Amon Düül (UK): Die Lösung

AMON DÜÜL (UK): DIE LÖSUNG (1989)

1) Big Wheel; 2) Urban Indian; 3) Adrenalin Rush; 4) Visions Of Fire; 5) Drawn To The Flame Pt. 1; 6) They Call It Home; 7) Die Lösung; 8) Drawn To The Flame Pt. 2.

Unlike Fool Moon, this second album, recorded more or less at the same time, does not even try to make a point. Unless the point is made by Bob Calvert, but I cannot, and will not, decipher it: for about two-thirds of the record, he «sings» in such an utterly ugly «nasal hoarse» tone that it would be impossible to take any of the words seriously — provided you could make any of them out in the first place. Quite ugly, really.

As for the music, this time it is not even all that experimental. It's all mid-tempo or moderately fast «rock», with chemical-sounding, utterly boring, guitar and clinical-sounding, utterly dated, synthesizers (the latter, courtesy of a couple members of The Ozric Tentacles, a band which is much better appreciated on its own, if there ever arise a need to appreciate them) — and the mood never ever changes, at least, not until the last two tracks which are sung by the eternal child Julie Waring: unfortunately, she comes in way too late to dissipate the depressing grey clouds, which are the only ingredient of the entire atmosphere of Die Lösung.

Sitting through fourty minutes of this muck is an experience only comparable in quality to sitting through some proverbially dull lecture on a subject in which you do not have the most remote in­terest (and I have had my share of these — in fact, Calvert's babbling brings up quite a few un­pleasant memories). I have no idea who on earth could develop an honest liking to this sort of record — too sterile to stir up adrenaline, and yet, too simplistic to tingle the nerves of progres­sively-oriented fans. Then, adding insult to injury, the CD reissue doubles the longest, and most excruciatingly boring, number on the album ('Drawn To The Flame') by adding a second part of it that, for seven more minutes, sounds almost exactly like the first.

Apparently, it is now known that Weinzierl did not approve of the release of either Fool Moon or Die Lösung, claiming that they were unfinished recordings that were only put out because of Cal­vert's death (from a heart attack in August 1988), to commemorate the sessions. But I fail to ima­gine how these sessions could be «completed» — was Weinzierl planning to add raging guitar overdubs? The London Symphony Choir? Surprise guest appearance of Bono and Kermit the Frog duetting on a reggae version of 'Archangel Thunderbird'? Whatever. Thumbs down would be guaranteed even under all of these conditions.

In any case, this dead-end collaboration effectively put a stop to Weinzierl's ongoing usurpation of the name of «Amon Düül». For most of the 1990s, he was in relative hiding, and emerged only in the early 2000s to reunite with the original band for a series of gigs and nostalgic happenings, leading to the recording of Bee As Such. He still wields that axe impressively, but, overall, his attempt to carry the flag of Amon Düül throughout the 1980s must be acknowledged as a strate­gic failure, despite a few tactical victories. Just stick to the first two albums.

Amon Düül (UK): Fool Moon

AMON DÜÜL (UK): FOOL MOON (1989)

1) Who Who; 2) The Tribe; 3) Tik Tok; 4) Hauptmotor; 5) Hymn For The Hardcore.

Four years later, long after the sympathetic, but unfortunate Menmachines has been completely wiped out from the memories of those few who happened to have it rubbed in, «Amon Düül» are back — as usual, uncalled for, unexpected, and unwelcome. But most likely, they knew it, and this time, there are no rational calls for accessibility or fitting in with the times. Instead, in order to find new inspiration, they recruit the assistance of former Hawkwind partner, the crazy sci-fi poet Robert Calvert — and try to come up with a record that would combine the classic «Teuto­nic coldness» of Amon Düül II with the surrealistic/cosmic aura of classic Hawkwind. Two re­cords, in fact, both released the same year; but I have been unable to determine which one came first and which one came next — the UK incarnation of Amon Düül is not exactly an Elvis Pres­ley-level act, to have every aspect of their discography easily available to the public through re­liable, uncontroversial sources. So let us begin with Fool Moon because I like its title more.

Of course, combining the spirits of Amon Düül II and Hawkwind is the kind of goal that would be surmised from such a pooling of talent. And, to a certain extent, that is the kind of general sound that Fool Moon gives the listener. The feel of its psychedelic jams does somewhat remind of Yeti, even if the sound is much thinner and the recor­dings feel far more pre-planned. And Calvert's trademark sci-fi recitals do recall the spirit of Hawkwind, at least as far as the «ridiculous» aspect of Hawkwind is concerned (because Calvert's presence on the band's albums, with a few spontaneous exceptions, generally contributed to the effect of teenage-style silliness rather than overwhelming admiration).

Unfortunately, one thing Fool Moon is rather poor on are ideas — particular ideas, ones that form the backbones of individual tracks and, when the stars are right, turn them into masterpieces. There are but five tracks altogether, and, of the 43 minutes that they occupy, at least 10-12 are gi­ven away to the proverbial nothing, a.k.a. noise. The industrial percussion clanging on 'Who Who' and the endlessly annoying clock ticking on 'Tik Tok' (Dark Side Of The Moon made its point far more briefly — and far better) are bad enough, but worst of all is 'Hauptmotor', which begins with six and a half minutes of «hot summer day sounds»: birds chirping, flies buzzing, and somebody quite busy sawing up logs in the backyard. Not only is it utterly pointless (why not go out and buy a Nature Sounds CD instead?), but, I must add, having to listen to this in the dead of winter, with -20 Celsius outside the window, is not my perfect idea of assimilating an important artistic statement.

However, even once these 12 minutes fly out the door, the listener is still stuck with a surprising paucity of tricks. 'Who Who' only exists to show how fun it is to play with spooky echoey vocals over industrial-bluesy cling-clanging (now we raise the volume — now we lower it!). 'The Tribe' is probably the best of the lot, a sharp, aggressive guitar jam with convincing blast-offs from Weinzierl, but even that track does not get too far along, and it certainly represents nothing that we already haven't heard before. 'Tik Tok', once the instruments finally take over the clocks, be­comes a decent blues jam with one excellent riff and lots of complementary wanking. The musi­cal part of 'Hauptmotor' is just one musical line repeated over and over again, over which Calvert half-sings, half-recites something in German. And 'Hymn For The Hardcore' (I suppose that is a fairly tongue-in-cheek title) is four minutes of... sitar noodling (and rather primitive at that — like some talentless fan's tribute to 'Within You Without You'; again, I fail to understand why I need to be listening to this when I could choose Ravi Shankar instead, or Alice Coltrane at least).

In short, Fool Moon is one of those quintessential records that solemnly try to make a point by being utterly pointless. The riff of 'Tik Tok' and the solo on 'The Tribe' should be amputated and saved for future generations who might want to put them to better use in a context that makes more sense. Everything else is, at best, a curiosity, especially for its time: one thing I will admit is that not many acts sounded like that in 1989. (Quite a few acts sounded like that fifteen years ear­lier, though, which might explain their not wanting to sound like that in 1989).

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Amon Düül (UK): Meetings With Menmachines

AMON DÜÜL (UK): MEETINGS WITH MENMACHINES (1985)

1) Pioneer; 2) The Old One; 3) Marcus Lead; 4) The Song; 5) Things Aren't Always What They Seem; 6) Burundi Drummer's Nightmare.

When you first see the full title of this record — Meetings With Menmachines, Unremarkable Heroes Of The Past — the probable association is «Kraftwerk meets Uriah Heep» or something like that. In other words, a fine enough title for something that tries to fuse electronic Krautrock with fantasy-prog, and the very length of the title also brings to mind Tyrannosaurus Rex. Be­sides, it is a sequel to the highly avantgardist Hawk Meets Penguin, from essentially the same lineup, so bizarre music fans in 1985 should have been intrigued.

But instead, what we get here is a relatively straightforward, almost predictably constructed, and perfectly «accessible» col­lection of traditional art-pop tunes. The entire approach of Penguin's Side B has been jettisoned, and the style of Side A has undergone sharp budget cuts to placate lis­teners with short attention spans. No need to work on your intellectual skills here — most of the melodies rest on fairly traditional chord sequences... in fact, they are almost instantaneously cat­chy, which is why prog fans tend to brand Meetings as the same kind of pathetic sellout that was the «big» Amon Düül II in the late 1970s.

However, there is a big difference between an album like Only Human and this one. Where Amon Düül II were clearly looking for a way to «blend in», to find new styles of expression that would make them hip to record buyers, the UK-based incarnation is simplifying its sound in ways that have nothing whatsoever to do with current tastes. There is a New Wave-like strain in this collection, mainly due to the heavy use of keyboards, but the whole thing is neither synth-pop nor hair metal nor adult contemporary nor any other «hot stuff», typical of 1985. The album sounds timeless — it could just as well be recorded today by some cool indie act.

And, like every inspired album released by a truly cool indie act (as opposed to boring poseurs), I happen to enjoy it thoroughly. Although Julie Waring is not a strong singer, and her voice has an immanently odd link to kindergarten, this somehow puts it in line with the melodies — which are, in and out of themselves, sometimes so simple you'd never even guess this band inherited any of Amon Düül's family genes. 'Things Aren't Always What They Seem', for instance, is an acoustic folk ballad that you'd rather expect to hear from the likes of Peter, Paul, & Mary, with appropri­ately communist lyrics and Pete Seeger marching on Washington, instead of a kiddie-mystical at­titude, courtesy of Julie's vocal stylings. But isn't it charming? We all like to associate female art rock singing with Sandy Denny or Joni Mitchell; why not try out a Shirley Temple approach in­stead, from time to time? That's, like, so post-modern.

The more fully-arranged numbers run the gamut from alluring mid-tempo blues-pop ('Pioneer') to psychedelic mid-tempo hard-rock ('The Old One') to gracious, elegant folk-art-whatever ('Marcus Leid', the closest number in spirit to the «beautiful» part of 'One Moment's Anger'), to fast-paced power-pop in the vein of Blondie ('The Song') and, finally, straightforward rock'n'roll with a ton­gue-in-cheek «evil» edge ('Burundi Drummer's Nightmare', with Weinzierl playing the role of an Alice Cooper-ish evil clown next to Waring's «damsel in distress» — not so much humorous as it is bizarre, but bizarre enough to pardon the failed attempt at humor).

All of these songs are at least catchy — some, in addition to that, are quite gorgeous, and even if 'Night­mare' is overdrawn (too monotonous for us to waste nine minutes of our life on the exact same nightmare pattern; wake up!), for most of its duration, it rocks hard enough to keep us headban­gers satisfied. The «progressive» stamp is consciously commemorated by beginning eve­ry single track with a brief, usually unrelated keyboard instrumental — almost in a joke fashion, as in... «okay, here is our next tribute to Journey because we know how much you expect us to finally get serious... nah, let's just boogie in the sandbox some more». I like that attitude.

I like it even more once I remind myself that the album was released in friggin' 1985, at a time when Asia ruled supreme on the commercial sector of the so-called «progressive» market, and that helps skyrocket its already well-established reputation. Of all the «lightweight» al­bums as­so­ci­ated with «Amon Düül» that way or another, Menmachines is easily the least offen­sive to good taste and the most adorable for those of us who can learn to be undemanding. Unless you happen to be a prog Nazi, rocking your kids to sleep by humming dramatic arias from Brain Salad Surgery, Make an effort to look it up somewhere — it's well worth your while. Thumbs up.

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Amon Düül (UK): Hawk Meets Penguin

AMON DÜÜL (UK): HAWK MEETS PENGUIN (1982)

1) One Moment's Anger Is Two Pints Of Blood; 2) Meditative Music From The Third O Before The Producers Part 1; 3) Meditative Music From The Third O Before The Producers Part 2.

Upon resigning from the «regular» Amon Düül II, guitarist John Weinzierl, as one of the found­ing fathers of the band, decided that he had as big a claim to the name of «Amon Düül» as anyone else — and, in the early Eighties, realized that claim by reteaming with another of his former bandmates, bassist Dave Anderson. Adding former Van der Graaf Generator drummer Guy Evans and former-don't-know-who Julie Waring on vocals, the foursome set themselves a brave task — re-establish the good name of Amon Düül (II) after it had been so seriously tarnished in the late 1970s, with the band losing direction, relevance, and, ultimately, all meaning.

The «new» Amon Düül relocated to Britain (after all, only one of the members was German), and released its first album under the same old moniker of Amon Düül II. At the time, it was not as confusing as it might seem, considering that the «old» Amon Düül II had just released its last al­bum in fifteen years (Vortex); but these days, the usual convention is to call this incarnation of the band «Amon Düül (UK)», for reasons too obvious to discuss. The main question, though, is — does the actual music sound «Amon Düül-ish» enough to justify the name preservation / usur­pation / whatever?

Yes and no. Hawk Meets Penguin, despite a title that would rather suit the likes of The Resi­dents, is steeped in traditional prog-rock values, and, therefore, is a record as commercially mori­bund by the standards of 1982 as they come. There are only two compositions altogether (one of them splintered in a small introduction part and the main body to suit LP requirements), designed and structured as slowly developing mood pieces — so one might say that Weinzierl and friends were trying to recapture the spirit of Tanz Der Lemminge, as the only album from the classic Amon Düül II that was just as completely mood-oriented.

But neither of the two suites actually recaptures the spirit except in name only. The first one, 'One Moment's Anger Is Two Pints Of Blood', instead sounds like fairly «normal», atmospheric, Bri­tish prog-rock à la «easily accessible» side of the Canterbury scene — think mid-period Caravan or, even more precisely, Camel. The dominating bits are stern, gallant, slightly medievalistic key­board melodies, and Julie Waring's wordless chanting. There is a lengthy build-up, but around the six minute mark, the main melodies emerge as fully formed, and they are fairly impressive, if not at all «challenging» for the hardcore prog fan. The combination of slightly sci-fi synth tones and, in stark contrast, Julie's folksy vocalizing works very well — count me in on an assessment of the whole thing as «humbly beautiful», even if not for one second truly «Amon Düül-ish».

The second part is an entirely different matter: it is a twenty-three minute long chaotic piece, much of it running along in the mode of free-form, rhythmless improvisation, until, finally, two thirds into the «tune», they manage to slide into some sort of half-jazz, half-Latin groove. Frankly, it all sounds very boring to my ears; and it is not clear who exactly they were trying to seduce with this heavily derivative, poorly staged cacophony of random mantras, shouting, whooshing synth noises, and screwy percussion as late as 1982. Even the final groove is limp and utterly pur­poseless. If anything, it does not even remind so much of Amon Düül II as it does of the original Amon Düül I — with technically superior and more inventive musicianship, perhaps, but without any of the shock value that this A-R-T could claim in 1969. Only hardcore «genrists», I am sure, will prefer the second part to the first here — those people who value the worst of Eric Dolphy over the best of Duke Ellington, just because the former is E.D. and the latter is D.E.

So you probably already guessed that Hawk Meets Penguin is no «lost masterpiece» out of the depths of the Amon Düül family; but the first side, at least, is an entertaining (and, if you agree to subscribe to the charm of Julie Waring, perhaps even tear-jerking) link between that family and melodic prog-rock of the British variety. A link that will hardly downgrade anybody's musical collection, that is; and one that is not that difficult to procure, considering that, since 2005, most of the Amon Düül (UK) catalog seems to be back in print.

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