, as it's almost nothing but Mellotron (as electronic chirping birds). This sounds like a blueprint for his second solo album, "Epsilon in Malaysian Pale", except for one major difference: this is much more experimental. "Circulation of Events" is another really sinister sounding piece, no doubt caused by the strange droning and odd electronic effects. "Wahn" consists of a bunch of yelling and creaming, with startling percussion, before it ends with Mellotron. For me, I always thought the albums they did for Ohr were the most interesting, the only problem is it's not for everyone. But if you like music that hardly plays it safe, go for this album.