Customer Reviews

German Oak

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ignore the cover art. Ignore the track titles. This is very polished (though maybe not in the production sense--about as well produced as a lot of other early krautrock, which is to say marginally acceptable) for its era and for a field recording made in an air raid shelter, and is, as the other reviewer said, completely psychedelic (maaaan).

Compares nicely to any of the other freak-out jam artists of the Krautrock era--certainly Can springs to mind, but not half so much as Amon Duul II. Fans of Faust are likely to be pretty impressed, too.

But as I said, ignore the cover art. This is not a Josef Goebbels side-project recorded in Argentina or anything. This belongs in anyone's Krautrock collection.

the vinyl-replicated liner note reads: "as we played down there in the old bunker, suddenly a strange atmosphere began to work. the ghosts of the past whispered. there has been fear, desperation - but also hope. maybe you will feel such impressions too, by listening carefully"

yeah, that's how it sounds - like ghosts of the past whispering fearfully, desperately, but also hopefully. the atmosphere within is incredible (must be the fact that it was recorded in an old WWII bunker)

this is pretty much the best kraut/psych album i've ever heard (even topping International Harvester, Can, etc). if you're into any of that, or want to hear some of the best psychedelic music ever, GET IT

A very cool krautrock obscurity that first saw the light of day in 1972. I give it a five-star rating for effort alone. Release has just four tracks, but I couldn't get enough of this title's two epics - the seventeen-minute out-of-this-world "Down In The Bunker" and the awesome fifteen-minute "Raid Over Duesseldorf" - these two pieces serve as a double-dose of pure mind-scrambling krautrock (the way it should be done). The other two cuts run two minutes in length and sort of act as an intro and a finale. Line-up: Harry Kallweit-bass & vocals, Norbert Luckas-guitar & noises, Wolfgang Franz Czaika-rhythm guitar, Manfred Uhr-organ & vocals and Ullrich Kallwelt-drums. Should do a lot for fans of Agitation Free, early Guru Guru and Zippo Zetterlink.

First things first, I would have never heard of this album but for the fact that during a recent business trip to Atlanta I was looking on the radio dial for something listenable (no, not you commercial mainstream radio stations), and I fell upon 88.5 FM (WRAS), the Georgia State radio station. It stopped me in my tracks (even though I was in the car), and listened for the better part of an hour. One of the songs from this album was played and eventually (more on that later), I bought this here on Amazon.

"German Oak" (1972 release; 4 tracks; 38 min.) is by the way incorrectly billed as "Bunker" here on Amazon, but that's a detail. This is an outstanding blast from the past. The album starts and ends with 2 short tracks, and the meat of the ablum are two long tracks. "Down In the Bunker" is an 18 min. experimental track that sounds like early Tangerine Dream if that band played rock instruments instead of synths. The fact that German Oak is indeed a German band as well cannot be a coincidence. But THE highlight (and the track that I heard on the radio) is "Raid Over Dusseldorf", a 16 min. blow-out of instrumental psychedelic rock, think Iron Butterfly, or Hawkwind, but MUCH better. Wow. This track alone is worth the purchase of this album, seriously. I cannot believe I had never heard this before, but better late than never. No idea if this band released any other material, I've looked for it but haven't found anything. But if this is there sole legacy, what a great way to go out.

Back to that radio show. After I got back to Cincinnati, I looked up the website of the station, where the program is billed as "Tower of Power: psyche, prog and freak-beat" and that sums it up just about. I eventually exchanged some emails with one of the DJs of the program, Andrew Johnson (a student at GA State), and he couldn't have been more helpful, sending me a setlist of what I heard that evening, and steering me to where to find this album. Thanks, buddy! And when I'm next in Atlanta, I know what station I'll be listening to.