TEA AT TWO

What is that? I have found this group absolutely unknown to me while rummaging in the web when I have looked for old krautrock classics. And now I alredy listened to the material oftentimes and am surprised that this has remained so completely unknown up to now. The album is a collection of songs which lift in the krautrock sky. Every song is different and, nevertheless, the whole album has a continuous sound, lives on outstanding electric guitars and bass lines, spicy with richly strange percussion and saxes too. The sound is rough and earthily like KCs Earth Bound. Actually the design is such a thing like a krautrockcrimson, even if the music is quite another, this is no compare. Finally sound games and almost meditative pieces just as rumbling and dust creating rocksongs, up to during 25 minutes continuous, prove, in the end, a double album fully surprise, tension and enjoyment if one gets involved only in it. Try this, load it down (you cannot buy).

I don't know much Prog, indeed, from Austria. In the 70s there was Eela Craig from Linz and as Krautrockers I only know Paternoster which have done, unfortunately, just one solely album. In this row also Ixthuluh is standing, even if this band to a broader circle has remained rather unknown. What is a pity and that should change. With "Tea At Two" the band namely has presented an album which can match itself absolutely against known models of the (german) krautrock scene. The songs come so powerfully and spontaneously, as diverse as unusually that a real krautrock-fan remains completely amazedly and is surprised that this album is really during nearly 80 minutes. So quickly there passes the time if one becomes engrossed in the music and discovers new in it over and over again, the more often one sounds the record. Diamonds in my krautrock-collection! Let yourselves time for this record.

I have become attentive only here in Progarchives to this group some time ago. As a collector of a lot of kraut-recordings I have become curious naturally. And I was not disappointed, on the contrary. This music is straightforward and has handshake quality. This is recorded directly, without taking into consideration any mistakes or inaccuracies. Howsever, the record lives just from it. One notices that the musicians search the way to each other and when they find him, they enjoy together. The Austrians play actually a style like the typical German kraurock groups from the early seventies years. The guys have come only a little bit too late, but with the current temporal distance it's all the same. A jam band with own subjects and an independent access to the genre. Recommendable. Should be owned by any krautfan...

Ixthuluh is an other pretty cool and cult psychedelic band which emerged at the end of the seventies from the krautrock scene. In this record the musicians deliver a kind of very free jam experience mixed with a great dose of psychedelic and uninhibition. This is their third, their most vigorous but without doubts my favorite. Surly the masterpiece of the bandleader Dita Lasser. This album stands among the better releases in the Kraut-rock genre. A incredible performance of that hidden band.

This album is the masterpiece of the group. Ixthuluh has earned a place in the annals of krautrock with this song collection. The album lives from outstanding electric guitars and the play with associated devices like reverb and delay. The extremely unconventional music arises how with Ixthuluh usually, from a largely free teamwork in which the musicians change and serve different instruments. These changes prove a very various album interacting, however, stylistically as a closed unity and appears matching, anyhow. The sketchy music which one knows from the other Ixthuluh albums also exists here, but, nevertheless, the pieces appear little bit more compact and less accidental on this album. The numbers from very quiet, almost meditative guitar electronic sounds, by the way played completely without keyboards, remind of the German sound handicraft enthusiasts from the early krautrock days, while with "The Long Trail To Gila Bridge" an increasingly wild rock piece executes nearly 25 minutes, orientated by no model, and expels Werner Katzmair as a marathon man on the E-guitar. In between shorter songs are found like "Love Pain", a piece that remainds me of the small songs of the early Pink Floyd. The mixture of it proves an album, which leaves me, if it has elapsed finishedly, behind again with a certain astonishment and this lingers. Should not be absent in any Krautrock collection!

4,5 stars really

In my opinion an incredible record. If you listen to it, you will not be disappointed: the e-guitars which change between rock and pure sound painting, a bass which works like the heartbeat or how the breath, or also like a mysterious animal and in between a saxophone so fully pain and misery, that it hurts one. The music brings your mind on a fantastic journey, in "Forbidden Fruits" up to the moon and in the stars, in "Gila Bridge" to a dangerous rode through Indian's hordes. This album has some moments of exceptional mood. Of majority instrumental, spiced with few vocals, the album has no weak song, it is very good continuously. You hear something strangely and at the same moment again marvelously. A piece of music fully expression, part calm and peace, part, however, also fully force and violence. Even this is no music for all and sundry - who likes spicy, coarse rockmusic should have these recordings in his collection. No easy listening at the first time, but one can fall in love with it.

The third album of the Austrian Kraut rockers is a frequently overlooked piece of music which is to be brought only difficultly in a category. The fusion roots of the band are to be recognized rarely, i cannot name it RocknRoll and Austrian folk music is not ascertainable already at all. And the group, nevertheless, succeeded in submitting an exceptionally coherent album which takes along with the shorter pieces as well as with the extremely long tracks the listener in it's world and surprises anew with guitar sounds and bass lines according to instinct and a percussion which orientates exclusively by itself and lies beyond every school. Although you cannot speak from perfection in the conversion, or - maybe - just therefore, the whole album leaves an uncommonly compact and alive impression, no weak piece is to be thought on it. Although it lasts as an earlier double album nearly eighty minutes, boredom never arises, behind every corner waits a new facet. Ixthuluh has succeeded with "TeaAt Two" a masterpiece of the progressive rock which is unique in this form and also surprises with the fact that it comes from Austria where no established Prog scene has existed at this time. Download and marvel!

Musical chairs

It seems Austria will never be among the heavyweights when it comes to contributing to the prog genre, but Krautrock band Ixthuluh made a bold attempt in the late 1970's and early 80's to fly their flag. "Tea for two", the band's third studio album recorded in 1980, is generally hailed as their most accomplished and coherent. Quite why this is though, is hard for me to grasp!

By this time, the band revolved around guitarist Dita Lasser and drummer Ernst Matscheko, who brought in guest musicians as required. The assembled group would often swap instruments during lengthy jams, not always ending up with one with which they were familiar!

While the album consists of eight tracks in total, over half of it is occupied by two tracks each lasting 24 minutes. The first of these, "Forbidden fruits" is a never-ending jam with psychedelic and space rock influences, but a distinct lack of focus! "The long trail to Gila bridge" opens with some Shadows like improvised guitar, the entire track consisting of bass, guitar and drums only. During its (what seems like) week long tenure, the musicians swap instruments, resulting in what is technically known as a complete mess.

The opening "Welcome, touch me" is a sparse piece, devoid of any real melody, but featuring some reasonable guitar noodling. This gives way to the 12 minute "Sittin' on my lonely chair", the most rock based song on the album. Unfortunately, the prime achievement of the track is to highlight why the band tends to stick to instrumentals, the vocals being decidedly tuneless. Apart from the vocals, only guitar and drums are used on the track, leaving it sounding rather lifeless.

The shorter tracks are equally rambling, even the sax on "So sad" adds nothing to a bass loaded ramble.

I readily admit that this type of music is not what I favour. Normally however, I will willingly acknowledge the technical ability of the band members, even if I am left cold by the music itself. When however the band members start playing instruments they are unfamiliar with, they pass beyond mere indulgence, and leave themselves open to accusations of being disrespectful to their audience. In short, I can find no redeeming features here whatsoever.