(((O))) Review: Romantic Warriors IV: A Progressive Music Saga – Krautrock 3

“Krautrock was not played by just any old early ‘70s German rock band. It was a powerful pre-punk attitude achieved by the Pioneering few – the Ur-Punk. Some of the most astonishing, evocative, heroic glimpses of Man at his Peak of Artistic Magic”. Julian Cope’s introduction to his own book of the Krautrocksampler released in 1995, says it all. There’s no denying that the genre gave birth to the essence of new wave, punk, post-rock, and post-punk in the late ‘70s, early ‘80s.

And the circle is in full swing as filmmakers Adele Schmidt and Jose Zegarra Holder brings the cycle to an end with the third and final part of the krautrock trilogy from the Romantic Warriors series, closing it out by taking listeners into the cosmic voyages from the realms of A.R. & Machines, Klaus Schulze, Cluster, Conrad Schnitzler, Embryo, Tangerine Dream, and Nektar.

Not to mention the help of experts from Alan and Steve Freeman who run Ultima Thule Records since 1989, Markus Reuter, Jerome Froese, Robert Rich, and Anchor and Burden’s Bernhard Wostheinrich who lend in the history of the genre and the bands and artists that created the sound.

When you hear Günter Schickert’s clock-ticking spread guitar intro throughout the opening credits, you get a sense of this roller-coaster ride that’s beyond your wildest dreams as elements of Ash Ra Tempel comes to mind. Starting off with A.R & Machines, founded by guitarist Achim Reichel in 1970.

He grew up with not just The Beatles, but Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, and Little Richard. He formed a group which had a ‘60s garage rock pre-Music Machine sound called The Rattles, who played at The Star Club and the holy grail The Cavern Club in Liverpool, and shared a bill with Little Richard and The Rolling Stones during the ‘60s.

Moving away from the garage-rock sound, Reichel wanted to have his own guitar technique by using an echoing texture. He shows us in the film, the same reel-to-reel tape machine which has seen years and runs, doesn’t work that well. It was his first record machine to a piece of guitar melody. He created his own form of psychedelic music and launched A.R. & Machines by releasing their debut release The Green Journey released in 1971 which inspired Brian Eno to make Another Green World in 1975.

The cover of a woman’s red lips holding a green ball, is pretty trippy, followed by his second release Echo in 1972 which Conny Plank produced. Julian Cope championed this album as his Album of the Month back in 2002 on his Head Heritage site, calling it “An Inner world this album is”.

Reichel doesn’t get the recognition he deserves, but watching footage of A.R & Machines of their sold-out performance in 2017 at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, you get a sense that Reichel and his band mates are having a blast at the venue with some pulsating tribe to keep audiences asking for more.

Then, we head into the Berlin School of Music. Around that time in 1945, Germany was a country that was divided in two between the East and the West. “The Soviets came from the East” Vridolin Enxing of Floh de Cologne explains, “and advanced up to Berlin, and the American, French, and British troops came from the West and destroyed Hitler’s Germany”.

In order to reach West Berlin, you had to drive through the controlled Soviet zone, facing strict controls. Looking at the footage of West Berlin during that time frame, its almost as if we’re inside Fassbinder’s TV miniseries from 1973 entitle World on a Wire. And where David Bowie went to get cleaned up after going through the rough times he was going through and would go to Germany releasing the three classics which would be later be known as the Berlin trilogy; Low, Heroes, and Lodger.

There’s also a moment where controversial band Ton Steine Scherben got mentioned in the documentary. They were more of an anarchist, far left group while Floh de Cologne were more of the humoristic side. Ton had a song called ‘Macht Kaputt Was Euch Kaputt Macht’ which means ‘Destroy what destroys you.’ If you listen to that song, there are elements of Iggy & The Stooges, The Fugs, and Mick Farren’s The Deviants that comes to mind.

According to Wostheinrich, Ton at the time were an independent band, who managed to get a distribution system as they drove around the country and gave the Vinyl’s to the record shops. One time, I believe, the band appeared on a 1971 German TV talk show where manager Nikel Pallat was in a debate with Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser, founder of labels such as Ohr, Piaf, and Cosmic Couriers (Kosmische Kuriere / Kosmische Musik).

The debate was how Pallat was handling the distributions. You could tell the look on both of their faces that they despised each other. As Pallat’s blood started to boil, after they described that he was doing this in a capitalist way. He stood up and got his Axe out and smashed the table like a madman!

You have to understand, in the late 60s, because of the drugs, the student revolts, and the protest against the war in Vietnam, and how the system needed to be change, it wasn’t just about love, peace, growing flowers in your hair, and hippie power, it was a time where people needed to put the music into the centerfold. So, what Alan Freeman describes about Berlin is true.

“The Berlin scene was very incestuous, meaning that everybody played with everyone else, everyone knew everybody else. No matter what type of music they were doing”. Whether it was Conrad Schnitzler’s Eruption, Ash Ra Tempel’s first album which consisted members from Schnitzler’s band that consisted of Manuel Gottsching and Hartmut Enke and Tangerine Dream’s Klaus Schulze, or Harmonia which consisted members of two bands; Michael Rother from NEU, and Cluster’s Hans-Joachim Roedelius and the late Dieter Moebius, they were like a family, working on different projects together.

Alongside bands and artists like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, there are others that deserve a lot more than they did during their heyday; Gunter Schickert and Harold Grosskopf. Gunter started out originally playing trumpet in the Jazz scene, playing in skiffle bands, and then later on, playing the guitar. He heard about what was going on Berlin and became friends with Klaus Schulze. While Schulze was on tour, he would take care of his house.

Not to mention the collaboration they did together for a private session on September 26th, 1975 in Klaus’ living room in Hambuhren, and Gunter appearing on Klaus’ sixth album Moondawn in 1976. You can tell, how much the two of them have respect for one another.

Watching the black-and-white footage of the ocean, the jellyfish, and Gunter’s arrangements, its almost as if the spirit of David Bowie appears out of nowhere, giving his utmost respect to Schickert’s sound. Almost in a parallel universe he needed him to record music between the Low and Heroes sessions. And something that David Lynch would have used during the Twin Peaks-era.

The Freeman’s are amazing experts, tackling Schickert’s first three albums; Samtvogel which Gunter originally self-released this album privately, then reissued on the Brain label in 1975, followed by Uberfallig (Overdue) which he used a drummer Charlie Heuer, and Kinder in der Wildnis (Children in the Wilderness). Gunter himself was keeping the Krautrock genre alive with his musical structures with his underwatery effects and meditated guidance before delving into the parallel world of Grosskopf.

Grosskopf grew up in Hildesheim. Growing up, he had a rough time in school as his teachers had Nazi backgrounds. Harald himself resented that and became rebellious. He started playing drums in a band called Wallenstein, releasing four studio albums from Blitzkrieg, Mother Universe, Cosmic Century, and, Storys, Songs & Symphonies until he left the band.

He would later work with other bands such Ash Ra Tempel, Cosmic Jokers, and Walter Wegmuller’s Tarot album. In 1980, he embarked on his first solo album entitled Synthesist which took six weeks to record on the small record label in Hamburg, Sky Records, which hard success with NEU’s Michael Rother. Unfortunately, the album didn’t sell well. Many years later, Synthesist got recognition thanks to the internet.

We all know about Cope’s love of The Cosmic Jokers as he describes their first album in his Krautrocksampler book as “the ultimate cosmic trip. It was created on a higher plane, then they were just the people to rationalise it into palatable listenable sonic wisdom…”. Even though there were disagreements about it and the shutting down of the Ohr label, the Cosmic Jokers trilogy deserve some recognition, followed by a small mention of Manuel Gottsching’s Inventions for Electric Guitar.

And Reuter agrees with the idea of making music with collaborators when other band members from Ash Ra Tempel and Ashra collided with related projects; “Show this tendency and something beautiful in that movement of music where people like keep making music under a certain name that represents a certain style of music or a certain way of doing things”.

Even though when it comes to the bands and artist who would work together, its always like a family as I’ve mentioned. Not just band members, but collaboration and working together on different things to see if it works. Now, we come to Embryo.

Embryo’s music was featured on Andy Votel’s 2006 compilation released on the Delay 68 label entitle Prog is Not a Four Letter Word which featured bands and artists such as Philippe Besombes, Egg, Drugi Nancin, Baris Manco, San Ul Lim, 3 Hurel, Jazz Q, and of course Embryo which featured their jazz-funk rock song ‘The Music of Today’ from their 1975 album Surfin.

Not to mention the collaboration they did together for a private session on September 26th, 1975 in Klaus’ living room in Hambühren and Gunter appearing in the background on the back cover on the left from Klaus’ sixth studio album Moondawn in 1976. You can tell how much the two of them have mutual respect for one another.

They started out originally as members of the Mal Waldron trio. Mal was a jazz pianist from America and came to Munich and fell in love with the scene. Played with Charles Mingus and Billie Holliday. For his daughter, Marja who helps his father out, there’s true love between father and daughter, detailing the history of Embryo’s career which formed between 1968 or ‘69.

The problems between record labels, even they never wanted to release, or what they wanted Christian release, he started his own label with April records who had; Checkpoint Charlie, Missus Beastly and Ton Steine Scherben. So, it took the bravery of Christian to start his own label. They started with April which they didn’t know it was own by CBS. So, they changed it to Schneeball which means ‘Pastry’ in German.

As Christian would say, “Fuck the Record Companies!” That’s a lot of balls to say something like that. There’s also amazing footage of Embryo performing in India. Christian wasn’t sure at first, but he got support from April Music. It was their last tour and it was a huge success in India. The footage was shown on the Vagabunden Karawane documentary of the band making musical trips between the eight-month ride from Eastern Europe, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, and of course India, directed by Werner Penzel in 1980.

With Marja taking over his father’s legacy, the footage of her playing the xylophone in this Zappa-like quality, you can tell his spirit is watching over her, knowing she’s keeping the spirit of Embryo alive before closing the curtain one of prog’s finest Nektar.

While its good to see archival footage of interview of Roye Albrighton and Ron Howden talking about the history of the band, the classic albums they released, and their performance on a Swiss TV show in 1973 during their Remember the Future-era, proves how far they were ahead of their time. Plus, describing the Stockhausen influences from their first album and experimentation’s they were doing.

Among champions from Ian Curtis of Joy Division, Steven Wilson, Captain Sensible of The Damned, and of course Iron Maiden who were later cover ‘King of Twilight’ in the mid-80s, Nektar are given a little insight for the recognition they deserve. Derek Moore is the last surviving member of Nektar left, carrying the legacy and spirit of the music to future generations to discover how they were often under the radar.

Romantic Warriors still have more coming up their sleeve. For Adele and Jose, this was a big, big project to bring the Krautrock story in full. While I haven’t gotten a chance to watch the second part and I wished there was some mention of German progressive rock bands like Grobschnitt, Triumvirat and Birth Control, hopefully one day in the future, the third and final chapter as I’ve mentioned earlier, brings the cycle in full.

In the words of Joseph M. Marshall, III; “Life is a circle. The end of one journey is the beginning of the next”.