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D

Deuter

Krautrock


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Deuter D album cover
3.74 | 47 ratings | 9 reviews | 17% 5 stars

Excellent addition to any
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Studio Album, released in 1971

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Babylon: Andantino/Allegro 138 A/Andante/Allegro 138 B (14:59)
2. Der Turm/Fluchtpunkt (4:30)
3. Krishna Eating Fish and Chips (10:16)
4. Atlantis (6:06)
5. Gammastrahlen-Lamm (5:04)
6. Krishna Eating Fish and Chips (1:00)
7. Atlantis (6:03)
8. Gammastrahlen-Lamm (4:58)

Total Time

Line-up / Musicians

Deuter/Guitar, Bass, Keyboards, Electronics, Sitar, Percussion

Releases information

LP Kuckuck 017
CD Kuckuck 11009 (1998)
CS Kuckuck 11017-4

Thanks to oliverstoned for the addition
and to Joren for the last updates
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DEUTER D ratings distribution


3.74
(47 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(17%)
17%
Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(51%)
51%
Good, but non-essential (17%)
17%
Collectors/fans only (11%)
11%
Poor. Only for completionists (4%)
4%

DEUTER D reviews


Showing all collaborators reviews and last reviews preview | Show all reviews/ratings

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by oliverstoned
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
4 stars This unknown german artist released this first album in 1971. Deuter is classified as "new age" cause that's what most of his records are. But his two first albums -D and AUM- have nothing to do with insipid relaxation music.

This is psychedelic experimental prog entirely done by the master himself, showing there its great skills as a musician, composer and producer.

The first long piece "Babylon" is crossed by psychedelic guitar, while bass offers a hypnotic and slow rhythmic pattern. Electronic effects and sound illustrations (baby's cry, distorted bell's ring) show the heavy LSD influence. Not surprisingly, the mood is very cerebral and requires to be in a similar state of consciousness than Deuter when composing it, or at least to be very open-minded, in order to fully enjoy it.

The others short pieces use water sound as a rhythmic element and much sitar, also rolling percussion showing there the world, natural side of his music. The last one "Gammastrahlen-Lamm" features cyclical repetitive synthe.

A strange and fascinating record, not to put between all ears.

Review by Sean Trane
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk
4 stars Widely known as the first new age composer, Georg Deuter started out a s one of the most inventive musician, mixing eastern folk music with electronic sound collage and his first two albums are widely regarded as the equivalent of Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze's best works. This stunning debut is the work comes after many trip to Persia and further, to study the music and the philosophies. Those of you aware of Deuter's later New Age works (from 76 onwards), please be aware his first two albums are NOTHING AT ALL like that. And what stunning works they are even if it has not aged all that well. Most of his discography will be released on the legendary Munich-based Kuckuck label, and his records are probably the main reason for this label's long life.

The first side of the album is dominated by an almost 15-min Babylon soundscape that will have you completely charmed as it alternates between Indian classical music and some of the best synth sounds that TD or early Popol Vuh could've dreamed of. The stylus lifts off the wax after the second track, on a repetitive fuzzed out guitar sounds. The other cornerstone from D is the funny but aptly-titled Krishna Eating F&C. If you can resist lighting a doobie while listening to the album, you are probably not made for this type of music. Atlantis, however is much gloomier, just as you'd imagine from the mysterious tales of the lost continent > maybe my fave on the album. The album termites on a short wink to the label.

Surely, some progheads will not appreciate that much the (sometimes self-indulgent) hippy feeling pervading throughout the whole album, and I warn them, that this is VERY MUCH worth the investigation, but make sure you get an ear-load of it before making the investment.

Review by philippe
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
5 stars Before turning to something more peaceful, soft and accessible with terribly boring "new age" efforts, Deuter made a name in the krautrock scene with the absolutely marvellous "D", essentially made of extended "tribal", "droning" and noisy improvisations. All tracks provide an ecstatic, glorious and sacred dimension that allows a comparison with the pioneering "Inside of the dream syndicate" and some archetypal psychedelic stuffs from Germany (Cluster at their beginning and Amon Duul at their most experimental moments). "Babylon" is an amazing, freaky composition with bizarre, strange, concrete "manipulated" sounds and fuzzy spacey guitar parts. "Der Turm/Fluchtpunkt" develops a ritual stoned theme always bringing to the fore some fuzzy guitars, tribal percussions and chaotic noises. With its large, cyclical organ sound and its patterns for sitar "Krishna Eating Fish and Chips" is a small interlude dedicated to spiritual music. The last track, "Atlantis" is the pick of Deuter's musical creativity: an intense, abstract dreamscape mixed with tribal, ritual percussions. "Gammastrahlen-Lamm" is a ferocious, dense level of transcendent sounds obtained by organic collages & loops; something nostalgic with ultra psychedelic effects. A progressive rock masterpiece and one the best effort produced during Krautrock's golden years.
Review by Mellotron Storm
PROG REVIEWER
4 stars This was an album I had searched for for some time before discovering that "Wayside Music" had it. Thankyou Steve ! DEUTER is a one man band from Germany featuring one Georg Deuter. He is definitely a pioneer in the Electronics genre as this first album "D" came out before Klause Schulze released anything, while TANGERINE DREAM released their second record "Alpha Centauri" this same year, and KRAFTWERK released "2" also this same year of 1971.

"Babylon" opens with dark sounds then we hear a baby cry briefly as the haunting soundscape continues. It changes after 3 1/2 minutes as we get a rhythm. Another change before 6 minutes as the melody stops and it turns spacey again. Acoustic guitar before 10 minutes then the tempo picks up. "Der Turm / Fluchtpunkt" opens with percussion and other sounds. It's more intense 2 minutes in. A good rhythm arrives before 3 1/2 minutes.

"Krishna Eating Fish And Chips" is a little annoying for my taste with all the sitar. I like the spacey intro though. "Atlantis" opens with percussion and spacey sounds. This is an interesting track. Water sounds late. "Gammastrahlen-Lamm" is very spacey as sounds pulse and wash.

This would be a great addition to your Electronic collection.

Review by Warthur
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars Far more lively and varied than the tranquil New Age material that would come to dominate his career, Deuter's debut album is a good but not fantastic contribution to the krautrock scene, with a bunch of chaotic musical ideas thrown in but nothing memorable enough to call to mind five minutes after listening to it. Probably the most interesting thing about it is that this is a one- man project, with multi-instrumentalist Deuter playing every instrument you hear - but that said, there's plenty of similar experiments of this sort out there, and this one is hardly the best. It's by no means terrible, but at the same time it isn't anything to get too excited about. It's spacey experimental krautrock full of odd noises. Even in 1971, that had become a cliche.
Review by Dobermensch
PROG REVIEWER
2 stars I bet old Deuter D regrets choosing this as the front cover eh? He looks like one of the villains from 'Scooby Doo'. Either that or he's watching something very dodgy on his laptop. If only he'd got hold of Klaus Schulze's graphic designer he may have had a more successful career. As it is the guy went on to create over 30 albums... none of which are well remembered. All apart from this and the follow-up 'Aum'

The imaginative and thought provoking album title 'D' is an odd recording which has quite a few organ drones throughout. It's entirely instrumental with some distinctly Ash Ra Tempel similarities. There's also a fair amount of backward taping which always pleases my brain.

'Faust' like guitars are played on 'Babylon' giving a very Krautrock feel. Happily each track sounds relatively different from the last, even though there's the cheesy 'Krishna Eating Fish' track where the white guy gets hold of an Eastern instrument (Sitar) and waffles about aimlessly, strumming nothing in particular and endeavoring to break the shackles of a homeland he wants no part of. Bah! I hate that. Interestingly, he was born 10 days before the awful bombing of Dresden. And uncannily, like Edgar Froese who was born on the same day as the D-Day Landings on June 6th June '44.

There's too may other good German bands out there to bother with this if truth be told. It's too soft and flat to merit anything more than an average score. Perhaps the exception is 'Atlantis' which is far more experimental with its 'Moolah' and 'Zoviet France' reversed phasing. A full album of this and I'd have been more than happy.

Call me 'Shallow Hal' - but this loses a star due to the front cover. I mean, come on - would you hand this over on a first date to the woman of your dreams?

Review by Aussie-Byrd-Brother
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
5 stars Georg Deuter is a German born New Age instrumentalist who has released more than 60 albums to date since beginning his musical journey back at the start of the early Seventies. However, his debut album `D' in 1971 was a far cry from the placid and pleasing synth soundtracks he would later adopt, instead it's a pure daring Krautrock classic that sounds like no other album. Deuter's debut is comprised of a series of schizophrenic and psychedelic sound collages, mixing everything from electronic organ drones, acoustic and ethnic instrumentation with inventive production techniques for the time and avant-garde experimentations that are initially bewildering and disorientating, yet utterly fascinating and captivating, truly the result of an inspired artist with a reaching vision.

The surreal four part fifteen-minute `Babylon' is a fragmented and psychedelic work of beauty, a frequently ambient but often jarring and unpredictable soundscape. Pink Floyd- like brooding spacey guitars chime over a gentle cacophony of church bells, babies crying, machine-gun fire and soaring jets. Murmuring bass lurks behind distorting repetitive mantra-like guitar stabs, ethereal glistening organs rise and fall around backwards effect slivers and warping swallowing voices that float amongst cocooning deep space loneliness. This piece shares a similar defiant edge of anything goes that the early Vangelis albums had and the cosmic yet earthy ambience of Popul Vuh.

The rest of the first side contains the plodding `Der Turm/Fluchtpunkt', a compact but heady concoction of tabla beats, panning effects and wailing wordless siren calls, with eerie straining Gong-like glissando wisps and fuzzy guitar-fuelled chugging grooves to bring a Can-esque dirty stomp.

Frantic, heavy grinding sitar drones race through the ten minute opener of the second side `Krishna Eating Fish and Chips', gradually speeding up to become overwhelming, hypnotic and almost maddening. Around the bubbling atmospherics of `Atlantis', a mix of snaking hissing electronic drones, a drumming pattering of tabla-like beats, shimmering unearthly sighs and backwards effects truly sound like a duelling storm between Heaven and Hell. The opening passages of `Gammastrahlen-Lamm' emerge like a bad nightmarish trip, but piercing droning slices, chittering whispers and reverberating machine hum quickly gives way to a thoughtful and melancholic pulsing organ drift that ends up almost meditative and enveloping.

Take your pick - Is this Krautrock, avant-garde, progressive-electronic, world/ethnic music, psychedelic? The answer is purely none of the above and yet all these things at once and more. Despite its many freeform elements, `D' never collapses into manic, splintering and tuneless chaos, instead retaining a trace of subtle melodicism within its explorations, and despite a few moments that take on a `hippie' vibe, there's a constant restlessness, an intensity bubbling under throughout even the most mellow moments. Although the artist would later take his music in a very different, more sedate New-Age direction (which has endeared him to a great many fans around to the world to this very day, to which he should still receive respect for), this evocative, fragile little jewel is easily the equal of the early Seventies Krautrock-electronic hybrid albums such as `Atem', `Alpha Centauri' and `Irrlicht' from fellow German artists like Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, and is just as ground- breaking and influential in its own little way.

An essential Krautrock release worthy of five stars.

Review by siLLy puPPy
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR PSIKE, JRF/Canterbury, P Metal, Eclectic
4 stars George DEUTER, better known by own last name alone has been one of the most prolific new age artists over the last five decades with a particular meditative style that has found the sounds of the orient in perfect harmony with Western instrumentation but in the beginning DEUTER was very much a part of the exploding Krautrock scene that took Germany by storm in the late 60s and early 70s.

Starting out at a very young age, DEUTER mastered as many instruments as he could lay his hands upon but took the more sensible career choice as a journalist however after a near fatal car accident, the life changing event convinced a 24-year old DEUTER that his true passion was in making music. Ever since, DEUTER has been one of the pioneers of mixing nature sounds with acoustic and electronic music and once he jumped into the world of music it didn't take him long to release his first album simply titled D.

Acting as a one-man band, DEUTER performs all the instruments which includes guitar, bass, flute, sitar, synthesizers and percussion. In addition he handled the entire production. The album was released on the Kuckuck label in 1971 and featured one of the most spaced out collage effects of sounds that had ever been heard in the early world of Krautrock. Part electronic space exploration in the vein of early Klaus Schulze, Cluster and Tangerine Dream and part indo-raga with hypnotic buzzing drones, DEUTER crafted a fascinating journey into a transcendental state with the added bonus of fuzzed out guitars and a bit of rock heft that crept in from time to time.

This album was constructed by means of a multi-track tape machine while living in an ashram. DEUTER would famously delve into the spiritual practices of India and adopted the pseudonym Chaitanya Hari. D begins with the 15-minute trip to "Babylon" which finds electronic space loops and ambient placidity interact with fuzzy heavy psych guitars, Indian classical motifs, bombastic percussive drive and pastoral folk sequences. Add to that a complete detachment into the world of musique concrète and it doesn't take long to ascertain that D was and still remains one of the farthest out trips you can experience within the entire early Krautrock scene.

One of the true psychedelic underground journeys that takes you to the Far East, around the world and out to space, DEUTER single-handedly crafted one of the trippiest dreamscape albums of the early 70s with masterful sound manipulations, timeless tribal sensibilities and the perfect soundtrack for a lysergic astral body experience. While DEUTER would soon tame it all down and craft a more warm and fuzzy style of new age music, at least in the beginning his destiny was to compile an impressive array of sounds to provide a sonic representation of spiritual enlightenment unlike any other. My vote for one of the best farthest out trips.

Latest members reviews

4 stars Multi-Instrumental German masterpiece from 1971, 20 Oct 2010 (Reactive 2010 Reissue) Deuter may not be a name familiar to many. His extensive catalogue consists largely of what most people would describe as `New Age' music. This is not the case here, on his debut work. Coming from the moth ... (read more)

Report this review (#306259) | Posted by beebfader | Saturday, October 23, 2010 | Review Permanlink

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