ON THE WAY TO THE PEAK OF NORMAL

Holger Czukay the bass player for CAN certainly carved a nice little discography for himself with his solo albums. And you have to love his humour and I dig his experimental bent. When with CAN he was the one who would record the band jamming for hours and he also did the engineering. This album was released in 1981 and we get a couple of his CAN mates like Jaki Liebezeit adding drums on all but one track and while not credited there is no mistaking Karoli's guitar style on that side long opener. Conny Plank adds some synth violin on one tune and Jah Wobble another bass player and friend of Czukay plays bass on the closer. Holger plays a lot of things on here like bass, french horn, harmonica, guitar, congas, flute, organ and he sings.

On my edition I get "Ode To Perfume" as and over 18 minute opener while most editions break that tune into two parts. It is the highlight by far. Such a trippy tune with that Krautrock vibe. The other four tunes are a little hit and miss although I like all of this. Sure "Two Bass Shuffle" seems a little redundant as it's just over 2 minutes long but the closer is well done as we get some excellent bass from Wobble along with psychedelic sounding vocals. Drums too but this is about the freaky vocals and bass. "Witches Multiplication Table" is where Plank comes in plus the french horn and vocals. Kind of a cool tune. The title track trips along with organ, percussion and bass standing out early. Some vocals half way through then whistling before whispered vocals arrive. Themes are repeated.

In my opinion this is one of Holger's better studio album but I still rank "Canaxis" as his best in that regard.