Customer Reviews

Para Dieswarts Duul

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

 

 

To say that this record has been a little influential is an understatement. This is the first and, for many, the last Amon Duul (Not to be confused with Amon Duul II) album you should buy.

The most musically accomplished statement this band ever made, it's a great minimalist psychedelic folk album.

Simple, repeating chords are stated, reversed and interlocked into patterns that recall both middle eastern music and stark modernism. Various percussion, group chants and wind instruments enter and exit while the vocals, which are surprisingly nice, slowly work themselves into a hypnotic mantra.
The whole thing sounds like a guided improvisation, and the band shows a greater understanding of restraint and composition than on their other recordings.

An early example of freakout space folk which left it's mark on the likes of Stereolab, Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, Psychic TV and Acid Mothers Temple. If you like this one, you might want to try 'Psychedelic Underground' next, but keep in mind that it's much more chaotic and free.

Best Krautrock album of all time? Talk sense man! This is however, by quite a stretch, the best Amon Duul (as opposed to Amon Duul II) album of all time - but then as every other Amon Duul album is atrocious you may think that's no great achievement. But having screamed and hammered and thrown the musical equivalent of a tantrum for their 1st album (and subsequent albums culled from the same sessions), sometime in 1970 the various members of Amon Duul decided to make some music for a change - the result being first, the Eternal Flow/ Paramechanical World single (included here) and second, this album.

Just three tracks on the original album, "Love Is Peace" is almost a classic, in fact I often find myself singing it! The first part of the track is built on an intricate interlocking of guitars and harp and sounds like the lost link between the Grateful Dead, Television and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators and has excellent singing - in fact, this is just a great song. Unfortunately the rest of the track is pretty much disposable - an annoying "avant-garde" bridge section and a closing ragged jam. "Snow Your Thirst" is also somewhat of a ragged jam but builds in intensity and is oddly satisfying. The closing "Paramechanische Welt" appears to have no connection whatsoever with the single, "Paramechanical World", and is a extremely repetitive two-chord acoustic guitar jam with annoyingly loud conga-playing by Amon Duul II's Chris Karrer (John Weinzierl from said band is also on this track). All in all, if you liked "Sandoz in the Rain" from Amon Duul II's "Yeti" album you might just like this album.

Of great interest are the bonus tracks. Originally released as a single before the album, this must count as one of the least commercial singles of all time! Both of these songs are haunted, minor-key laments, almost rhythm-free, built around gothic guitar jangles - again, good vocals but, unfortunately, both disintegrate towards their respective ends as if the band weren't quite sure (or didn't have the requisite talent or were simply too stoned) how to develop the songs.

So, interesting album but no classic by any means.

The second part of the second song on this album contains a slowly building jam that is the best piece of rock-based music I've ever heard. And the rest isn't too shabby either (just basically six meditations on Black Sabbath's "Planet Caravan"). A quiet, peaceful, piano tinkling, bongo slapping, acoustic strumming mindblower, THE downer rock album of all time.

Every music review could begin with the dictum There is no accounting for taste. To my ear this is an excellent addition to anyone's prog collection, and one of the most pleasant discoveries of the last summer. This is definitely summer music. The groove on Love Is Peace has stayed with me for days after listening. The spiritual/philosophical sentiment is quite beautiful and the rythm of the music is infectious.

Enjoy...

Amon Duul could only have happened in a certain time and place. I'll spare the Amazon readers the big prog-rock history lesson as it's pretty safe to say that if you're looking to buy this CD you already know enough about the musical climate in Europe over the turn of the 1970s. This is, of course, the only bona fide studio album released by Amon Duul, and I have to say it is an absolute gem. This particular Repertoire Records edition is superlative - the clarity and warmth of the sound is impeccable, and the two bonus tracks are not only brilliant in their own right, but actually improve the structure of the CD.

'Para Dieswarts Duul' does not need to be sliced into tracks. Even though there are actually plenty of small musical shifts within each song - washes of synthesiser, key changes, vocals floating in and out of harmonies - it doesn't seem so at all. It seems like it's all one song.- one constant, flowing synthesis of sparse and delicate guitar lines, with keyboards and vocals and flutes and bongos occasionally stepping into focus for a while before vanishing back into the central piece. These five songs knitted together as an album present a wonderfully seamless statement of intent, even if the tone of one piece clashes with another (for example, the opening odyssey 'Love Is Peace' is warm and dreamily fun, whereas the closing 'Paramechanical World' - a bonus track - is spare and mournful, even hopeless).

Unlike the other Amon Duul albums, which are all taken from the same monster jam session in 1969, it is unclear exactly how much of this is improvised. I suspect 'Snow Your Thirst...' is, as it ends with a hard cut, but the rest of the album is teetering gloriously between the composed and the telepathised. It rhythmically feels its way forward, rarely breaking the pulse through its entire duration.

And strangely, that's all I can remember about it. 'Para Dieswarts Duul' is the ultimate background music, and is as successful in sending me to sleep as it is in enthralling me, drawing me into the swaying rhythms and the wonderful kosmische sirenism vocals. It is a very special album indeed, comparable to the rest of the Krautrock cannon in the same way that 'Islands' compares to the rest of King Crimson's music: A beautiful oddity.

Originally released in 1970, as this is probably one of the better Amon Duul releases. I heard there are like three 'real good' ones. A bit more raw than the later Amon Duul II's material, but I personally thought this CD was well worth hunting down a copy. Tracks I couldn't get enough of at first were the lp-side long, the seventeen-minute epic "Love Is Peace" and "Snow Your Thirst". Pure tripping! Plus the CD reissue has tagged on two bonus cuts for good measure. Fans of old school krautrock, rejoice!

Amon Duul II is obviously the more musically talented faction of the Amon Duul commune, no doubt about that, they made several albums from 1969 to 1972 that are completely essential to your Krautrock collection, but that never stopped the other faction of the Amon Duul commune to try their stab at music. There was a big jam session that resulted in three albums released between 1969 and 1972 (Psychedelic Underground, Collapsing, and Disaster). Much later, in the 1980s came Experimente that came from those same sessions. The only album not from those sessions came in 1971 with Paradieswarts Duul, which was recorded in November and December 1970 and released on the Ohr label (same label that gave us Tangerine Dream, Ash Ra Tempel, Birth Control, Klaus Schulze, Mythos, Guru Guru, and much more). This is one of the few LPs on Ohr that didn't come with a gatefold. Now I've heard plenty of negative opinions of Amon Duul. It's little surprise with that reaction, since this group often took a heavily percussive, minimalist approach to their music with scarcely more than two chords, with an often primitive approach. Some find their approach hypnotic, others just plain boring. Not to mention those expecting something more on the line of Amon Duul II, and they don't get it. Judging by Psychedelic Underground, I didn't find it bad, and I knew what to expect because Amon Duul wasn't all that talented since it wasn't this faction that was serious about music (unlike Amon Duul II).

Paradieswelt Duul is a much calmer album than those 1968 sessions. Many people who otherwise dislike Amon Duul actually like this particular album. Certainly it's still not in the same class as Amon Duul II, but I didn't expect it, and I was surprised. The music has a much cleaner sound to it, you can actually hear all the instruments. The music, for the most part, has a rather sparse arrangement, and the tempo, for the most part, stays the same. It shows that (although they know the basics of playing their instruments) if anyone tried to change their tempo or meter, the other members probably would have trouble keeping up or adjusting, so that's why they pretty much kept the same tempo and meter throughout. Also it's pretty obvious their instruments are not always in tune. It's strange to see hippie themes still showing up in 1970/'71 and it shows right away with "Love is Peace". Just the title gives it away, and lyrics that go: "Love is peace/freedom is harmony". I expected the vocals to be terrible, but I actually like them. The band gets into a more trippy section in the middle part, sounding like something I'd expect Amon Duul II to do. Then it's back into more acoustic territory, but for some strange reason, the vocals are much more low key. So basically, "Love is Peace" is basically divided in three parts. "Snow Your Thirst, and Sun Your Open Mouth" is largely an acoustic jam, while the last piece, "Paramechanische Welt" bears more than a passing resemblance to "Sandoz in the Rain" off Amon Duul II's Yeti. I guess that's little surprise because Amon Duul II's Chris Karrer and John Weinzierl make an appearance on this cut. It was basically in exchange for two of the Amon Duul I members appearing on "Sandoz in the Rain" (it's the closest thing to Amon Duul I that Amon Duul II ever did).

No, this album isn't great, and it's plain to everyone the group frequently loses focus (the last part of "Love is Peace", for example), but I still find it a nice listen.

2 1/2

Any magic found on this minor psychedelic excursion sounds like it came about on accident. The album is not without a few impassioned sections of unhinged acoustic jamming, but sounds mostly like a sloppy and muddled mess of mediocre musicality.