Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
German disco from the 70,s....and it,s brilliant, 17 Feb 2008
Anyone unaware as indeed I was, that Germany had a dance scene , especially a dance scene in the late sixties/seventies prepare to have your preconceptions blasted away in sleazy peals of wah wah, coolly sashaying horns and strings so smooth they'll make a baby's bottom jealous. This compilation of twenty tracks courtesy of "Bureau B" shows that the Germans had their own idiosyncratic Saturday night fever long before Travolta donned a white suit. Okay much of it sounds like the soundtrack to seventies porn , indeed some of it may well have been the soundtrack to seventies porn , but if so the music will have been more memorable than some bloke with terrible hair and a moustache to suit grunting away. There is some truly terrific music here.
Personal favourites include the Bond theme style strings and vocal harmonies of Kai Warner "On The Way To Philadelphia", Henry Arland with the truly odd sounding horns and "Oh Mamy" chorus of "Mamy Blue", Heinz Kiessling,s "Orbiter" which sounds like a looser jazzier take on the "U.F.O." theme, Max Gregor and his Orchestra with the Detroit styling's of "Soul Breeze", the sonorous percussion, twanging guitar and dramatic flair of Orchester Gunter Gollasch with "Es steht ein Haus in New Orleans" a brilliantly skewed take on "House Of The Rising Sun".
Add to the that the heavy big band sound of "One For You-One For Me" by Hans Ehrlinger and his Orchestra , the voluminous brass and rhythms of "The House That Jack Built" by Helmut Zacharias, the melodious flirtation of flute and piano on Robert Delgado's "Mocoto",the chunky funky bass and brass of "Mabusso" by Ambros Seelos and most bizarrely James Last with the bongo crazy tumble of "U-Humba".It,s all a miles away from the emollient easy listening you normally associate the man with.
To say an album is a revelation seems a tad over dramatic but this album truly is. Who would have thought that music this enjoyable , crisp, hip , esoteric and downright dexterous would have come from the supposedly dull Teutonic's ? Germany wasn't cool till Kraut rock came along later in the seventies ..was it? The oldest track here is from 1976 proving that the Germans were making music worthy of further attention long before we really knew about it. German disco exists and its brilliant...and so is this compilation .Achtung indeed.
|
|
|
5.0 out of 5 stars
Rough Trade Shops Review, 9 Nov 2007
'achtung! german grooves' brings together 20 gems. wild rare grooves, slick funk workouts, sleazy soul beats, wah-wah guitars, fender-rhodes, hammond organs, meaty drum breaks, snappy horn sections - everything the easygoing 60s and 70s had to offer. alongside orchestral greats like james last, max greger, peter thomas and ambros seelos, a number of lesser known, but none the less exciting musicians take a deserved bow. ady zehnpfennig, gerhard narholz, hans haider and the rest, we salute you. achtung baby!
|
|
|
|
![The In-Kraut Vol. 2 - Hip Shaking Grooves Made In Germany 1967-1974 [VINYL]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41382Z3FSFL._SL500_SS90_.jpg)
~ Various Artists
~ Various Artists
