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HOLGER CZUKAY

Krautrock • Germany


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Holger Czukay biography
Holger Czukay (born Schüring) - 24 March 1938, Free City of Danzig (now Gdańsk, Poland) - 5 September 2017

Czukay studied under Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1963 to 1966 and co-founded the influential rock group CAN in 1968. Czukay played bass guitar and performed most of the recording and engineering for the group. Czukay recorded some important early ambient / progressive electronic albums, and is important for his utilization of shortwave radio sounds, sampling... He released his first solo album "Canaxis" in 1968. It marks a new step in the development of experimental electronic music & "ethno" rock, notably by the use of "sampling" and a traditional Vietnam voice. After his departure from Can in 1977, Czukay participated to many collaborations with jah wobble, the edge, eurythmics, david sylvian, conny plank, eno, phew... For krautrockers the most memorable albums with guests are "RastakrautPasta" & "Materia" (with Moebius and Plank). In 1979 Czukay published his project "movies", described as a good following of what he has done with Can (including a large use of different keyboards for hilarous, complex & extravagant songs). In 1981, he recorded "On the way to the peak of normal", an eclectic experimental rock album made of a spontaneous session involving the musicians of S.Y.P.H. (Uwe Jahnke, Ulli Putsch, Jürgen Wolter, Harry Rag) and two radios. These albums have been produced at Conny Plank's studio. During the mid- eighties until today numerous albums have been published for Virgin, notably "Rome remains Rome" , "Radio Wave Surfer", "Flux + Mutability" . One of his classic; "Moving pictures" (an album of virtual film music; timeless and organic) was reissued a few years ago on SPV. Czukay has recently recorded "Luna" which provides a floating, "ambient" and unconventional experience with the help of a wide variety of electronic process and patterns.

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HOLGER CZUKAY discography


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HOLGER CZUKAY top albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

3.92 | 57 ratings
Holger Czukay & Rolf Dammers: Canaxis 5
1969
3.86 | 56 ratings
Movies
1979
3.96 | 43 ratings
On The Way To The Peak Of Normal
1981
3.95 | 27 ratings
Holger Czukay w/ Jah Wobble & Jaki Liebezeit: ‎Full Circle
1982
3.08 | 15 ratings
Der Osten Ist Rot
1984
3.12 | 19 ratings
Rome Remains Rome
1987
3.43 | 11 ratings
Radio Wave Surfer
1991
3.82 | 15 ratings
Moving Pictures
1993
3.86 | 12 ratings
Good Morning Story
1999
3.08 | 16 ratings
La Luna
2000
3.04 | 6 ratings
Linear City
2001
3.91 | 3 ratings
Czukay & U-She: Time And Tide
2001
3.35 | 9 ratings
Czukay & U-She: The New Millennium
2003
3.08 | 5 ratings
Czukay & Ursa Major: 21st Century
2007
3.04 | 4 ratings
Eleven Years Innerspace
2015

HOLGER CZUKAY Live Albums (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

4.95 | 3 ratings
Clash (with Dr. Walker)
1997

HOLGER CZUKAY Videos (DVD, Blu-ray, VHS etc)

HOLGER CZUKAY Boxset & Compilations (CD, LP, MC, SACD, DVD-A, Digital Media Download)

2.29 | 5 ratings
Rome Remains Rome And Excerpts From Der Osten Ist Rot
1987

HOLGER CZUKAY Official Singles, EPs, Fan Club & Promo (CD, EP/LP, MC, Digital Media Download)

4.04 | 4 ratings
Biomutanten /as Les Vampyettes)
1980

HOLGER CZUKAY Reviews


Showing last 10 reviews only
 Movies by CZUKAY, HOLGER album cover Studio Album, 1979
3.86 | 56 ratings

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Movies
Holger Czukay Krautrock

Review by Mirakaze
Special Collaborator Eclectic Prog & JR/F/Canterbury Teams

4 stars Now this is certainly an unexpected gem from the autumn years of Krautrock. It is credited to Holger Czukay alone, but Irmin Schmidt, Michael Karoli and Jaki Liebezeit are all present and very recognizable here, so in my mind this might as well be a lost Can album. It is the same kind of freaked out hypnotic jam rock, augmented by more modern technological gadgets but still retaining a clear link to the past. The first track "Cool In The Pool" starts off as a Talking Heads-ish new wave/funk song with a comically sleazy vocal performance from Czukay which gradually becomes more disjointed and strange as random samples and instrumental snippets squeeze their way into places where they wouldn't normally belong, and the effect is positively exhilarating. I actually appreciate how messy the production is because it adds to the overcrowded, chaotic feel, but I do have one minor complaint: what is that awful beeping tone that's faintly audible whenever Holger plays his French horn? Is that just on my end? Ah well, I still love this song, but tracks two and four are the real meat of the album: two magnificent lengthy psychedelic jams in the old Can style. "Oh Lord Give Us More Money" sounds like a slowed down but no less driving version of "Vernal Equinox" while "Hollywood Symphony" is slower to start but turns out to be a sublime buildup and release of tension and intensity. Karoli plays his characteristic heavenly sustained guitar lines, Schmidt wrings all manner of hellish sounds from his keyboards, Liebezeit once again proves himself to be a master of complicated polyrhythms and tuplets, and Czukay is busy cramming the pieces chock-full of dialogue samples, strange off-kilter melodic lines and maniacal screaming. Krautrock Valhalla! "Persian Love" is the only track that kind of passes me by unnoticed, but that's hardly a complaint considering the strength of the rest of the material.
 On The Way To The Peak Of Normal by CZUKAY, HOLGER album cover Studio Album, 1981
3.96 | 43 ratings

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On The Way To The Peak Of Normal
Holger Czukay Krautrock

Review by Mellotron Storm
Prog Reviewer

4 stars 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.

 Holger Czukay w/ Jah Wobble & Jaki Liebezeit: ‎Full Circle by CZUKAY, HOLGER album cover Studio Album, 1982
3.95 | 27 ratings

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Holger Czukay w/ Jah Wobble & Jaki Liebezeit: ‎Full Circle
Holger Czukay Krautrock

Review by Artik

4 stars Can and Public Image Ltd members playing and improvising together and effortlessly mixing krautrock with post punk, showing some amazing musicality and imagination on the way and prooving the whole post-punk movement was largely based on earlier music experiments especialy those made by Krautrock more adventurous groups. This whole record has pleasant loose feeling of open-form jams with a good measure of some sonic experiments put here and there. Be warned - it's not your typical prog with Genesis-like qualities to it but it's no doubt a progressive thinking about music with some open-minded genres mixing and explorations of sounds. Love this one.
 Holger Czukay & Rolf Dammers: Canaxis 5 by CZUKAY, HOLGER album cover Studio Album, 1969
3.92 | 57 ratings

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Holger Czukay & Rolf Dammers: Canaxis 5
Holger Czukay Krautrock

Review by Neu!mann
Prog Reviewer

4 stars Holger Czukay's first LP outside the CAN stable was a groundbreaking effort, years ahead of its time in how it juxtaposed pre-existing music from widely different cultures. But that doesn't necessarily make it a classic, and today the album should be approached as a primitive experiment with far-reaching implications.

Sampling wasn't anything new in 1969, but Czukay was fusing a lot more than just music here. It's all about the unexpected context, hearing contrasting sounds in unlikely settings: in this case field-recordings from the Cham people of southern Vietnam and Cambodia, lifted off a 1965 Folkways Label record and combined with a heavily-treated loop of a melodic phrase from a lament by 13th century troubadour Adam de la Halle...or is it a 16th century requiem by Pierre de la Rue?

Both have been cited as possible sources, but either way it was an act of political daring in 1969 to pair Vietnamese folk music with what sounds like a liturgical funeral hymn, just as the Indochinese war was nearing its zenith. The album's title track, in its original form called "Shook Eyes Ammunition" (Shook-Eye pronounced Czukay), was an even more provocative side-long vinyl essay, again with Southeast Asian music cues but this time blended with edgier, ambient Krautrock drones and electronics.

Czukay of course had long been fascinated with exotic radio waves, and his apprenticeship under Karlheinz Stockhausen weighed heavily on the Canaxis sessions. Co-producer Rolf Dammers, also a student of Stockhausen, was given a share of authorship despite being credited only with "general support". But despite later speculation (in "The Can Book", by Pascal Bussy) that Czukay was the neophyte and Dammers the more experienced master, in retrospect the album was Czukay's baby, and like any new parent his doting attention was tireless: he even snuck into the Stockhausen studio after hours to perform a final mix.

In any test-run of a new recording technique the bugs have to be considered a part of the creative process, and listeners today need to allow for some age-related wrinkles. The flower from this seed would take a full decade to bloom, on albums like "On the Way to the Peak of Normal" and "Movies". But don't compare those later, playful efforts to this more embryonic artifact. He may have been a novice, but in 1969 Can's resident mad scientist had already learned how to approach sound editing and assembly as performance.

Consumer Alert! The CD bonus track "Mellow Out" (not available on every re-issue) doesn't fit with the album's avant-garde spirit, but for CAN archeologists it's a real discovery: Holger Czukay's first live performance, from a 1960 radio broadcast. It's little more than negligible filler, very much in the light jazz vernacular of its day. But the tune is a useful datum point from which to measure Czukay's musical evolution in the years ahead.

 Movies by CZUKAY, HOLGER album cover Studio Album, 1979
3.86 | 56 ratings

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Movies
Holger Czukay Krautrock

Review by Mellotron Storm
Prog Reviewer

3 stars Holger Czukay the CAN bassist has released a lot of solo albums over the years, this happens to be the third one I've reviewed and my least favourite by far of those three. Loved his "Canaxis 5" release from the late 60's and to a lesser extent "Full Circle" from 1982 but this particular album goes places I do not like. Lots of humour and of course sampling. Everyone from CAN but their vocalist is involved on one track here while Jaki Liebezeit does play drums and congas throughout. Holger thanks John Foxx of ULTRAVOX for pushing him to finish this album when he wanted to give up. This was released in 1979.

Up first is "Cool In The Pool" a poppy and humerous tune that I cannot hardly stand(haha). Catchy but lame especially the vocals of Holger and the lyrics. Oh my! Lots of silliness late. So yes this is getting off on the wrong foot big time. "Oh Lord Give Us More Money" has all the CAN guys helping out but Damo. Sadly Holger's vocals really disappoint. Lots of repetitive beats, synths and guitars. It kicks in loudly after 3 minutes with vocals almost shouting the words. Samples before 4 1/2 minutes go on for some time then more vocals. We get an extended instrumental section late.

"Persian Love" actually does work sounding very much like a Persian love song with male and female vocals. It's kind of cool actually and my favourite from the album. "Hollywood Symphony" is the longest tune at 15 1/2 minutes but I'm not convinced. We get vocals in a strange soundscape and synths give us this orchestral vibe. Suddenly before 2 1/2 minutes we get random snippets of Hollywood movies. This is all over the place though and I'm just not into it at all.

So I would recommend "Canaxix 5" and "Full Circle" to anyone wanting to check out Holger's solo stuff but for my tastes this was a disappointment. 3 stars.

 La Luna by CZUKAY, HOLGER album cover Studio Album, 2000
3.08 | 16 ratings

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La Luna
Holger Czukay Krautrock

Review by Neu!mann
Prog Reviewer

3 stars First, a personal note: like many fans I prefer the music of CAN's mischievous short-wave radio painter when he's in a more lighthearted mood, composing Odes to Perfume or Persian Love songs. But there's something oddly hypnotic about this minimalist curiosity: an unbroken 47-minute "Electric Night Ceremony" recorded live at Holger's Lab on May 17, 1996 (and yes, I checked: there was a full moon over Cologne that night).

Don't expect the soothing environmental ambience of a Brian Eno album, however. Czukay's tone poem was built around a sinister mechanical pulse not far removed from the dystopian rhythms enslaving all those subterranean workers in Fritz Lang's 1927 film classic "Metropolis". He then goes to creative lengths to put a human touch on his automaton bleepfest, adding ephemeral layers of pirated radio signals, odd percussion accents, random vocal interruptions and so forth.

As usual Czukay is playing the studio like a musical instrument, and was apparently so mesmerized by the effort that he forgot his trusted French Horn. There isn't much room here for comic relief, but when High Priestess U-She (real name Ursula Kloss; Holger's muse since the end of the last millennium) approaches the electronic altar and starts muttering about "the Mother of the Universe", it's hard not to imagine Holger's tongue lodged firmly in his cheek.

There's actually a lot happening over the album's uncut three-quarter hour length, at a level of perception audible only with both ears wedged between the speakers. For better or worse, this is one of those experiments that needs your full attention to appreciate, but is best enjoyed when only half-heard as background radiation.

 Biomutanten /as Les Vampyettes) by CZUKAY, HOLGER album cover Singles/EPs/Fan Club/Promo, 1980
4.04 | 4 ratings

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Biomutanten /as Les Vampyettes)
Holger Czukay Krautrock

Review by Lewian
Prog Reviewer

4 stars This is a collaboration of Holger Czukay with the famous German producer Conny Planck. Both of these tracks haven't appeared on any regular album, so this single is well worth having on its own, and because it has fairly recently been re-released by Herbert Grönemeyer's Grönland Records, it should be easy to get it.

This was recorded after Holger's monumental "Movies" solo project after leaving Can. The music is fascinating; produced in 1980 there's a certain minimalist experimental new wave spin to it. Holger at the time apparently said something like he wanted to start a "horror with comfort" singles series with this, although the rest of the series didn't materialize. In any case the horror theme is very dominant. Biomutanten is about somebody being attacked by mutant monsters. There's a manipulated deep slow horror voice speaking on both tracks, both of which are carried by slow monotonous rhythmic bass and sound motifs. As usual for Holger Czukay (and Conny Planck is a congenial partner in this), the music takes its appeal from the sound alchemy woven into the horror atmosphere, which, different from "Movies" is not pieced together from short wave radio recordings but rather consists of a wealth of subtle electronoc noises, amply fitting the horror theme.

I'd have wished that more prog artists would've been able to connect with the changes of the musical landscape of the early eighties in the way in which Holger and Conny do it here; they produce something (at the time) genuinely new, having progressed away from excessive jams and other characteristics of the seventies, but the elements that they use from the new era are of an experimental leftfield nature, industrial sounds and a straight decluttered structure as a basis for creating an uneasy threatening atmosphere, rather than trying to please a record company by going commercial and easily consumable. This is fun stuff, worth 3.5 stars for the listening experience, rounded to 4 for its uniqueness.

 Eleven Years Innerspace by CZUKAY, HOLGER album cover Studio Album, 2015
3.04 | 4 ratings

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Eleven Years Innerspace
Holger Czukay Krautrock

Review by Lewian
Prog Reviewer

3 stars New music from Holger Czukay at last! Or is it? Unfortunately neither the label nor Holger himself have cared about giving the fan much useful information about this. When was it done? Who apart from Holger himself was involved in it? We don't know and the cover (which looks like it took no more than 10 minutes to make) won't tell.

I was in doubt about whether I should classify this as compilation/boxset or as regular release; I'm not totally sure about the definitions either. These are remixes of existing material. The remixes themselves are mostly pretty innovative. They, or at least some of them, may have been done pretty recently, in which case I arguably should have classified this as regular studio album. The title suggest that they were done over 11 years but which? 2004-2014? It's a mystery. But it's material that in this state you haven't heard yet elsewhere.

Two of the six remixes are pretty close to what is already available. Secret of my Life is based on Rhythms of a Secret Life from Moving Pictures, and My Can Axis is based on material from Canaxis 5, and both of these vary the original material little. They seem like compressed miniature versions of the original tracks.

The other four tracks have much more of an existence independently of the original material that went into them, and are much more interesting. On "In-Between" and "A Maiden's Dream" sampled classical music features quite prominently (orchestral on In-Between, a string quartet on A Maiden's Dream). This is coupled with some sound experiments and snippets from previous work. The marriage between these elements doesn't work 100% without frictions but makes for a fascinating experience. We can nicely speculate about the meaning of this collage; in what sense are Holger's sounds a comment on the classical material? Is it an echo from the past, or is it rather the thing to survive in a darker future in which it still has the power to shape the then contemporary noises?

"My Can Revolt" uses material from Can, which means that we listen to a fast pulsating instrumental by Schmidt/Liebezeit/Karoli with some Suzuki voice appearing in the second half. I believe that this has been pieced together in a quite new way, possibly with some added guitar or other trickery. It is pretty intense and the fastest and loudest thing on this album. Can fans will probably like this. I remember that Holger did something like this when I saw him in the Roundhouse in 2009.

"Breathtaking" reminds me of the "21st Century" album, it is rather free form, meditative and fairly slow, with some dreamy U-She vocals.

Overall the listener gets quite a bit of interesting and fascinating new material, so this is certainly a worthwhile acquisition. The album is somewhat uneven though, and as I have Canaxis 5 and Moving Pictures already, I don't get much from the two tracks that are made of those albums (if you don't have Canaxis 5 and Moving Pictures, get them before this one, they are truly great). The remaining four tracks may well be worth four or even five stars if they stand the test of time (I'm not going to wait 20 years before I review this), but still currently I give the album 3 stars, with annoyance about the lack of information perhaps playing a role here.

 Clash (with Dr. Walker) by CZUKAY, HOLGER album cover Live, 1997
4.95 | 3 ratings

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Clash (with Dr. Walker)
Holger Czukay Krautrock

Review by Lewian
Prog Reviewer

5 stars This is an absolutely unique monster of an album and whoever is up for something truly innovative and progressive should at least give it a listen. Trouble is, it has some heavy techno influences which probably aren't particularly popular in these quarters.

Clash is recorded live but contains only new and fresh material. Holger Czukay once said about it that the live collaboration with Dr. Walker brought him back some of the original excitement and spontaneity of playing with Can. Much of the album appears to be improvised or developed spontaneously. It is a double CD giving us about 140 minutes of music in nine tracks. The main principle of the music is the combination of Dr. Walker's techno rhythms with Holger mixing in a rich variety of sampled sounds with the addition of some electronic sounds produced on the spot. This seems simple and straight enough but actually the devil comes out of the detail; Holger unleashes layer upon layer of nervous, meditative, groovy, fast, slow, human, artificial, sophisticated, trivial, spacey, earthly, western, eastern, northern and southern attacks on the listener's ears from his sound archives put together over many decades from radio stations and other sources from all over the world. Now this seems no longer that simple and straight, but the reader may expect it to be somewhat random and disconnected. Let me assure you, it is not. What you get here is a viable and complete new world pieced together of parts of the old one making for a surprisingly consistent experience produced by the two musicians' talent to combine the samples and the rhythms in a very organic manner, always providing a leading thread (sometimes it's the rhythm, sometimes one of the more expansive sampled and remixed soundscapes). Particularly, the teamwork between the two is amazing with Holger all the time adding depth to the rhythms and taking it on and Dr. Walker showing a good sense for the dynamics and mutations required by Holger's constructions.

The samples and the way Holger is manipulating and combining them produce a unique experience with many nuances to discover at any moment. It is as if secret layers of the human existence shine through what is perceived on the surface, similar to the multilayered technique that some modern painters use, combining selected manifestations of life with their own comments.

The rhythm stops and changes its character at times, at other times it has a rather subtle appearance and seems almost deconstructed, but often it flows very confidently but thanks to the omnipresent sound metamorphoses never too monotonously; and occasionally it becomes a mighty stream that tears everything with it.

This is probably not for everyone, but I rate it as an an outright spectacular experience.

 Czukay & Ursa Major: 21st Century by CZUKAY, HOLGER album cover Studio Album, 2007
3.08 | 5 ratings

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Czukay & Ursa Major: 21st Century
Holger Czukay Krautrock

Review by Lewian
Prog Reviewer

3 stars Ursa Major is the singer U-She, here collaborating with Hokger Czukay for the third time (plus some contributions to other Czukay releases, namely Linear City and Clash). The last one was called "New Millenium" and this one is now "21st Century"; you'd be surprised that such creative personalities as Czukay & U-She come up with two album titles like these in a row. This is supposed to be music for the new millenium/century, yes, we got that. Compared to "Time and Tide" and "New Millenium", "21st Century" is the most consistent album, or one could also say the least diverse. I think they tried to concentrate more on what they do best; there are hardly any attempts to write conventional songs here, and rhythms are lighter than on New Millenium and less like techno-beats. The new songs give Holger's sound experiments quite some space and U-She works much with repetitions of fairly simple mini-tunes, at times reminding me of Damo Suzuki's improvisations. The sound is dominated by digital keyboards, drum computers and samples and has some meditative free flowing feel to it. Don't expect much enlightenment from the lyrics... "Every day is a new day, you shouldn't try to run away"... well, well. It shouldn't hurt too much, I guess. To be honest, I could do without most of U-She's contributions here. The music is rich and attractive as ever; Czukay's creativity and musicality quite obviously hasn't run out of steam just yet. Unfortunately it's now 2015 and I think he hasn't released anything new in the meantime. I saw him live at the Roundhouse in 2009 and much what he did there was originally mixed and partly created just for the gig, and boy was it good - I guess he's still sitting on quite some interesting unreleased material. He is well over 70 now and I'm a bit worried that his website hasn't been updated since 2011, but apparently he still has his hands in some re-issues of remixed Can and Czukay-material from the 70s and 80s, so I'd still hope for some new music to be released at some point.

In any case, it's easier to get into 21st Century than into the two predecessors, but it's not as diverse and not just as surprising as those (at least not if you know them already when getting to this one), so it's three stars this time.

Thanks to Philippe Blache for the artist addition. and to Quinino for the last updates

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