Psychedelia / Prog / Kraut / Space / Psychedelic Folk (60s-70s)

http://necronomicon-1972.com/discography_e.htm wrote:In the spring of 1972 Necronomicon recorded six tracks of their musical program at a very small studio in the Dutch town Kerkrade on a Revox double track tape machine. The LP was mastered by the Carl Lindström GmbH, Cologne, and 500 copies were pressed. The title "Tips zum Selbstmord" (How to commit suicide) isn't meant as an instruction on how to end one's personal life; it rather refers to mankind, which is devastating the earth, and thus destroying its own basis for living. With the self-made cover they had something extraordinary in mind: it folds out five times and, in consequence, has six squares, which build a cross when completely unfolded. While one of its sides is blank, the other one is covered with drawings by Harald Bernhard. This unique concept of the band's name, the music, the lyrics, and the record's title found its completion with this design and the according illustrations. In the discography, there's an image of the unfolded cover. On the LP's orange label there's written in black, Best Prehodi F 60.634. This is a fictitious creation of their own, compiled by the initials of the band members' last names (Norbert Breuer's name was slightly "adjusted" for improved readability). Financially, the whole LP project was supported by Hubert Herwartz, a friend of the band.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Orme wrote:Le Orme (Italian: "The Footprints") is an Italian progressive rock band formed in 1966 in Marghera, a frazione of Venice. The band was one of the major groups of the Italian progressive rock scene in the 1970s. They are one of few Italian rock bands to have success outside their own country, having played concerts across North America and Europe, and releasing an album in English at the height of their success.

https://myspace.com/clevesnz/bio wrote:Based in Sydney, Australia, the Cleves made an average self-titled album in the early 1970s that was in line with hard rock-progressive rock trends of the day.
Originally forming in New Zealand as the Clevedonaires in the mid-'60s, the Cleves were based around three siblings: Gaye Brown (vocals and organ), Ron Brown (guitar), and Graham Brown (guitar). Bassist Milton Lane filled out the lineup, which also made a couple of more pop-oriented singles in 1969 and 1970. They also did an EP, Music From Michael, consisting of a sixteen-minute, ten-part suite, taken from the soundtrack to the film of the same name. After some personnel changes (including the addition of one-time Bee Gees member Vince Melouney on guitar), they moved to the U.S. in late 1971 (minus Melouney) and changed their name to Bitch, issuing three singles on Warner Brothers. ~ Richie Unterberger

http://www.last.fm/music/Jade+Warrior wrote:Jade Warrior was a progressive rock/jazz rock band formed in 1970 by Jon Field, Tony Duhig, and Glyn Havard.
Last Autumn’s Dream, released in the early 70s is a masterpiece of its type

http://www.discogs.com/artist/274892-Mecki-Mark-Men wrote:Lead by keyboardist and vocalist Mecki Bodemark, MECKI MARK MEN are considered one of the first big Swedish psychedlic acts. They released an eponymous album in 1968 but soon after, Bodemark went his own way and teemed up with a threesome called the BABY GRANDMOTHERS to form MECKI MARK MEN. In 1968, they were the supporting act for FRANK ZAPPA AND THE MOTHERS OF INVENTION at Stockholm’s Concert House, as well as for JIMI HENDRIX during his Swedish tour. In 1969, they released a second album called “Running in the Summer Night”, made TV appearances and were part of the Swedish cast of the popular musical “Hair”. The following year, they went on a U.S. tour and played at rock festivals headlining The BYRDS, SLY & THE FAMILY STONE and JETHRO TULL among others. However, the tour ended up in chaos. They had stayed there for 3 months yet their visas were only valid for 6 weeks; they were also stuck in a hotel room they couldn’t afford. So they made a deal with their manager, returned home and paid their debts by recording a third album (“Marathon”). They then broke up, with most of the cast soon resurfacing as KEBNEKAISE. They released a fourth album in 1979 under their original name, where Mecki Bodemark features as the only original member.

http://www.allmusic.com/album/my-indole-ring-mw0000662280 wrote:

"My Indole Ring "
This eponymous album is the first (and probably only) to document the music of the late-'60s psychedelic rock group My Indole Ring. A local legend in Vancouver, Canada, back in 1967-1969, the quartet did not even release a single but, 25 years after the fact, this CD presents demos and live recordings that were all previously unavailable. Judging from this hour's worth of material, My Indole Ring definitely had something going. The set kicks off with "Orange Float Petals," an impressive acid rock song that became the group's signature tune. Full of instrumental quirks and imaginative vocal harmonies, this one is anthology material. "Love People Everywhere," "Blue Wax," and the instrumental "Silk Road" are satisfying but more generic numbers. The influences of West Coast (Jefferson Airplane) and Vancouver groups (Papa Bear's Medicine Show) are detectable. The group rounded up its sets with blues standards, and its take on "Another Man Done Gone" and "Early in the Morning" follow the developing crossovers between blues-rock and pop at the time. The CD concludes with 20 minutes of live material. The sound quality takes a severe drop: The demos have been well restored but these recordings from the Retinal Circus in Vancouver remain murky. Besides nostalgic Vancouver residents, this album will be of interest only for psychedelic rock collectors. A limited-edition LP with fewer tracks has also been released.

http://www.last.fm/music/H%C3%B6lderlin wrote:Hölderlin started out playing cover tunes in Germany in the 1960s until they received an offer for a record contract in the early 1970s. The band was led by two brothers, Christian and Joachim Grumbkow, who wrote most of the music. They released their first album, Hölderlins Traum in 1972, with no fewer than 9 band members. Primarily in the progressive folk vein, it featured a wide array of instruments, complex compositions and female vocals all sung in German. Troubles soon arose when the band’s producer wanted to have the band change their sound. After a long three year legal battle, the band was able to get rid of their contract, slightly change their name and release their second album, Hoelderlin in 1975. After much touring and good publicity, Hoelderlin released their third album, Clowns and Clouds in 1976. Then in 1977, Christian Grumbkow had a mental breakdown, left the band and was replaced by Pablo Weeber for their 1977 release, Rare Birds. Then their double live album Traumstadt was released in 1978, right before some personnel changes. Hoelderlin’s final two studio albums were released in the early eighties, taking a more rock-oriented approach.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Crystal-Syphon/326123464129347?sk=info wrote:Crystal Syphon, one of the greatest “lost” groups of the West Coast psych scene, came together in Merced, California in 1965. Originally a Beatles / Byrds-influenced unit called the Morlochs, they soon shed their original moniker and moved in a more psychedelic direction, becoming a fixture on the ballroom circuit from 1966-1970. Although their music may nod in the direction of the New Tweedy Brothers and Quicksilver Messenger Service at times, it’s imbued throughout with a distinctive sound that arose from practicing up to six nights a week. The band entertained offers from various labels during their existence, but as they insisted on complete artistic control and ownership of their music, no deals were struck. Now, some 44 years after its creation, Roaratorio is proud to make the music of Crystal Syphon available for the first time ever. Drawn from studio tracks, rehearsal tapes and a live recording from the Fillmore West, Family Evil is released in an edition of 500 copies, with cover art by Norman Orr and extensive historical liner notes in an old-style “tip-on” jacket. Digital download included.

http://www.last.fm/music/Catherine+Ribeiro+%252B+Alpes wrote:Led by Patrice Moullet, Alpes was founded in 1970 with Catherine Ribeiro as the lead singer. A very original band, highly prolific throughout the ’70s and still alive. Their music is rather experimental and hard to define and involves folk, psychedelia and improvisation. Patrice Moullet is the inventor of several musical instruments amongst which include the “Cosmophone” and the “Percuphone”. In a similar vocal style to Brigitte Fontaine, Catherine Ribeiro’s low voice tone may also evoke Nico at times and is theatrical and declamatory. There’s often an intense dramatic tension in the singing.

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Electronic+Hole wrote:Reissue of the extremely obscure 2nd Radish label album, originally issued in 1970. “Raw, noisy, droning and completely mesmerizing album recorded by Phil Pearlman between the first Beat of the Earth album and Relatively Clean Rivers. Pearlman assembled The Electronic Hole in 1969 strictly for personal use — to audition musicians for his new band. To do this, and to add to his own collection of demos, he used local studios in off-hours thanks to his friendship with album engineer Joe Sidore. The result is entirely different from Beat of the Earth, as it abandons a freeform improvisational approach in favor of ‘compositions’, including a wild cover of Frank Zappa’s ‘Trouble Every Day’. Pearlman plays sitar to great effect on the album, and another track has the thickest wall of fuzz guitars imaginable — an effect he achieved by running his Fender amplifier out of a child’s chord organ (‘sounded great for about two weeks, then it blew up!’). Few albums have such an eclectic yet appealing sound.”

http://www.last.fm/music/A.R.+&+Machines wrote:Producer, composer and musician from Hamburg (Germany), Achim Reichel is a key figure in the explosion of krautrock. Reichel was first a founder member of The Rattles at the beginning of the 60s. In 1968 he formed Wonderland with the drummer Frank Dostal. Late 60s he launched his first solo musical project called A.R. & Machines. Musically it provides a supreme sonic musical voyage turned to cycled psychedelic guitar playing with lot of echoes and delay.

http://www.last.fm/music/International+Harvester wrote:International Harvester is a legendary underground Swedish psych/hippie/freakout band, formed by Pärson Sound/Träd, Gräs och Stenar founder Bo Anders Persson. Pärson Sound was formed after Bo saw Terry Riley perform in Sweden in 1967, and he worked to bridge the works of minimalism with psychedelic rock music. Pärson Sound was renamed International Harvester (the new name first used as opening act for the Doors in Stockholm Sept 1968), which exuded very commune-esque vibes a la Amon Duul (though not at all prog), but jammed out in a grittier and more experimental Grateful Dead way. 1969 Harvester was reformed into Träd, Gräs och Stenar

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsupilami_(band) wrote:Marsupilami were an English progressive rock band active in the early 1970s. The band released two albums, Marsupilami (1970) and Arena (1971), on Transatlantic Records. The albums were reissued on Cherry Red Records in 2007. The band briefly reunited for gigs in 2011.

http://www.last.fm/music/Twenty+Sixty+Six+and+Then wrote:Twenty Sixty Six and Then made one of the most touted of heavy psychedelic Krautrock albums, Reflections… took the atypical Kraut hard-rock style, added some Zappa touches, riffing aggression of the heavy Bacillus-label bands, and even some off-the-wall electronics.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/blues-creation-mn0000066237/biography wrote:Even by the flash-in-the-pan standards of Japan's turbulent late-‘60s/early-70s post-Group Sounds psychedelic rock scene, Blues Creation seemed to come out of nowhere and head right back there again faster than most anyone else. Like many of its contemporaries, Blues Creation was launched by a budding Japanese guitar hero whose mind had been effectively blown by the deafeningly heavy sounds of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath -- this being Kazuo Takeda, who had actually already spent some time playing in Europe and America, and was therefore a first-hand witness to the sonic events that spawned heavy metal's birth. But before going down that road, Takeda and his chosen Blues Creation bandmates, Fumio Nunoya (vocals), Takayuki Noji (bass), and Shinichi Tashiro (drums), recorded an eponymous 1969 debut filled with heavy-handed blues covers (a strategy copied by Flower Travellin' Band just one year later), as befit their chosen moniker. But Takeda would soon have his stylistic rethink and scrap everything for a new lineup consisting of Hiromi Osawa (vocals), Masashi Saeki (bass), and Akiyuki Higuchi (drums), returning in 1971 with Blues Creation's most legendary artifact, the cryptically named sophomore LP, Demon & Eleven Children, which was awash in primal, proto-metallic acid rock. The album would only achieve legendary status decades later, though, and so the rest of that year found a multi-tasking Blues Creation recording another album backing singer Carmen Maki (billed as Carmen Maki & Blues Creation), as well as a jam-happy concert document entitled simply Blues Creation Live. And then there was…silence; and by the very next year Takeda had decided to break up the band and move back to London, where he befriended American hard rockers Mountain (among others), and duly returned to Japan for a tour with them in 1975. Now leading a new power trio billed only as Creation, he recorded several albums well into the early '80s, including 1975's Creation, 1976's Felix Pappalardi & Creation (recorded with the man himself in Nantucket), 1977's Pure Electric Soul, 1978's Super Rock in the Highest Voltage, 1981's Lonely Heart, and 1982's Rock City. In the aftermath, Takeda continued to perform live, work sessions as a musician and producer, and released more than 20 solo albums, but it's arguably still Blues Creation's brief but volcanic existence that headlines his impressive CV.

http://www.last.fm/music/Phantom's+Divine+Comedy wrote:Phantom’s Divine Comedy was an obscure band that recorded one album in 1974. The members of the band used pseudonymes “Phantom”, “X”, “Y” and “Z”. As the voice of the singer Phantom sounded like Jim Morrison, there were rumours that he actually was Morrison who had faked his death. According to another rumour the singer was Iggy Pop. Later it has been said that the singer was actually called Ted Pearson or Tom Carson.

http://www.discogs.com/artist/944022-Bodo wrote:Bodo Molitor was born in Germany, traveling all over the world and playing music. His album "Hits Internacionales" was recorded in 1968 and released in 1969. Bodo recorded this album for Orfeon records, Mexico, as label mates of Kaleidoscope. Bodo created the cover for Kaleidoscope and several other covers for Zave Records. After "Hits Internacionales", Bodo left Mexico to travel the the world playing with other musicians. For many years now he lives and plays music in Cairo, Egypt.