Yeti [Original recording remastered, Import]

As bands go Amon Düül II are a relatively new discovery for me. I mean, I have certainly known about them for about 20 years and was certainly played Wolf City a good many times by an enthusiastic friend (Sandoz) in my younger years but was usually too 'pharmaceutically altered' for it to really take hold of me in the way that this band has in the last nine months.
Nowadays I would place this album somwehere in the top three of my 'All Time Top 100 Albums Of All Time'.......THAT is how much I rate this album.

Stumbling across this at a very low point in my life (both musically and mentally) this was like discovering a new galaxy, untouched my other beings. I was bored beyond belief with virtually everything that came my way, which was unfair really as most of what has past my earholes has been good exquisite psychedelia, it was just that my state of mind refused to allow anything more than a flicker of an eye or a faint shrug.

I firmly believe now that Yeti for me is the Holy Grail that I have been searching the world for the last 22 years for in terms of 'Classic' Stone Cold Psychedelia and across the 1300 or so albums I own is just dripping with all the right
qualities I seek in psychedelia.

Of course there will be many reading this article that would disagree with the status I bestow upon this album and many that will just plain 'not get' Amon Düül II but that's fine with me as I am not here to defend it and of course we are all entitled to our own opinions and 'opinions are like...' nah..don't even go there.

What I will say though is that if you are just beginning to discover the 'forbidden fruit' of Psychedelia then you could do far worse than to score yourself a copy of this, sit down in a darkened room, gently slip your headphones onto your lugholes and let this album seep into every nerve ending in your body and be taken away by what ranks as brilliant psych in my humble opinion.

Likewise if you are just starting forays into the vast world of Krautrock (where this album truly belongs if you are a genre snob) then Amon Düül II are a good place to start.....just don't be dissapointed if you never find an album to better it!!

If one is forced to make comparisons then I guess you could say that this is of a similar style to the first three or four Pink Floyd albums, certainly Yeti Talks To Yogi and Sandoz In The Rain are amongst the finest examples of tripped out, spaced out, loose and cosmic stuff you will come across.

It is NOT Space Rock, nor does it fall into Jam Band territory as this is neither crude nor noodling in any way shape or form, this is complex, hallucinogenic music that at times is discordant and at others displays such beauty and overwhelming prescence that hearing it can bring tears to my eyes.

If you thought Interstellar Overdrive and Astronomy Domine was a long strange trip then stay at home and draw the curtains because Yeti just rewrote the book...

There are haunting and at some times scary tracks and there are huge great soaring pieces that will lift you up and cast you into the darkness, if you are still listening by the time you reach the title track be prepared for an epic piece of music, the 'short, tight and nice' song lovers amongst you may feel uneasy as Amon Düül II move into free form & intense mode but I beg you to stay with it to the end and let me know what you think.

I will freely admit that this is not perhaps the easiest of albums to get into but there's no escaping its credentials as one of the giant killers of Krautrock and also the broader genre of psychedelia as a whole.

As I write this I am smiling at the looks on some peoples faces when they slip this into their CD player for the first time and look forward to all comments.

Besides the excellent musicianship present here, no Amon Düül II review would be complete without mention of the beautiful and haunting siren that is Renate Knaup, who's voice simply blows my mind......move over Grace honey, Renate is IT.

"Soap Shop Rock", the album opener, is the most misleadingly titled song in Rock history, for this is of a different universe to Status Quo. Instead we are treated to a 15 minute multi-episodic psychotropic descent into oblivion, with the hard distorted edges of a later Black Sabbath. Their classic "Archangels Thunderbird" is also included here, warranting the album's price tag alone.

The latter half of what was originally a double album is a little self indulgent, with a pair of unfocussed improvisations. The rest of the album more than makes up for these failings, however. So for an excercise in gothic prog-psychedelia by a bunch of German communists, look no further.

Yeti, along with the first Ash Ra Tempel album, are representative of the psychedelic side of the German scene. Another reviewer appears somewhat critical of aspects of the album but given the situation at the time in Europe, it is not clear to non-Brits why this was such an innovative album.

For a start most German bands were guys. Amon Duul had non-descript female vocals but II had Renate. Influences here included Yoko Ono, Grace Slick, Janis Joplin and the Teutonic goddess Nico. The combination of the vocals, the guitar effects and the focus on improvisation marked this band out from almost every other aside from Can.

Yeti is the gem in the crown of their work. One of the earliest European albums to include recorded improvisational material, Yeti occupied one complete side of the album. At the time they were little known outside of Germany although there was a growing awareness by a small cognescenti in Britain due to the connections with members of the psychedic warlords, Hawkwind.

In a sense the track listings do not really matter as the album was intended to be a reflection of their live gigs but aside from the title track, two others standout. Archangels Thunderbird became a crowd favourite much to the disdain of the band reportedly at the time but was included in many gigs and appeared in Live in London. The last side of the vinyl album devoted to Yei, Yogi and Sandoz is a genuflection to the company who first created LSD and is played accordingly.

This is the last album which would capture the band in it's full improvisational glory. Thereafter there music became more complex much in line with other developments on the music scene at home.