TRIPS UND TRAUME

This German folk duo is almost by itself the inventor of Cosmic folk, but were also so typically "kraut-folk" (if you'll allow this genre invention of mine), being fairly close to Ougenweide, Emtidi and Parzival. And this second album (although the debut is attributed to only Witthuser, this was a duo effort) is of the calibre of the albums I mentioned just above. The duo will have the honour of having released albums on two of the most collectable labels of their country: the early Ohr label for their first two and then the really rare Pilz label.

Although it is not that easy to categorize this album because the styles oscillate between medieval, more traditional German folk, cosmic ambiances and a singer-songwriter approach. The cosmic ambiances mixed in with some slow acoustic blues of Trippo Nova are counterbalanced by the music-hall-like opening track, the medieval ambiances and the hippy feel of Orienta are giving an excellent, bizarre twist to the album (not that far from the Incredible String Band), while the superb Lord-like organs (reminiscent of the Purple's suite April) of Illusion I and the lengthy haunting flut lines underlining the German spoken monologue of Karlchen brings such a special atmosphere that no other albums even comes close (to my knowledge anyway). The last two shorter track are close to Baroque music and if that was not weird enough already, the last one veers into a weird barroom sing- along: Nimm Eine Joint is rolling a doobie and somehow resembles Fraternity Of Man's Don't Bogart Me track.

Even if the genre cosmic folk is a bit doubtful, this album is one hell of a UFO , coming from outer space. I'd love to have smoked what these guys did back then.

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