TAROT

Essentially the first version of the Cosmic Jokers series of albums that flooded the burgeoning Krautrock rock scene in 1974, WALTER WEGMÜLLER's mysterious sole album TAROT emerged in the year 1973 and has remained a favorite of the underground kosmische scene ever since. The story of WEGMÜLLER and the making of TAROT is every bit as strange as the koschmische sounds that Germany's Krautrock scene were bringing to fruition in the wild and unabated early 1970s.

WEGMÜLLER was the sone of Romani gypsy travelers, born in Bern, Switzerland. He travelled extensively throughout Europe and India making paintings and jewelry. Best known as a visual artist, it was WEGMÜLLER's personal design of 22 tarot cards which caught the attention of Timothy Leary who introduced him to Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser of Ohr Records. The label coaxed WEGMÜLLER into recording an entire album based on the themes of the tarot cards, a discipline that WEGMÜLLER had become quite the expert in.

After rounding up the proper musicians to pull it off, the ambitious double album featured an all-star cast of Germany's best known musicians including Ash Ra Tempel members Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke on guitars and progressive electronic wizard Klaus Schulze jumping back into the drummer's seat. Other cast members included Walter Westrupp (of Witthüser & Westrupp on acoustic guitar), Jürgen Dollase (of Wallenstein on keyboards), Jerry Berkers (also of Wallenstein on bass) and another Berlin School stalwart Harald Großkopf also returning to the drums.

The ambitious original double album box set version which featured a complete collection of tarot cards has long been out of print and likewise a sought after collector's gem but this double album has luckily found a more modern reissue as a 2 CD digipak on the Spalax label released in 1994. This was a veritable super group effort with each musician contributing to the composiitons with WEGMÜLLER himself providing the visual artwork and lyrics. The album was further helped by Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser & Gille in the producer's set with extra assistance from Dieter Dirks and Rosi.

TAROT is the ultimate classic acid trip Krautrock album in the vein of early Ash Ra Temple, the most tripped out moments of Can (think "Aumgn" from "Tago Mago") and Amon Düül II. This album featured 22 tracks with each representing the individual tarot cards such as "Der Narr" = "The Fool." "Der Magier" = "The Magician" and so forth. The album encompassed the most spaced out progressive electronic sounds as well as gentle free floating space rock, lush folk music, piano rock, funk and of course psychedelic rock. While many super group projects suffer from the watering down affect of too much of a good thing, TAROT is a brilliant display of top notch musicians putting their egos aside for the sake of a greater project.

One could think of this as the perfect marriage of Ash Ra Tempel's guitar-drenched heavy psych with Schulze's extraterrestrial electronic journeys, Wallenstein's tendencies for heavier riffs based rock and Westripp's cosmic folk. The album is well paced and despite a whopping 85 minutes of playtime, still maintains the perfect romp on the lysergic express of the early 1970s. TAROT is also notable for being one of the minority of Kraut albums that spilled over the border, in this case the German speaking regions of Switzerland. Perhaps the biggest drawback of TAROT is the fact that WEGMÜLLER wasn't either a musician or a singer and the album is limited to spoken word vocals and some that are half sung but overall it suits the kosmische detachment that the album was going for.

A unique anomaly of the Kraut world, TAROT could also be considered the epitome of what the scene was all about and the sessions were so successful that Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser invited the musicians involved to perform at various acid parties where they were recorded without their knowledge. This led to the controversial series of Cosmic Jokers albums that were released the following year in 1974 but at least we can say for certain that all performers on this album participated with their full consent and all the better for it since unlike some of the other looser jamming tendencies of many Kraut albums, this one seems like a masterwork of directed focus on the outcome. Short of masterpiece status due to the mopey and oft monotonous vocals, TAROT nevertheless is one of my favorite authentic examples of true tripper's paradise.