KIN PING MEH

Today I bought this album in the Polydor CD version featuring 12 tracks, including the bonustracks Everything's My Way and Woman from 1970 and Every Day and Alexandra from 1971. The music is typical early Seventies 'heavy progressive rock' with obvious hints from Uriah Heep, Deep Purple and Quatermass': a blend of rock, blues (some nice mouth organ) and symphonic prog with lots of fiery and harder-edged electric guitar and Hammond organ, I even hear lovely drops of the ubiquitous Mellotron in some tracks (like the wonderful ballad My Dove). The compositions sound dynamic, tasteful arranged and powerful, the band plays tight and inspired, if you like abovementioned bands, check out this album!

Debut album from this Mannheim (west of Frankfurt) quintet (standard prog quartet plus a lead singer and acoustic guitarist) that will have a relatively long life, starting at the dawn of the 70's and ending just before close to the end of it. Their sound was a relatively hard prog rocking album where the organ and guitar alternate at the front of the music, while the English lyrics singing from Werner Stephan is pleasant and apt. Having taken their name from Chinese mythology, and gracing their self titled debut with an heavenly garden scene, this album

Starting out with a lengthy Fairy Tales where the organs and guitar trade licks and solos reminiscent of Deep Purple, Wallenstein or Birth Control. Although one of the more pleasant tracks on this album, the song works well but there are lengths and the drum passages is heard-elsewhere. The following slow Sometime is a better track to give you an idea of the typical KPM sound, with delicious organ layers underlining the verses and searing guitars leads between the verses and chorus. While the third track is also a lengthy affair, Don't You Know is again promising but delivering fully. The jam- like instrumental sections are good, but they are a little too brutal of a change from the average song-proper parts.

The flipside is much in the same spirit developing a semi-hard rock where the short tracks succeed to other mid-length, but there is nothing really enthralling, but rest assured nothing boring either. Typically the type of album that needs a few listens before unleashing its treasures; but those riches are not that deep either. Some moments of Drugsen's Trip and My Dove (with Mellotrons) are brilliant, but as with all other tracks, there are many other things to could've been easily bettered that it is a bit frustrating as usually Conrad Plank-engineered albums hit the spot much easier than KPM's debut. The last two tracks are average rock tracks in the line of what's been done before. The Second Battle reissue comes with bonus tracks from non-album singles and add length to the album, maintaining the general quality level, but not raising it either.

Although rather pleasant, I found this album a bit over-rated in its reputation, it is hardly worth the stamp to write home about, either. Not essential, but it won't deface your collection either.

I'm so glad I took a chance on this album. I had heard the opening track on Youtube and based on that I thought i'd check them out. This German band is more of a Heavy / Psyche band than say Krautrock with melocdic enjoyable tunes led by guitar and organ. Their name comes from a Chinese book and on this their debut they were helped out in the recording studio by none other then Achim Reichel (A R & MACHINES) and Frank Dostal, while Conny Plank engineered it. It was released in the spring of 1972.

"Fairy-Tales" opens with bass and cymbals followed by guitar and organ. It's building until we get a full sound 1 1/2 minutes in. I really like the guitar and organ in this one. A killer instrumental section starts before 5 minutes until the vocals return after 8 minutes. Great tune ! "Sometime" is laid back with guitar, drums and floating organ.There's some mellotron in this one as well. The guitar is outstanding before 3 1/2 minutes. Some passion here at times.Good song. "Don't You Know" is a catchy track. Nice organ solo 2 minutes in. Explosive sounds and noise 4 minutes in followed by an incredible instrumental section. Vocals 6 minutes in. "Too Many People" opens with laughter followed by strummed guitar, drums and harmonica.Vocals and organ follow. Some mellotron in this one too.This reminds me of the STONES. Some clapping after 3 minutes. What a feel good tune this is.

"Drugson's Trip" is a funny title. Some raw and aggressive guitar to start as organ, drums then vocals join in. Catchy stuff. It settles some before 2 minutes.The guitar then rises out of the calm 3 minutes in. Hell yeah ! A nice heavy, raw sound after 4 minutes. Amazing. "My Dove" is laid back with vocals, organ and light drums. It gets fuller as contrasts continue. Some nice bass in this one. It kicks in hard before 2 minutes with guitar. Nice. Mellotron in this one too. "Everything" opens with some power with organ runs and pounding drums. So catchy. A sing-a-long chorus here too. I like the instrumental break 2 minutes in. Vocals are back 4 1/2 minutes in. "My Future" is a short laid back tune with strummed guitar to open. It picks up with percussion and vocals helping out.

For me this is a solid 4 stars.

Nice debut from Germany's Kin Ping Meh. A heavy rock album nicely in sync with the taste of the day, being sharp guitars, groovy drumming, some jamming, a dot of psych, lots of bluesy feelings and organ freak-outs aplenty.

They put the best stuff up at the front. Fairy-Tales is a solidly grooving heavy rock jam with nice dreamy vocals and one of those irresistible singalong choruses. Nice stuff for hitting the road. The remainder of the album can't keep up with a similar level of excellence and varies between run of the mill ballads (Sometime), standard rock 'n' rolla fare (Don't You Know), harmless country-blues (Too Many People) and other typical 60s and early 70s stuff. With My Dove and My Future, they have a mellow moment with a bit of mellotron and sweet melodious vocals.

On the whole, this is a nice album for fans of early heavy rock. Yep, 'nice', the keyword of this review. Rock sure would never be as 'nice' again as it was in those days.

Lazily categorised under the far-reaching 'krautrock' banner, Kin Ping Meh were a surprisingly eclectic German rock group who, despite a pretty unremarkable career overall, did manage to release this impressive, Polydor- issued debut in 1971. Containing a real mixture of styles - sun-kissed psychedelia, woozy folk and powerful heavy rock all feature - 'Kin Ping Meh' is one of those strange albums made by a group who seemingly can't quite decide which genre suits them best. For example, the album starts with the pulsating, organ-laced, ten- minute-long acid-rock workout 'Fairy Tales', before taking in Clapton-influenced psychedelia on 'Sometimes', good-time folk-blues with the excellent album highlight 'Too Many People' and, to close proceedings, CSN- styled West Coast rock on the brief-but-effective 'My Future'. Whilst the Bulk of 'Kin Ping Meh' does seem based on a fairly standard mixture of blues, psychedelia and heavy rock, it does so in that peculiarly German way so prevalent during both the late-sixties and early-seventies, hence the album's tenuous krautrock branding. In actual fact, however, this is something very different from the likes of Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu! et al. Repeated listens soon single out the wheat from the chaff, and although around half of this debut album does seem pretty derivative, it does feature at least two killer compositions in the shape of the toe- tapping extravaganza 'Fairy Tales' and the wonderfully hazy 'Too Many People'. Enjoyable psychedelic rock then, and far better than one might expect. STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2012

Kin Ping Meh - st (1971)

'Soul is dead', stated Embryo on it's debut album in 1970. Yet fellow Germans Kin Ping Meh might have proved them wrong with their pleasant eclectic rock debut. The band has a well produced and professional sound that is actually very English. On their debut Kin Ping Meh plays a mix of styles, which makes it an interesting album to listen to for the seventies rock/psych fan. Double heavy rock guitars, perfect Hammond sound, soulful approach on some tracks and some winks towards symphonic and psychedelic rock. The artwork looks great on my vinyl reprint.

'Fairy-tales', 'Don't you know' and 'Everything' are typical heavy rock tracks reminding me a bit of Uriah Heep and the like. Riff-based rock with organ runs and expressive vocals. Yet in combination with the other tracks everything works pretty well. 'Sometime' is a great minor blues track (got to love those guitars), 'Too Many People' is a nice bluesy soul track with a 'get together and sing along feel', Drugson's Trip has some nice space rock moments, whilst 'My Dove' a nice melodic symphonic track (mellotron alert) that reminds me of the best of Barclay James Harvest. My favorite is still the last track 'My future', a brilliant acoustic soultrack with perfect hippie vibes. It reminds me a bit of the never ending pleasure I get from a track like Canned Heat's 'Going up the Country'.

Conclusion. A typical product of it's time, but just very good at it. Four stars and recommended to fans of eclectic seventies rock and people who like a bit of soul in their music.