Tag Archives: Krautrock

1973 COUNTDOWN: #30 — 21

30  ROXY MUSIC — STRANDED Don’t tell anyone, but I think I accidentally reversed this and For Your Pleasure (#72) in a moment of spreadsheet/red wine confusion. Such things can happen when you’re scrambling to write 70+ reviews and take all those photos. Oops. In sum, this third album is terrific but I think its […]

1973 COUNTDOWN: #40 — 31

40  MIKE OLDFIELD — TUBULAR BELLS A poll of my favourite Mike Oldfield albums would not have this debut on the podium, but it certainly made an impression as the very first release by Virgin Records. Made an impression when used in a film, too. As a multi-instrumentalist’s calling card Tubular Bells really does take […]

1973 COUNTDOWN: #60 — 51

60  RICK WAKEMAN — THE SIX WIVES OF HENRY VIII Classically trained and ambitious in musical vision, Rick Wakeman shot to progressive prominence with Yes. This, his first solo album, takes as its notional concept the astonishing sequence of royal liaisons embarked upon by Henry VIII in his search for a god-given heir. Holy shit, […]

1972 COUNTDOWN: #20 — 16

20  ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND — EAT A PEACH Simultaneously a tribute and a stop-gap after the untimely death of Duane Allman, Eat A Peach is slightly schizoid. A big double album, it includes three unreleased studio tracks featuring Duane, three live tracks from the Fillmore concerts, and three new studio songs without Duane. Yet the […]

KLAUS ENCOUNTERS | THE FINAL FRONTIER

Continuing (and completing) Vinyl Connection’s homage to German synthesiser great Klaus Schulze.  The Cosmic Couriers — Sci-Fi Party  [1974] In the first half of 1973, producer Rolf Ulrich Kaiser organised a series of jams with a number of the major musicians in the emerging psychedelic/electronic space rock scene. There were recorded (without the musicians’ explicit […]

KLAUS ENCOUNTERS | DEPARTURE AND RETURN

A Dozen Klaus Schulze Albums Worthy Of Consideration When Klaus Schulze died on 26 April 2022 the world lost one of its foundation rock-electronic composers and a cornerstone of the early German indie music scene that became known as ‘Krautrock’. As someone who discovered his drifting, droning, pulsating synthesiser music back in the 1970s, I […]

1972 COUNTDOWN… #60—#56

MANFRED MANN’S EARTH BAND — GLORIFIED MAGNIFIED The 1972 debut album by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band was a kind of rock ’n’ roll stew, with a range of styles. Country rock, blues rock, a ballad or two, AOR… it’s fine, but lacked focus. So it’s great to report that the follow up found the quartet […]

1971 COUNTDOWN: #65 — #61

65 LEAF HOUND — Growers Of Mushroom Inside half a minute you know exactly where you stand with Leaf Hound’s only LP, Growers Of Mushroom. “Freelance Fiend” opens with a guitar squall, powerful vocals and a blues-rock fusillade that would have made Hendrix grin. If the sound evokes Atomic Rooster, that’s not surprising as Peter […]

SPRING 1971, GERMANY

Achim Reichel was part of The Rattles, a German pop/beat band who had a 1969 hit with “The Witch”. It’s an edgy late psychedelic single that’s worth checking out (if you like that kind of thing). After going solo, Reichel immersed himself in exploring the magic of guitar effects, releasing a number of albums through […]

JANUARY 1971—50 YEARS AND TWO MONTHS AGO

Even while the 70 FROM ’70 finalists were still being mentally debated by your correspondent, lists were being compiled and assessments made for the following year. This year, in fact. The one in which we are currently deep into March and sniffing the yellow-brown air of autumnal decline. Where is the spring in Vinyl Connection’s […]