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CD-Rom
feedback, reviews, etc...
customer reviews...
In three words.... KRAUTROCKINGLY BL00DY AMAZING! Many thanks to you both,
Peter
Hello Alan, today I`ve received the CD ROM. Thank you very much. I would
like to let you know my deeply respect on this amazing work. With Cosmic
Regards >> Ulrich Klatte
Hi, the CD-Rom arrived last week, many thanks for it - and also for the
other CDs. The new Cosmic Egg is great, I think I'll find many unknown bands
and disks I never heart about. >> Fridhelm Sappa
hiya alan, just wanted to say thanks that i have received the cdrom. sorry
its taken me ages to write as i have been avidly reading it and still not
finished! its great - julie
From Synth Music Direct...
We have just obtained a handful of the most amazing reference material for
anyone interested in Kraut Rock (and that includes the likes of Tangerine
Dream and Klaus Schulze).'The Crack in The Cosmic Egg' CD ROM has illustrated
histories and discographies of hundreds of artists and bands that formed part
of the Kraut Rock scene. It is a completely revised version of the book of
the same name released in 1996 (and long out of print) but updated with a
vast amount of additional information. It also has over an album worth of
music on the CD ROM (as well as two extra promotional CDs) plus some
promotional video material from the likes of Faust (live music from 1971) and
Guru Guru. If you are into Kraut Rock this is THE ultimate source of
inspiration. It would take days to go through all the information it
contains.
The authors have also asked us to point out that it also includes a synth
section which contains information on a vast number of electronic music
artists - some of which even I hadn't heard of before!
I got your CD-ROM "The Crack In The Cosmic Egg" from my dealer
some days ago. Absolutely brilliant! Thanks for your great job! Best Regards
-- Barmaleyy
Wow, thanks alot, Great work!!! - Dave Schmidt (Zone 6, Neumeier Genrich
Schmidt)
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Various / The Crack in The Cosmic Egg
CDROM Book with
over an albums worth of music plus promo videos
The late 60s to early 70s saw the rise of The Kraut Rock scene in Germany
giving birth to such bands and artists as: Amon Duul 2, Agitation Free, Ash
Ra Tempel, Can, Faust, Kraftwerk, Neu! Klaus Sculze, Tangerine Dream and
loads more. The original book of this name came out in 1996 and really
amounted to the repository of a lifetime of knowledge built up by brothers
Steve & Alan Freemen, the two people who I certainly think of as the
world experts on this scene. This CDROM covers that book with another ten
years of research included plus ‘thousands of extra pictures, an albums
worth of music samples plus loads and loads of bonus appendices, and lots of
other extra features, sections on Austria, Switzerland, the former DDR’ it
also covers other related genres such as Avant-Garde, Synth Music plus
others. The immensity of this project is mind-boggling and will take you many
days to fully go through. What is more you even get two Free additional promo
CDs featuring the Kraut Rock inspired ‘Auricle’ and ‘Garden of Delights’
labels.
Many of the features on the bands and artists include pictures, posters
plus scans of rare album and single covers. As for the Kraut Rock section, as
well as the artists mentioned above you will also find articles on: Birth
Control, Eloy, Embryo, Grobschnitt, Harmonia, Guru Guru, Kluster, Kraftwerk,
Magma, Mythos, Novalis. Popol Vuh and almost 600 others! Absolutely astonishing!
Also covered is a Synth Section. Now this looks at things from a different
angle to SMD. Even though it features articles on the likes of Peter Baumann,
Rainer Bloss, Deuter, Chris Franke, Thomas Fanger, Michael Hoenig, Paul
Haslinger, Peter Mergener, Pete Namlook, Pyramid Peak, Rainbow Serpent,
Roedelius, Johannes Schmoelling, Conrad Schnitzler, Mario Schonwalder, Robert
Schroeder, Software, Spyra and Synco PLUS OVER 300 others it looks at things
from the German scene so you will not find anything relating to the UK. There
is much here however that we have not covered in SMD. It is an interesting
read and you are certain to find out things you didn’t know before.
Even though the Synth and Kraut Rock sections are maybe those that will
attract you most there are also hundreds more (could even be over 1000)
write-ups on bands from other interesting and related genres. The scope of
this project is quite simply breathtaking!
We haven’t stopped there though. There are audio interviews with Manuel
Gottsching (3 of them!), Christian Burchard, Michael Gunther and Chris Karrer
as well as written interviews with Klaus Schulze, Florian Fricke, Mario
Schonwalder, Lightwave & Paul Haslinger etc. You will also find promo
videos of Faust both from 1971 and 2007 as well as Guru Guru, Xhol Caravan
and Embryo.
It is one of the most incredible works of love (even obsession?) I have
ever read. (DL)
^ Also from Synth Music Direct!
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School of Krautrock
John Harris
Friday
November 23, 2007
The Guardian
What
a week, and where to start? With the Jpeg I just received of EMI's
bear-shaped Radiohead USB stick? Or the all-clear just given to Jimmy Page's
left little finger, and the fragile anticipation presumably coursing around
the veins of the 0.004% (approx) of people who applied for tickets to see Led
Zeppelin sans John Bonham?
Neither
of those, actually. Over recent days, a few aspects of the human universe
have eerily aligned, and sent me back to one of the more inspirational
sub-sections of 20th-century music. Yesterday, Radio 4 aired a documentary
devoted to Kraftwerk. This month sees the rerelease of a two-CD Best Of by
the Cologne-based 1970s musical sorcerers Can. To cap it all, a prosaically
named but dizzyingly experimental outfit called Harmonia will reconvene next
week for the first time in 31 years - while, thanks to the Guardian's
controversial 1000 Albums to Hear Before You Die, people who once settled for
Corinne Bailey Rae and Sandi Thom are presumably jacking in their jobs and
finding new partners, having been joyously exposed to such cultish talents as
Neu! and Tangerine Dream.
I
am talking, natürlich, about the far-flung German musical upsurge known as
Krautrock, and the increasing suspicion that its influence is now up there
with that of such immovable rock shibboleths as the three-chord trick and
descending chord sequences à la the Beatles' Dear Prudence and the Kingsmen's
Louie Louie. Each time you hear either parping analogue electronica or the
propulsive rhythm known by the term "motorik", it is this music you
have to thank - so when you next listen to Radiohead, those US avant gardists
TV On the Radio, LCD Soundsystem, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, or (by
accident) Stereophonics' crassly motorik 2005 single Dakota, you should
coolly nod and say: "Yeah - pretty Krauty."
For
those who don't know what I'm talking about, a brief explanation. Thanks to
the German absorption of Anglo-American rock, the great countercultural
convulsion that gripped mainland Europe in 1968 and the fact that Germans born
in the wake of the second world war had no option but to symbolically kick
against previous generations, West Germany in the early-to-mid-1970s was
alive with music that furthered the psychedelic drive to experiment, but at
its best, avoided the excesses of prog.
Kraftwerk
were part of the initial milieu but soon went wholly electronic, thereby
splitting themselves apart, leaving the genre to guitar-playing longhairs.
Can and Neu! remain the best place to start, and from there, you may want to
progress to Faust, Ash Ra Tempel and Amon Düül II. After that, you'll feel
like a confirmed psychonaut, but tread carefully - one wrong turn and you'll
end up spending money on, say, Grobschnitt, who were no fun at all.
My
immersion in this fascinating world went like this. First, I arrived in the
professional company of people far cooler than me. Soon after, myself and
some colleagues took a day trip to Leicester to spend money at the British
heart of Krautrock-worship: a shop and mail-order mini-empire called Ultima
Thule (ultimathulerecords.com). It turned out to be a garden of delights, and
still represents thrilling proof that corporate power, Richard
"Hard-Fi" Archer and iTunes have yet to quite snuff out the last
interesting bits of the pop-cultural firmament.
That
day, I ended up with £100 worth of CDs that I still treasure, and a vast
Krautrock encyclopedia titled The Crack in the Cosmic Egg (now available on
CD-Rom), which contains hundreds of entries devoted to arcane German troupes
who may yet be dug out of their historical hole and acclaimed as musical
heroes. Take, for example, Weltklang, "the synth project of Munich
musician Andreas Merz", who were "notably influenced by Cluster and
Kraftwerk". Their sole album, it says here, was cleverly titled
Klangwelt. Why it didn't make the Guardian 1000 beats me.
http://music.guardian.co.uk/rock/comment/story/0,,2215509,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=39#article_continue
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"The
Crack in the Cosmic Egg: Encyclopedia of Krautrock, Kosmische Musik, &
Other Progressive, Experimental, & Electronic Musics from Germany"
By Steve and Alan Freeman, Audion Publications ISBN 0-9529506-0-CD R0M,
1995/2008
Brothers Alan and Steve Freeman have been long time fans of Krautrock etc.
as well as record shop owners specializing in this and similar music, and
publishers of Audion magazine. This labor of love started well over 10 years
ago to document Germany s musical output. Originally available as a book
published in 1996 the additional ten years of work has helped to flesh out a
lot of information on German rock and experimental music scenes. There is a
version you can access for free on the Ultima Thule web site, but that may
not always be a convenient. Due to popular demand the Freemans have now
issued this excellent guide as a CD-ROM. All you have to do is copy the
CD-ROM to your hard drive and you can access the information at any time. I
have it installed 0n my laptop and it is very convenient, especially when
researching music I am reviewing for Exposé.
The information contained in this guide is staggering. There are thousands
of extra pictures, an album's worth of music samples, tons of bonus
appendices, and bonus features (sections on Austria, Switzerland, the former
DDR; references to other countries and musicians related to the German scene;
and focused information on Beat, Avant-Garde, Folk, New Wave, Synth Music and
other related genres). There are promo videos from four Krautrock legends:
Embryo, Guru Guru, Faust, and Xhol Caravan. In order to fit on the disc,
these are small format videos, and considering the age of most of them (30
years old), the quality is quite good. There is also a Faust video from
December 2007 that you can tell is digital, but the volume was so loud that
there is a lot of distortion. The music samples available are from Embryo,
Ethno Leaders, GAM, Guru Guru, Kontrast, Mythos, Neumeier-Genrich-Schmidt,
Orange Peel, 0ut of Focus, Rollkommando, Grinter Schickert, Schickert &
Strodthoff, and Xhol Caravan. In addition there are samples from Ultima Thule
releases by Aussenminister, Con-Herz, Peter Frohmader, GAM, No Zen Orchestra,
Out of Focns, Gunter Schickert, Conrad Schnitzler, and Asmus Tietchens. The
non-Audion samples are either live recordings or unreleased material.
And then there are audio interviews in English with Christian Burchard,
Manuel Göttsching, Michael Gunther, and Chris Karrer, a video interview with
Alan Freeman, and interviews with Brian Barritt, Florian Fricke, Peter
Frohmader, Wolfgang Hertz, Lightwave & Paul Haslinger, Mario Schonwalder,
Klaus Schulze, and Space Explosion extracted from Audion magazine. From the
Home Page you can go directly to a band you want to research by click- ing on
the appropriate letter of the alphabet. You then go to a page that contains
links to the bands with that letter. Each band page is then linked by
keywords to other bands 0r genres. The Home Page also has a panel on the
right that links you to References, Related information, 0ther Genres, the
index, and the Appendices. It will take me years to fully explore this mountain
of information. All that I can say is BRAVO to the Freemans for making this
monumental effort to document this extremely important slice of musical
history.
And to make this deal even sweeter, there are two CDs included with the
CD-R0M package: an Audion sampler titled Ihe Cosmic Auricle & 1ther
Eggshells which is only available with the CD-ROM and a Garden of Delights
(GOD) sampler Psychedelic Underground 13. The Cosmic Auricle features tracks
by Alan Freeman, Endgame, Gunter Schickert, Triax, Extremities, Con-Hertz,
Out of Focus, GAM, and Alto Stratus. The GOD sampler includes tracks by
Waniyetula, Missus Beastly, Vikings Invasion, Live, Arktis, Level, Emma
Myldenberger, Skyline, and Guru Guru. The Cosmic Egg is quite a package and a
bargain at twice the price. It is an important resource for anyone even
marginally interested in this music. Other resources like Julian Cope's book
only pale in comparison.
by Henry Schneider (Exposé)
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