GUNTER SCHICKERT

Gunter Schickert was always one of the more mysterious figures in the German musical counterculture: a solo artist operating somewhere on the fringe of a very crowded, very creative landscape. So it made perfect sense that his homemade (and originally home-released) debut album charted a unique course parallel but unconnected to the work of his more celebrated Krautrock contemporaries.

Minimalism was the hot ticket in Germany during the 1970s, and despite his low profile Schickert was an honor student in the Berlin School of electronic music. But his own experiments with tape delay and repetition evoked more of an inner disquiet compared to the now familiar outer space explorations in vogue at the time. The overlapping rhythms and shifting, hypnotic patterns throughout his music recall the sound of early TANGERINE DREAM or KLAUS SCHULZE, but were achieved using only his guitar, voice and two tape recorders instead of the usual synths and sequencers (imagine TD's groundbreaking "Phaedra" LP performed entirely on multi-tracked guitars).

The off-kilter opener "Apricot Brandy" is the closest thing here to an actual melody, but don't start tapping your toes too soon: in just six uneasy minutes it gradually builds into an ideal song for anyone who likes their freakouts especially freaky. The same tune would become a signature of sorts for Schickert, revisited in a more dynamic version on his "Überfällig" album, and also with his band GAM, where it would morph into a full-throttle Krautrock head-trip.

Few artists outside Germany could have written a chugging 17-minute noisefest named "War Machines, Go to Hell", and performed it with such aggressive conviction. And the 21-plus minute "Wald" (Forest) was one of the more unassuming side-long Krautrock epics ever made, following a path similar to Manuel Göttsching's equally spellbinding "Inventions For Electric Guitar" (recorded the same year), but with a more unpolished, uncanny extremity of style.

His subsequent "Überfällig" would enjoy a wider release (on the always trustworthy Sky Records), and mark a notable transition from raw craftsmanship to refined artistry. But Schickert would remain a cult figure, and today his mystique is akin to some arcane mage in one of H.P. Lovecraft's forbidden books of knowledge: the Krautrock equivalent of "Unausprechlichen Kulten", maybe. Dig up a musty copy of "Samtvogel" and hear why.

An album considerably closer to the krautrock sound and very early Tangerine Dream albums than Gunter Schickert's second album.

Samtvogel is a bit more electronic sounding than the follow up album, but also displays much more of a krautrock type of compositional development. "Apricot Brandy" and "Kriegsmaschinen, Fahrt Zur Hölle" both echo the Can album Future Days mainly because of the repetitive traditional krautrock guitar playing and dreamy incomprehensible vocals that sounds more like another instrumental touch than true vocalizing. Almost the entire first half of "Kriegsmaschinen, Fahrt Zur Hölle" is mostly Conrad Schnitzler-inspired experimental industrial gurgling that gradually builds up into an explosive guitar loop that has a somewhat avant tone.

The main attraction of Samtvogel is the 21+ minute long closer track "Wald" which is exceptionally aquatic in nearly the same way that Edgar Froese's Aqua except with Schickert's delayed guitar loops. It's quite a proggy track with plenty of development while remaining hypnotically repetitive, maintaining it's under-water adventure type of atmosphere that fans of Boris' Flood should find comforting. An aura of mystery surrounds the rather gloomy intermittent build-ups with dark melodicism in the guitar loops, until the track eventually gives way to lonely delayed staccato guitar plucking.

To pick a favorite between Gunter Schickert's two albums, I would have to choose Samtvogel for its much more mysterious and slightly avant electronic approach to krautrock styled early electronic music. It contains everything that I'd expect and hope for from a German electronic artist in the '70s, plus the incredibly soothing aquatic elements and the chord choices made result in an extremely delightful album and one I've the best I've experienced in a while. While I hesitate to call it a masterpiece, this is definitely an album to be recommended to all fans of this type of music and I'd personally place this album beside Edgar Froese's best work in terms of quality.

A darker and more aggressive alternative to Manuel Gottsching's guitar-based electronic hypnotism.

Since the well known master of looping soothing guitar runs against a blissful electronic backdrop is Manuel Gottsching, and he barely delves into the darker side of what these methods could become, it makes sense that someone else would have to do it instead. On Uberfallig, Gunter Schickert employs the same type of dreamy guitar looping but does it in a manner that sounds like some of the gloomier post-rock schema from modern artists like Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Russian Circles, but much more despondent.

The composition of "Puls" is similar to Morton Feldman's Piano and String Quartet in that it initially seems overly repetitive but reveals many subtle changes occurring constantly throughout, though this tracks is obviously profoundly sped up and in a rock format. The pace is quite fast and, because of the guitar tone, this track would feel very comfortable to anyone who is well-acquainted with modern Japanese math-rock. The track eventually explodes near the end into a very dense electronic trance complete with Pinhas-esque guitar soloing with a dreamy reverb effect that equally matches the dreaminess of the electronic base it rides inside of.

"In Der Zeit" is a lot more electronic and experimental sounding, while also being a lot denser and krautrock-inspired. Much less hypnotism is found here, but an increased amount of psychedelia and nightmarish prog-rock sensibilities are a welcome contrast to the first track. Echoes of Dzyan's music are strong. Sometimes this track can get disorienting as it waves almost randomly with ghostly vocals and tinny harpsichord-toned guitar.

As with most of the German electronic and krautrock music of the '70s, Schickert's Uberfallig will appeal mainly to people who are already established fans of these two genres, but specifically fans of Gottsching's music that want something to listen to when they aren't feeling so dreamy and optimistic.

Few people outside of a small fraternity of German music specialists probably even remember the name Günter Schickert, and it's no exaggeration to call his 1979 album "Überfällig" one of the lost treasures of late '70s Krautrock. For me, Schickert has remained an enigma for close to thirty years, ever since I gave up trying to decipher the dense, illegible scrawl of notes on the back of the LP (a pointless exercise anyway: it's all in German).

But he was certainly a unique talent, even within such a wildly creative music scene. Schickert's style, at least on this one album, employed multiple guitars to do (more or less) what KLAUS SCHULZE and EDGAR FROESE were at the same time doing with synthesizers and sequencers: building layers of sometimes dreamy, sometimes tense ostinato patterns over a subtle, shifting backbeat of driving percussion. The rhythms are often provided by a heavy application of echo to some unusual sound sources, transforming a single splash of water or a labored gasp of breath into a repetitive loop of hypnotic pulses.

The effect is especially striking on the two longer tracks here, the aptly titled album opener "Puls", and the almost 12-minute long "Apricot Brandy". The former has the cinematic momentum of a high-speed Hollywood chase; the latter is a psychedelic rocker accelerating from a semi-conscious dreamscape to a hyperkinetic rush of overlapping guitars and voices.

Relief is provided by the ballad "In Der Zeit", sung in an ominous half-whisper over an unadorned acoustic guitar, and in the album's haunting finale "Wanderer", a brooding piece of music perfectly matched to the empty autobahn pictured on the back cover.

Altogether the album is somewhat reminiscent of (ex-NEU!) guitarist MICHAEL ROTHER's early solo work, and in fact was originally released on the same label (the always reliable Sky Records). Schickert shared a similar approach to pristine guitar minimalism, but with a darker, more malevolent edge: he might have been the turbulent yin to Rother's more angelic yang.

It's reassuring to find that Günter Schickert hasn't been completely forgotten. And, by a funny coincidence, a translation of the album's title (Überfällig = Overdue) perfectly describes his status as a true Krautrock legend.

Interlocking electronic repetitive guitar work from the mysterious and legendary Gunter Schickert. This second record slightly neglects the weird freaky-kraut epxerimentations of Samtvogel in favour of a gorgeously hypnotic / hallucinatory trip dominated by a treated / looped guitar. Puls is a static / ecstatic guitar piece that recalls some Manuel Gottsching's circular guitar motifs and eternal cycles in Inventions for electric guitar. This opening composition is an unique minimalist electronic reverie, physically strong and haunted. The guitar leading theme is accompanied by chaotic repetitive drum pulses, various aquatic noises. The last minutes contain spacey / serene e-guitar solos. In Der Zeit is an oniric excursion throw acoustic guitar sequences, concrete noises taken from human respiration. The song is accompanied by murmured, fragile female narratives. Side B is less impressive but still captivating for the ears. It always features cloudy natural sounds, dark guitar echoes within a lethargic ambience. Surely the trippiest song of the album and a more difficult listening, including bizarre voices (which seem to be on drugs) and an obvious psychedelic approach. An intensive, expressive, imaginative musical voyage that can't be ignored, unless you dislike moody, tranquil and melancholic progressive music. Absolutely essential for fans of Manuel Gottsching's Inventions for electric guitar and Achim Reichel's echo.