DISASTER

This is a difficult album to assess : on one hand, it could be considered as a total 'disaster', or, on the other hand, considered as a long lost link of formative krautrock and deserves every bit of attention one can muster. If overlong, percussive rambles are your thing, along with a poor sound, minimal guitars, bass and keyboard prescence, then this might be an enjoyable experience. It's not that I don't enjoy this myself, I usually listen to one record at a time (my LP has the 'bird people' cover) but at times, the whole crew have really shabby timing, almost random, no doubt under the influence of various substances. The brief take of 'Yea Yea Yea' is a total crack-up - the guy singing is struggling to find his voice, and doesn't quite know the lyrics, it makes me laugh every time :)

The only relation to the more musical faction, Amon Duul II, is that the drummer, Peter Leopold, was present. By the time of that band's 'Almost Alive (and looking fine)' release of 1977, Leopold actually evolved into a great drummer - however, that was another band, another time , another place, etc. 'Disaster' is a very free-form, repetitve, and primitive offering, not really inspired, but I haven't heard another band play with this much 'awkward conviction'. 2 stars.