| # | Artist | Song (click to play) | Album | Year | CD label |
| 1 | Nine Days Wonder | Apple Tree | Nine Days Wonder | 1971 | Bellaphon/Bacilus Records |
| A wacky Canterbury influenced jazz/rock/progressive album. It has Zappa & The Mothers, and Soft Machine written all over it. Comparable to Supersister, Brainstorm. They released at least 3 more albums, but, I'm not sure how those sound. A very good album, especially if you like a little humor mixed with your music or a Canterbury-influenced album outside of the usual suspects. An excellent album that is probably becoming very scarce on CD. | |||||
| 2 | Vita Nova | Vita Nova Inventions | Vita Nova | 1971 | Penner Records |
| A tremendously cool album that goes up in my estimation every time I play it. Some passages of the album are obviously influenced by ELP, particularly the first album. But, the influence is not so much a lifting of melodies, but, of the instrument sounds, the atmosphere and the interplay between musicians. The guitar and bass are both deftly handled by Eddy Marron who went on to play guitar for Dzyan on their _Time Machine_ and _Electric Silence_ albums. | |||||
| 3 | Alcatraz | Simple Headphone Man (excerpt) | Vampire State Building | 1972 | LP only |
| An obscure and unknown jazz-rock progressive album. There are some obvious influence from Miles Davis' early jazz-rock albums. Never released on CD and probably never will be. | |||||
| 4 | I.D. Company | Bhagavad Gita | I.D. Company | 1970 | Germanofon (boot) |
|
A remarkably experimental album for 1970. The format of the album is one
side with vocals from Inga Rumpf and the other side with Dagmar Krause.
You can probably guess what the I. and D. stand for in the name of the
group. The song featured here is from the Inga side. She has a rich husky
voice that kind of reminds me of Eric Burdon of the Animals. The music
is very interesting mix of eastern influences, hip beat jazz, early
progressive and experimental rock music. Inga Rumpf went on to Frumpy
and Dagmar Krause joined Slapp Happy.
Inga Rumpf - Walking in the Light Dagmar Krause: The Voice of Armageddon | |||||
| 5 | Tomorrow's Gift | Riddle in a Swamp | Tomorrow's Gift | 1970 | Second Battle |
| Originally a double LP that is now on a single CD. It is pretty much in the same mold as other early 70's German rock bands, with plenty of English rock influence, ala Spooky Tooth, Soft Machine, et al. Sax and flute augment the usual rock instruments. Lots of extended jams with organ, guitar and sax solos. I find the song structures somewhat comparable to the Welsh band Man. An excellent album. After the band reformulated into a trio-format, they released only one more album _Goodbye Future_ before transforming into the more fusiony Release Music Orchestra. | |||||