HARMONIA LIVE 1974

Harmonia was born out a crash (or was it a clash?) between Cluster and Neu! Progheads could've feared the worst, knowing exactly how pop-ish both Cluster and Neu were when they tried their hardest, but rest assured here: this live posthumous release is anything but new-wave electro pop "avant la lettre". While the group only lasted two studio albums, it had also a live career, from which comes this posthumous "in concert" release. This concert from March 23rd, 1974 in Griessem is issued on Crow record in digipak format and comes with four pictures either at rest or in concert.

Despite the very repetitive, minimalist and ambient nature of their music, when played live, itris also less electronic, with Neu's Michael Rother's guitar sounding a bit like Pinhas', so don't go expecting anything resembling Neu!'s debut, Zuckerzeit or Autobahn, but do look in the direction of Popol Vuh's Attenstude or early Tangerine Dream, but filled with sequencers. The tracks are rather lengthy (between 5 and almost 17 minutes) and evolve slowly; filled with single-note patterns and binary rhythms, delays, echoes and all of the electronic effect of back then. So certainly experimental, but not that much because most of the tracks have rhythms and a semblance of melody.

Finding this album in the new arrivals of my library system, I jumped on it, but it also reminded me that I've forgotten to review the studio albums. Homeworks for the winter holidays. In the meantime, if you're a Harmonia buff, no doubt you'll find this essential, and if you're not so much, then no doubt, this can wait up until you find it on the used/second hand market.

Epic electronic krautrock grooves, motorik beats, soft, ethereal keyboards, hissing, bubbling primitive electronics, tribal drumming...the full gamut of early-seventies experimentation is available thanks to this excellent live document of genre-pioneers HARMONIA's 1974 Dusseldorf gig. Only released on CD last year, this captures the twosome in full cosmic mode, twising and elongating tracks from MUSIK VON HARMONIA and DELUXE into full-blown hypnotic space-epics that ebb and flow beautifully from one soft moment to the next. Fans of KLAUS SCHULZE, TANGERINE DREAM and NEU! will find much to admire amongst the surreal sonic pallette of ideas on offer. Everything is underpinned by a deliberately loose rolling groove that feels as natural as breathing. A great live document. STEFAN TURNER, LONDON, 2009

Chug chug chugging along

If you know those old electronic rhythm devices such as you´d find on old organs - that snuffle and chug like a puffing steam train, then look no further if you want to know how this sounds applied to music.

Harmonia was a German trio consisting of Michael Rother off legendary Krautrock band NEU! and the 2 electronic wizards from Cluster Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. One could almost call this a super group, if these guys were better known to the world outside of Germany and the few Krautrock connoisseurs out there.

As the title suggests this record was cut in 1974, and luckily so because all 3 musicians here was at the very top of their game. None of these tracks feature anywhere else in their discography (at least to my knowledge), which means that you get 5 sparkling new tracks. On top of this, the sound quality of this release happens to be vibrant and warm, and by the flick of the switch - with eyes closed - ready for a mind movie, you´re transported back in time to this tasty and imaginative gig. This is serious headphone music, and it helps big time if you can picture the Penny Station in Griessen Germany filled with long haired freaks and folks sitting on their jackets smoking, drinking, tripping doing their very best to escape the earthly bounds of the floor.

All of these tracks sound improvised with blowing ambient synth landscapes that consistently prowls the airwaves like soft and delicate wolverines in flight. Together with Michael Rother´s spacey and lingering guitar work, the music takes on an effervescent characteristic, that makes the music soar and glide in and out of psychedelic terrains and electronic currents.

It is a boat ride just as much as it is a train journey, - a realistic musical adaptation of a trip through the swooping autobahn on a huge robotic vessel. The music is cradling and motorik laden, but still a long way from being gentle and sedate. It feels determined like a commercial ferry ploughing through the streets headed for its home harbour. Just like German engineering the rhythm boxes showers this release in a very conform coating, but that only ads to the mystery, as to why this album sounds so free.

If you enjoy your music psychedelic, chugging, minimalistic, improvised and hypnotic, then you could do worse than this fine record, which is a fine example of a journey well spent on your bottom. Your head on the other hand has been places, where objects move like echoing slow lightnings through the skies, and your senses feel heightened and crisp like a metaphysical conductor licking the rail road tracks in sheer exuberance.

This one is hard to rate impartially. But that is the idea of universal information.

So here it goes.........I never considered Harmonia as a "guitar leaded" band. Their studio albums, by rule, never stick to the same option of styling, among so many choices of electronic gadgets usually found in studios and the ones each brought in. The best part of this "Live-1974" cd, is that you will never have noticed it is "live". No applauses, cheers, whistling nor stuff like that. The "live" music went directly to the tape.

The performance is constructed as a sole base. The songs, most of the time are intense in repetition, more than in creativity. The incessant drum box beats more than once overshadow, the frontal music. Now, talking straight, they have to rely constantly in the "human" nature of the electric guitar performance, which of course has always been an integral part in their "studio" albums, but never that much, as to become too much.

So, an outdated drum box sound, a somehow leadind guitar, which at times is not that creative, because it is holding the whole song alone, because the other two guys are busy, "live" controlling their synths, sequencers, drum boxes and other simmilar tools.

The song writing has its occasional awesome heights, the "drone" like "live" experience should have been amazing, but as recorded material or album as such, ***3.5 "I admire the band, but this is "universal" information" PA stars.

A live document of a HARMONIA concert held in Griessem, Germany March 23rd 1974. There's no crowd noise at all and all the tracks here aren't on their first two classic albums which I also find interesting. This is an archival release finally hitting the shelves in 2007. The music here is fairly even with little in the way of breakouts. This trio which combined Rother(NEU!) with Roedelus and Moebius(CLUSTER) would always peak my curiosity and this album is no different. I just find myself mesmerized almost with the music here. It is samey and trippy with organ, piano, percussion, synths and Rother's guitar that keeps these soundscapes moving along.

"Schaumburg" has these beats and spacey sounds with guitar expressions helping out. I like the ethnic vibe here and it's very repetitive. "Veteranissimo" is the longest track at 17 1/2 minutes. Beats to start as faint keys join in. The beats are more intense before 4 minutes but they fade back again. Synths seem to be buzzing here. An electric beat after 6 minutes and there seems to be organ here too as the relentless beats continue. It gets pretty quiet after 8 minutes but beats continue. It gets louder and lots more depth 15 1/2 minutes in. It lightens again as it fades out.

"Arabesque" has a nice full sound to it with organ, bass-like sounds, synths and more. The guitar will leave it's mark as well. "Hola-Polta" has these repetitive beats with synths over top and it all sounds pretty cool. Another sound joins in, maybe the electric percussion but I'm not sure. The sound does get louder then fade back on and off throughout this one. The beats are non-stop though. "Ueber Ottenstein" ends it with uptempo percussion as synths join in in creating atmosphere. Guitar and piano follow. Some loud guitar expressions I believe will come and go. Some twittering synths as well.

Tough to know what I'm hearing on this one all I know is that it works. It will always remind me of my trip to get skinny jeans on a whim over a week ago.