Artist: Electric Orange
Label: Sulatron
Release: 2010
Duration: 78:24
Rating: 3.8/5
Germany. Paradise for prog rock lovers. Heaven for true krautrock heads. Because let’s face it, krautrock is one of the greatest legacies of 1960s and 1970s German rock. Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Faust, Can, Ash Ra Tempel, and those are just a few of the names any halfway serious music listener will know. It’s also interesting that all of these bands arrived at krautrock through the influence of the rock bands of the day. The krautrockers of that era were first and foremost masters of electronics, brilliant manipulators of sound, and the realization that they could fuse that know-how with rock music set off a real musical revolution. That’s when the genre truly became what it is: krautrock.
Today the krautrock legacy is kept alive by a whole bunch of bands, while quite a few of the champions from the seventies are still carrying on too. The genre has even spread beyond Germany. Naturally, the krautrock approach itself has changed and been modernized, and that’s how krautrock became neo-krautrock. A typical representative of it is the German band Electric Orange, who have been around since the early nineties. So far they’ve put out eight studio albums, and the latest one comes with a pretty bombastic title: “Krautrock From Hell”.
“Krautrock From Hell” is made up of nine tracks that are pretty similar to each other, yet completely different at the same time. The album kicks off with “Bandwurm”, a really intriguingly constructed piece from the krautrockers. The whole thing is built on a repeating bass and drum line, and over that constant rhythm section Müller layers all sorts of sounds, effects and voices. The rhythm section breaks only once, when keyboards with a saxophone-like sound come into the track. The second track, “Sundos”, starts out with a similar move: a looping rhythm section, joined by keyboards and Bittner’s voice. Eventually the track does come to life, with more and more instruments piling in, and it even hits a majestic peak (which, as we’re already getting used to by now, “holds back” and sort of repeats itself). Next up is the almost 11-minute space epic “Chorg”. A superb collection of every spacy-sounding effect imaginable, it’s soaked in phenomenal guitar and keyboard solos, quieter backgrounds, wild drum and percussion bits, and a thrilling bass line. So the epic is epic not just in length but in substance too. “Hers” actually manages to get close to the previous epic, both in length and in quality. It’s more experimental, with an enviable number of incredible-sounding sounds and voices. It also serves up vocals that mesh perfectly with the melody and, together with the keyboards, form the core of the track. An interesting concept that’s totally different from the earlier ones, yet still completely Electric Orange.
The real surprise, though, is that neither “Hers” nor “Chorg” is the centerpiece of this album. That’s what the somewhat shorter (compared to the previous two) “Kunstkopf” sets you up for. Another space episode with an extremely improvisational backbone and countless effects, it does a great job of announcing the longest part of the album, the whopping 25-minute “Neuronomicon”. And this centerpiece offers you everything. It opens with an acoustic guitar and a pleasant melody, but with the help of the keyboards it quickly morphs into a menacing ambient soundscape built by every single instrument. The rhythm shifts fast and swings hard, and so does the tempo of the track itself. You can really feel the musicians building up to something, helped along by escalating vocal parts that are every bit as dark as the instrumental side. The most interesting stretches are definitely the ones with the piano up front, where Müller truly starts to shine. It’s an impressive performance by the whole of Electric Orange, but as always the geniuses Müller and Bittner are front and center. The album closes with one more space voyage, “Wurmloch” (wormhole). It works like an outro, a final flight that again uses a ton of effects and incredible combinations of keyboards, bass and woodwinds to create a very special atmosphere, worthy of an album closer.
So “Krautrock From Hell” might be the best work yet from the German neo-krautrockers, packed with experimentation and the familiar tricks they use to conjure one very specific atmosphere. Some will find the record too repetitive and even uncomfortably hypnotic, since it has almost no peaks, and when it does, they turn into more repetition. But there’s enough improvisation and other musical elements to make the album good and worth a listen. These dark krautrockers just keep growing, and with “Krautrock From Hell” they’re currently at the top of their musical game. May their vision never end.
Lineup
Dirk Bittner – guitars, vocals, percussion
Dirk Jan Müller – keyboards, piano
Tom Rückwald – bass guitar
Georg Monheim – drums, percussion
Josef Ahns – guitars, woodwinds
Production
Double D
Tracklist
1. Bandwurm (5:44)
2. Sundos (5:00)
3. Chorg [Cpt. Gyrok’s] (10:51)
4. Hers (9:38)
5. Kunstkopf (6:29)
6. Neuronomicon (25:02)
7. Wurmloch (15:40)
