JANE

I totally recommend this album to old progressive rock lovers. I was introduced to this band by a veteran prog fan when I was just getting into it, and realized that I loved long songs. He showed me between heaven and hell, the song, which is amazing I must say. It's both epic, and somewhat classic rocking at parts. It begins with a long section with dark sounds that remind me of approaching danger... like I'm locked in a dungeon, or something, it's really cool and it paints images in your head. It is reminiscent of ambient experimentation such as the mid section of Pink Floyd's Echoes. Then it becomes a quiet ballad, followed by a classic rock sounding section and then a reprise of the ambient part accompanied by ritualistic chanting vocals that lead into a progressive passage that ends the song.

That's the important thing about this album, although the other songs are pretty memorable as well. Twilight is pretty good, it has that typical segmented progressive rock song and it's 8 minutes long. The other two are not that important progressively, but they are still good songs to enjoy.

If I had something to complain about, it would be that some of the songs end quite abruptly without warning, which is a bit anticlimactic. But this is a good album, really.

This is JANE's debut released in 1972.The vocalist would leave after this album.I must say i like his emotional style,his vocals are kind of rough but they fit the hard edged(organ and guitar driven) music quite well. I'm such a fan of the organ and guitar sounds on this album.It's all pretty straight forward but it moves me.By the way Conny Plank engineered this recording. "Daytime" opens with bass and organ before guitar and drums join in as the sound builds quickly.It settles with organ then vocals join in. Passionate vocals after 4 minutes with some beautiful guitar melodies after 4 minutes.The guitar starts to rip it up a minute later with powerful organ runs. Vocals are back after 6 minutes as it settles again with floating organ.Here we go again before 7 1/2 minutes! Fantastic track! "Wind" is uptempo with guitar,drums and organ leading the way.The tempo slows down after a minute when the vocals come in.The guitar starts to light it up before 3 minutes then the tempo picks back up a minute later. "Try To Find" opens with floating organ as reserved vocals come in.It kicks in before 2 minutes as the guitar starts to solo.Nice.The contrasts continue. "Spain" takes a while to get going but then it turns more aggressive before 3 minutes.The organ is just killer here! The guitar that follows is also outstanding.It settles down before kicking back in after 7 1/2 minutes.The guitar is on fire then it settles again with vocals this time.Kicks back in with some nice bass after 10 minutes.The first 3 minutes of this song don't do a lot for me but the rest of the song more then makes up for it. Amazing tune! "Together" is mellow to open with soft organ and some flute.Vocals a minute in.Drums and a fuller sound follow.The guitar solos before 2 1/2 minutes.Nice. "Hangman" opens with a good heavy sound.It settles when the vocals arrive.The tempo and mood continue to change.Check out the guitar after 3 1/2 minutes! They then just jam on and on until 8 minutes in when it settles as vocals return. Just a great release that i enjoy a lot.I have to offer up 4 stars to this one.

Funny, I remember hearing Daytime on the radio when this LP was released in Brazil. A older firend of mine was a DJ who had an one hour show called Pop Festival. He played a lot of prog bands and Jane was one of them. And although I liked the song only recently I had the opportunity to hear the whole CD. It was not much what I had expected.

For years I´ve heard that Jane was a kind of psychodelic/Space rock band, and I was quite surprised to find them anything but that. Actually compared to the other german bands of the time they sounded much more conventional, heavy, blues-rock oriented, them most. Not bad, but not outstanding either. I was thinking their sound was something like Eloy´s Inside or Amon Düull. And they are not.

It is not to say they are bad. Just a bit ordinary for the time, since there was dozens of other groups doing exactly the same sound in 1971/72. I liked a lot the massive use of the Hammond organ, but their songwriting skills were not very convincing. I mean, there´s nothing really new or exciting, even if the band had good musicians and quite a fine singer.

I´m looking forward to hear their latter day releases and see if they improved. For this one 3 stars. Barely.

Since 1976, when this album was released for the first time, i always had a copy of it as it is one of my alltime fav's. During the years i changed from tape to LP, from LP to CD and actually i changed to the rerelease as a remastered DoubleCD. So, as you'ld see, it's a must have in German early prog!

The new release not only contains the full concert with Daytime and an extended version of Windows, it also contains some alternate live versions, taken from the WDR-sessions in 1977. The sound on the of the 76 recordings is much better than on the old CD, the 77 recordings can't beat them, although some of the alternate versions are even more interesting.

Jane never hit that level of quality again, neither on studio nor on live recordings, so Live At Home in some cases is a little bit of history, a German band at its top!

What to say about the music, without repeating the other reviews? I think, in those years in the mid and ending 70's Jane (among with Omega) was not only for me the start into prog, the concert in Hannover was my first big concert as well.

Jane was basically a psychedelic hard rock band that enjoyed jamming and just generally having fun. This was evident on the first couple of albums that, despite their release date, were really products of the previous decade. After the failed power blues trio experiment with "Jane 3" and a supposedly partial return to form with "Lady" (which I have not heard), they decided to explore Floydian soundscapes and cosmic/progressive rock in general. After all, it was 1976 and prog had stood the test of time and was in it for the long haul, right? That's another story.

Even though the tracks are longer than ever, Jane is more restrained here than on "Here we Are" and especially than "Together". They go more for mood setting and buildups, in their typical somewhat clunky fashion, and in it works extremely well on parts of the opening suite as well as "Earth(Angel)". Even their visitation upon Ravel's Bolero is worth a few yuk yuks on "The End". Yes, they do rock out, but it's generally more listenable than previously.

If you want something equally or more proggy and much more refined, go with the followup "Between Heaven and Hell", but "Fire Water Earth and Air", does have all the basic elements in its primordial soup.

"Age of Madness" has all the traits of a band on autopilot - no truly outstanding songs, mostly shorter material, repetition of simple motifs beyond their usefulness, overall brief running time, etc. After the almost uniformly adventurous and convincing "Between Heaven and Hell", given the lateness of the hour for such epic material, a disappointment was inevitable.

Yet in the case of Jane, "Age of Madness" also played to their strengths. Their ability to stick doggedly to a simplistic yet catchy theme and plod along with slight variations was without peer in the German scene and beyond. It also strangely fits with the theme of madness, when one is unable to completely escape the infinite loops and disconnected circuits in one's brain. The title cut here is such an example, spacey, textural and hypnotic. "Memory Symphony" is similar, but more symphonic, with string synth sounds galore. The marriage of Jane's trademark psychedelia with country and western motifs in "Love Song" even shows a willingness to break new ground; even if this may have been commercially motivated, it doesn't seem like compromise. For a heavier repeating loop, try "Bad Game" - again, Jane takes a riff where it has gone before, again and again, and does it better than anyone, thanks to Hess and Wieczorke, amply backed by the rhythm section.

"With Your Smile" is perhaps the best thing here, kicking off mid-song and highlighted by some of Hess' best work and a near danceable beat. It is the ultimate expression of Jane's paradoxical blend of professionalism and amateurism.

On the negative side, "Get this Power" combine the worst of all eras of Jane, and must have sounded laughably retro even in 1978, and "Auroville" fails to inspire in spite of a similar formula to the album's successes. Nevertheless, as an overall collection, this late stage album has the temperament to outlive the vicissitudes of its age. 3.5 stars rounded up.

Jane at their apogee brings into focus all their subtle qualities that had by this time made them the most groovin' German band which didn't really fit into the Krautrock category with their rather simple but effective brand of heavy blues/rock on this spaced out August 1976 live performance at the Niedersachsenhalle in their hometown of Hanover, Germany. Loathe it or love it it's all here , stoned out vocals, lofty guitar freakouts, pulsating Hammond organ and the cumbersome beat which made the Jane sound so distinct. Next to Grobschnitt's Solar Music Live this is the penultimate German live rock album hands down and the only Jane album to achieve gold status. Searing versions of Daytime and Hangman off their first LP Together as well as the ballad Out In The Rain from the Here We Are LP burn with even more passion than the originals along with excerpts from Fire, Water, Earth & Air plus an extended 20 minute epic entitled Windows which was not released on any of their studio albums is included here exclusively for the home crowd. Not a directionless jam but actually one of their strongest compositions with impressive use of synths!

Much to the chagrin of long time Jane fans Daytime was left out of earlier single CD re-ssues but is included in a January 2009 double CD re-issue along with several bonus tracks taken from a contemporary WDR Radio broadcast. All of Jane's cool friends can now come together in the sun once again! Not only one of the best live German albums but one of the best live rock albums to emerge from the seventies period. Indespensable. A headphone album if there ever was one.

This is such a monster. It's amazing that the band who came up with this and 'Here We Are' would later go on to produce albums that had great moments but never truly hit on this kind of level. It might be easy to dismiss this stuff if you aren't careful, but if you pay attention and really begin to understand the sound this band was going for, it becomes clear that these guys just had the touch. Not unlike Pink Floyd, the individual musicianship is good but rarely the reason the stuff is so brilliant. It's more about a unique, collective approach to heavy progressive rock and Jane have a sound on this album that is left field of most anything.

Largely dark, haunting heavy prog but this also makes diatonic moves into powerfully positive territory. It should be noted that the vocals are simply outstanding! Bernd Pulst has such power in his voice that he just catapults these tunes into space! Really amazing. Even when the band just milk a simple idea, they often explode with massive power that is almost unbelievable. Much of this stems from the explosive drumming of Peter Panka. Talk about hitting the drums hard, this guy almost redefines the concept!

A great album and the sound is really tremendous. The old Brain CD sounds so good! You can really take it for a spin as it was done long before the days of added digital compression and all of this crap that goes on now days. One of my favorite albums because even though I could pick it apart a bit, I have no reason to because the spirit is just so convincing. Oh sure, there'll be the occasional listener who will just hear this as lazy hard rock, but trust me, those folk are not paying attention.

— First review of this album —

I have always loved Jane their pleasant sound, I got familiar with it when their legendary 2- LP Live At Home was released, late 1976. OK, it's simple, the lyrics are almost hilarious and the German accent is very obviously but their blend of bluesrock, melodic rock and Heavy Prog often carries me away to a .. 'Progressive Blues Heaven', especially because of the unique combination of pleasant keyboard layers, moving electric guitarwork and warm vocals (often with a melancholical undertone). When I heard about the terrible news that Peter Panka had passed away on June 28th 2007 (only 59 years old) I felt very, very sad. It's great that only a few months later (on November 23rd) friends and fellow musicians organised a Tribute To Peter Panka tour, this concert is from Hannover. The line-up consists of the original members Charly Maucher (bass and vocals) and Werner Nadolny (keyboards), veteran Fritz Randow (drums, once Eloy) and the gitarists/singers Klaus Waltz en Arndt Schultz.

During the concert the emphasis is on the tracks from the Live At Home 2-LP: the opener All My Friends (warm organ sound and wonderful bluesy guitar), Fire Water Earth & Air (beautiful work on keyboards like the string-ensemble sound and Hammond organ and tasteful solos on guitar and synthesizer), Rest Of My Life (very compelling), Daytime (melancholical undertone and strong build-up to an emotional climax with lush keyboards, sensitive guitar and heavy drums), Windows/Spain (Jane at their most progressive including lots of improvisations like an impressive part featuring a kind of 'guitar wall' supporting a psychedelic inspired synthesizer solo on the Moog Liberation), Wind (fluent with organ and propulsive guitar and drums), River (featuring former bass player Martin Hess who looks like a cross between Arthur Brown and Keith Richards), Out In The Rain (including acoustic guitar, delicate interplay between bass and a strings-sound and a moving guitar solo) and Hangman (tasteful guitarwork like early Wishbone Ash and a flashy synthesizer solo). Everything during this concert gets musically an extra dimension because of the way the musicians show their appreciation for Peter Panka, very touchy! The song Tomorrow, from the latest album with Peter Panka, sounds as a modern variation on the early Jane sound, very distinctive and tasteful and during So So Long the stage is crowded with all musicians that joined Jane on this concert like Martin Hesse, drummer Nossi Noske (once Birthcontrol), Peter Panka's daughter Denise Panka (on the socalled 'Stand-Tom') and band members of Harlis (2 songs with pleasant bluesrock between the Spencer Davis Group and Eric Clapton), Jon Symon's Rockballett Warlock (2 songs, once Peter Panka played with them in front of 100.000 spectators!) and the Jutta Weinhold Band (composition Silence, not really my cup of tea).

The Bonus Material on the 2 DVD's contains backstage footage, tour camera work during the Tribute To Peter Panka Tour 2007 from Germany and Belgium and short interviews with Klaus Meine and Rudolf Schenker from Scorpions, Martin Hesse and drummer Fritz Randow (Jane, once Eloy).

This is not typical progrock but in my opinion this 2-DVD is a historical German Progressive Rock document and a very impressive tribute to Peter Panka with lots of great musical highlights, not to be missed by the many Jane fans.

www.progwalhalla.com

I had listened to a couple of Jane records back in the 70's and decided that I didn't like Jane. For some time now I felt a nervous itch every time I came close to Jane records in a shop wondering if my teenage judgement might still be valuable. So the other day, in order to have my peace of mind, I bought 'Jane live' and after a couple of tracks I knew why I didn't liked Jane back then, but I also found a new angle to their music. Jane represents the heavier side of Geman Rock with a typical blues free heavy rock and is a kind of one trick pony band. They play simple songs, altering between ballads and medium tempo tracks without much surprise. What I found once boring, the predictable side of their music, pleases me now in a Less is More sens. Instead of playing a thousand notes a second, or endless solos, Jane sticks to their craftmansship and they do it well. All songs are nicely crafted with good instrumental parts and a great guitar and organ sound. For a German band the English vocals are accepatble. BTW a funny side note : the all German band Jane recording in their hometown Hannover speaks to the audience in ... English! ... a typical feature for most of the Geman rock bands in the 70's when it was still rare to have bands singing in German and the identification with anglo-saxon rock was strong. Novalis and Kraftwerk, on opposite sides of the musical spectrum were still the exception. There are no real highligbhts on the record, but I quite like the obligatory side-long track Windows with his slow pace. I kind of regret not having seen them in concert! Are You ready To Rock? Yeeeeess!