ET CETERA

Wolfgang Dauner in his fifty year plus career has rightfully become known as Germany's greatest jazz-fusion export and one of a handful to reach the heights of international recognition. While a young Dauner began his musical journey on the piano a tender young age, later on he would actually acquire a degree at the Stuttgart Conservatory for the trumpet. With these eclectic musical talents at hand, by 1963 Wolfgang created his very first jazz band, The Wolfgang Dauner Trio after connecting with bassist Eberhard Weber and the American drummer Fred Braceful. The trio would play together through various musical incarnations well into the 70s and together they would shake up the jazz world much as Faust would do to the rock world later.

Falling into the inevitable gravitational pull of all things 60s psychedelia, Dauner married his avant-garde jazz leanings with the style du jour in the form of psychedelic rock and the emerging Krautrock scene in his native Germany on the Wolfgang Dauner Trio's 1969 album "The Oimels." With the emergence of progressive rock and the continuation of ever-increasing experimentation in the rock universe, Dauner found it fit to create a new project that could resurrect the possibilities and avant-leanings from his brief dip. This led to the re-recruitment of Fred Braceful along with Eberhard Weber along with additional percussionist Roland Wittich and the multi-instrumentalist Siegfried Schwab which resulted in a band called ET CETERA being born.

Taking a cue from the various Krautrock escape artists that were changing the music scene of the early 70s, Dauner and company composed several far out tracks that took all the inspirations of the day ranging from 60s psychedelic rock, contemporary Krautrock, Indo-raga drones and jazz-rock fusion and threw them into the melting pot. The result was the 1971 eponymously titled debut album that found yet one more strange way to take music to the utmost extremities and to sonic destinations where the listening public had never visited before. Manufacturing revolution for revolution's sake, ET CETERA set out to create music that was as trippy and unfamiliar as possible with stunning results.

Taking the instrumental prowess of Amon Duul II, the psychedelic jamming of Embryo, Indian and Arabic ethnic touches and wild avant-garde liberties, ET CETERA created a very bizarre album that had no problem fitting in with the farthest out trips of the era and by the design of some of the most talented musicians that Germany had produced in the 60s jazz underground. This album is designed to be an eclectic potpourri of ideas that meander from one extremity to the next. No other track advertises this more than the opening track "Thursday Morning Sunrise" which starts off in a rather "normal" psychedelic rock mode with fuzzed out guitar riffs, accompanying percussive drive and period keyboard charm but quickly morphs into unstructured avant-garde weirdness where freeform sonic swells capsize the melodic and rhythmic flow like a tsunami of freeform chaos hitting the structured shores.

Even weirder is the second track "Lady Blue" which is a mix of Spanish guitar in jazz mode with the spoken poetic prowess that emulated the vocal antics of Can's Malcom Mooney along with a female choir which provides a call and response as the avant-garde jazzy instrumental backdrop provides the ultimate weirdness effect. "Mellodroma 2a" is perhaps the most stable structure on board with a melodic acoustic guitar strumming and fluffy tribal drumming providing an airy retreat from the hardcore freakery that preceded. Although it has some jazzy touches here and there, remains a lightcore treat in the midst of the madness. The lengthiest track "Raga" is exactly as it advertises, namely an Indo-raga that authentically includes the sitar, swarmandal, lute, even, sarangi, tambura, psalter, flute, balafon, kalimba and more but gently morphs into more avant-garde rock territory as the track progresses before breaking out the avant-garde jazzy trumpet and freeform madness.

"Milkstreets" ends the original album with the most authentic psychedelic track which incorporates synthesized note bends simulating an outer space experience with freeform percussion and uncompromising pointillistic precision. I highly recommend the remastered CD version of this album which includes three extra bonus tracks that are as good or even better than the original tracks making this a much longer head trip. "Behind The Saga" continues the "Milkstreets" theme with off-kilter key stabs, jazzy drumming and "talking" counterpoints of who knows what! "Tau Ceti" is graced with an eerie piano arpeggio and acoustic guitar in jazz mode. It becomes spacier and spacier and then adds some ethnic touches. "Kabul," an almost nine minute track incorporates lengthy drones and slow creeping rhythmic build ups before breaking into ethnic percussive drive and augmented by fuzz guitar and Embryo type jamming with extra emphasis on freaky keyboard volume glitches.

This one is really for the hardcore Krautheads out there, those who crave the most demented and unforgiving explorative journeys. Graced by spectacularly talented musicians offering spectral insights into the strangest inner and outer journeys, ET CETERA is an acquired taste to say the least. Stringing together bizarre avant-garde modulated keyboard sequences by Dauner along with jazzy touches, Indian sitars and choruses, hypnotic bass grooves, folky passages, tribal drumming and atmospheric spaciness, this is a true treat for those who like their trips with lots of variation that include excellent musicians performing recognizable snippets of sanity surrounded by detached escapism to Planet X. ET CETERA was a rather short project that lasted only a few short years but this debut album is unique since the band moved on to a more sanctioned jazzy Krautrock approach that wasn't nearly as experimental. Granted there probably wasn't a lot more they could've done in this style but for a single album they sure let their freak flag fly high and dropped this highly eclectic slice of lysergic nirvana in the process.