MYTHOS

A friend borrowed me this CD; the debut album of this obscure Berlin based band from the beginning of the 70´s. I´ve got to admit that this trio of guys were a skillful bunch, specially Stephan Kaske who could handle guitars, flute, zither and keyboards with apparently ease, and the ohter two were not far behind.

Their music is quite varied going from pastoral to heavy rock to electronic and so far. It would be great if they were put together, but actually those styles are featured on each track. So Mythoett is the pastoral bit, with flutes reminding me of Jethro Tull´s Bourée. Hero´s Death is heavy rock, while Oriental Journey is filled with sitars and (surprise!) eastern rhythms. Vocals are all electronic processed and they made me think of Eloy around the time of their Floating period, only even more on the fake side of it.

The second side of the original LP is more of experimental music, with only two trakcs, the instrumental Encyclopedia Terra part 1 being the most interesting, mixing elements of ambient/space rock/electronic with various sound effects. The second track has a long spoken story and both the theme and the music around it dated badly.

In the end I found this CD to be more promising than anything else. Clearly they were still green on the songwriting department. But since they proved to be capable musicians I guess I´ll look for their follow ups to see how they developed from here. As it is, this disc is clearly for the krautrock fans and collectors only.

Rating: 2.5 stars. .