IN THE POOR SUN

This album appeared on the scene in 1971 originally self-released by ZIPPO ZETTERLINK and later re-issued by the US label Psycho Path Records. A collection of live recordings at the Blow Up Club in Munich from 1969, a festival in Hamburg and some studio output from 1971. Rough free formed jams by guitarist Wolfgang Orschakowski hailing from the Hamburg underground scene. Although he is supported by drums, bass, percussion and flutes at least the album cover does not tell anything about the line-up.

Improvised psychedelic blues might be a fairly suitable description about what you are listening to when starting with the long track 'At Sunday Night In The Blow Up' recorded live in Munich which covers one vinyl side. Not very inspiring as for my personal taste over the course of time. Kaputt - literally could be translated to 'wasted' - does not sound like this at all. Much more drum dominated nearly soloing all the way through and accompanied by a great accentuated guitar with early Clapton reminiscences plus some flute additions - something special - this is a really excellent track!

On Ein Gemmenmärchen Zippo trys to sing but the result is not more than some sprechgesang with this typical charming accent backed by a simple blues theme. With It's Groovy, The Electric Light Machine, Boy another great track comes up - this time dominated by playful bass plus percussion support. Take Over, Electric Light is proving the album's experimental side when blending samples, radio snippets and a semi-acoustic blues guitar.

Another highlight digged out from the depths of the german music history - containing simply structured jams but also more sophisticated songs - 3.5 stars. Recommended to krautrock collectors. By the way - Psycho Path has even gone one better and released a new ZIPPO ZETTERLINK album in 2008 containing other rare recordings from this mysterious band.

It's cool in a sense that they'd chosen a title "In The Poor Sun" for their only one shot ... even though the adjective "poor" looks unsuitable for the brilliant "sun".

Back to the topic, a decent occupation upon A-side of the LP titled "At Sunday Night In The Blow Up" is the 20-minute-long masterpiece in this album. Although they might play such a long trippy jamming session maybe with altered states of mind (not sure if due to musical trip or chemical agents), this long train running is flooded with dry-fruity soundscape along with simple persistent heavy riffs and a bit danceable grooves, that can absorb us completely without boring at all, mysteriously. On the contrary, it can be considered that they had never created another album because such a unrefined but remarkably addictive atmosphere could not have been launched anymore. Sometimes tribal, and sometimes vital, but from beginning to end, deeply eccentric based upon desert guitar sounds ... this obscurity cannot be usually heard here and there. For this stuff (and their play upon it), 20 minutes might not too long I imagine.

On the other hand, the B-side consists of 4 short tracks. The last three are bluesy short breaths without any Neues, but the beginning "Kaputt" is flooded with killer bullets, as if launched to us listeners continuously under the dark, cloudy sky. Crazy flute and reed-whistle (?) dance vibes make us crazier. What a fascinating quake their ritualized percussion is. Let me say this drastic remedy can be another masterpiece of theirs. "Like fractal carrots dangled in front of a hungry Krauthead: it's hard to resist music described so vividly" (according to Michael Neumann's paragraph in his review for Moolah's "Woe Ye Demons Possessed") ... KUDOS! :)