VOLUME 10

Oh ... at the very first I took notice of the album title ... immediately being about to check the truth content. You should know, the ELECTRIC ORANGE members don't take it too seriously. Or, better the other way round, they do not solely deliver exceptional music, they are also fundamentally taking delight in confusing people with uncommon aspects and their play of words. Well, in this particular case, when excluding 'Tonbandreste' (1994) and 'Orange Communication' (1995), both not listed as regular albums on their homepage, the working title 'Volume 10' suits, curiously enough. Now I'm sure we successfully have taken the first hurdle.

When considering the song titles though, it really goes crazy again - innovative in their view, and of course that's true, no doubt. As the second hurdle is build up a bit higher here, we stumble upon Black Sabbath infected puns - Paraboiled, Slowbind, Symptom Of The Mony Nurse, Behind The Wall Of Sheep ... and even more riddles, which I wasn't able to solve until today. A bizarre reference or not? What I only can assure is that they are not simply expressing nonsense. There's always at least an iota of truth given, you only have to dig deeper in order to reach for the hidden treasure or so.

As for that at the moment I will be content with the verdict, that the current ELECTRIC ORANGE outcome appears somewhat doomy ... though not depressive really on the other hand, more darkened than ever. And so the third hurdle, or challenge if you will, marks the music as such - well, it would not surprise me if we will detect some more of them somewhere in the future. How could I describe the sound in short at best? Absolutely tension-filled - 'Spannung pur' to say it in German. Going from the general to the particular, they certainly are on the way to enhance the neo kraut label again. So all in all this is what I would call 'provided with a nouveau tag' - or in other words genre pioneering.

Just while taking up the spirit of the past and establishing something pressing forward on top - whether improvised or not. I'm listening to a rather melancholic affair, featuring meandering soundscapes and tribal drums. Hereby they are using (experimenting with) all sorts of vintage and uncommon instruments. I mean, who really knows what a philicorda or a phonofiddle is? At least, headed by both Dirk's, who are currently also underway with the band SPACE INVADERS, this spiritually reminds me of the 'Unterwasser' ambience more than ever at some point.

Impressive - they are back on track again. To be honest, I didn't expect an album offering such a high quality as the next step from this band. Please be keenly aware, this one needs some time to unfold its real beauty, as many other albums of such a caliber too. No chance to emphasize any particular song here (hey, apart from the puns). 'Volume 10' is a very rounded blend featuring eight sections, offering an intensive, dark mooded, certainly inspired atmosphere. However, to describe this gem fitting more exactly seems to me nearly impossible yet - 4.5 stars.

I am not going to back down from the admission that this is a masterpiece of Krautrock. Where others have shied away, I am putting it out there. From the very first listen to my most recent twenty-somethingth I hear the very special quality of this music. The reverence for the musics of the past is obvious but Electric Orange have gone further: they have added to the lexicon of Krautrock, even perfected it. The advantage of modern recording equipment and techniques adds a quality to this album that no Krautrock album from the 1970s I've ever heard has. Then this group of amazing musicians had the maturity and temerity to not only take turns featuring various instruments and musicians over the course of this 79+ minute long album but using time and space to slowly develop their ideas and slowly build each song's "sound palette." I love music like this! I love it when a theme or riff is beaten to death, given time to get into your head, get under your skin, take you into other worlds. And this is precisely what each and every song of this album does for me: takes me into other worlds, sometimes into altered states of consciousness. The journey of a listen to the whole album is well worth it--almost unavoidable because of the mesmerizing, hypnotic effect of the music.

I urge everyone to give this a listen-- but, please, not just ten seconds of each song. Let the album play while you cook, work on the computer, or read in bed. That way you'll have the chance to experience the music sucking you into its spiraling web. I can only imagine the pride the forefathers of Krautrock might feel upon hearing this album; the fact that the ground that they paved made this album possible must be humbling.

From the polished and carefully composed yet energetic grooving retro prog of their first self-titled album back in 1993, through modern electronic/dance influences, wild vocal- driven wig-outs and beyond, German band Electric Orange have constantly been evolving, changing their styles and sounds between albums on their unsuspecting listeners. Heading in directions that their last couple of albums only hinted at, `Volume 10' unleashes the band in pure Krautrock mode, with mostly instrumental lengthy freeform improvisations weaving a hypnotic spell over the listener, and the sparse production, along with the exploratory atmospheres and that necessary hint of danger ensures this is the band is honing the true essence of the style, something often missed in modern bands attempting to play in the Krautrock style.

Armed with a string of Black Sabbath punning titles, while the band doesn't employ attacking metal riffs like that band, there is a definite doomy atmosphere bubbling under `Volume 10', with the album almost resembling a long, murky bad confronting trip - emotionally, spiritually...perhaps chemically?! With ethnic instrumentation, warped electronics and ragged guitars, the plodding compositions (and I only mean that as a compliment) cast a murky shadow over the listener, only to be thrown back into reality at the end of almost 80 minutes, and there's no way they can remain unaffected.

`Paraboiled' is a stark opener, a lonely, droning middle-eastern theme with a thick tension trying to break to the surface, growing more rumbling and unsettled as it progresses. Crying mandolin, eerie spectral haunting Mellotron and a quickening beat easily intimidate, while off-key double bass slices at your mind with maddening results. `Slowbind' raises your pulse with a chasing beat and urgent banjo strums over sustained synth breakdowns. `Symptom of the Mony Nurse' brings brooding lonely wailing electric guitar strains around wavering deep-space synths, while the meditative 14 minute `Suite Beef' is a mournful early Pink Floyd/Popul Vuh styled organ drone, a dark spiritual reflection with weeping mandolin and driving drums to end on. These two especially show the talent of Dirk Jan Müller, on something of a run with the modern progressive electronic gem `Cosmic Ground' impressing earlier on in the year.

Rising and falling cymbal waves crash on `A Tuna Surprise', a bass violin rumination with crystalline electric piano tip-toes and blanketing Mellotron washes. The album suddenly moves up in tempo for the wild, unhinged 21 minute vacuum-like `Behind the Wall of Sheep', a real showcase for drummer Georg Mohnheim. In addition to his relentless primal drumming, you get ominous Mellotron choir, crackling white noise, Tom Rückwald's menacing thundering pounding bass and Dirk Bittner's squealing feedback laden guitars. `Seven and Smell' is a dark psychedelic mix of distorting electronics, reverse guitars, imposing recited voices and mesmerizing trance-inducing tribal percussion. Album closer `Worn Utopia' in one melancholic closer, full of twitching electronics, crackling static, twisting feedback, out-of-tune guitar note bending, maddening percussive repetition and harsh rising and falling synth hums that constantly speed up and slow down. There's a repulsive, suffocating machine-fuelled madness throughout the entire piece, along the lines of the darkest Tangerine Dream works like the claustrophobic deep space `Zeit' album, with only a skipping up-tempo beat and humming Hammond that slowly enters in the final minutes to offer any respite.

Mastered by Eroc of Grobschnitt, `Volume 10' sees Electric Orange proudly bringing vintage influences howling into the modern age, yet never sounding like a pale imitation of the German bands noted for defining the Krautrock sound. For fans of Agitation Free, Popul Vuh, the Ash Ra Tempel and the earlier works of Pink Floyd and Tangerine Dream, this is Krautrock music in it's purest form, and some of the most subdued, intricate, thoughtful, restrained, mournful and uneasy ambience I've heard in years.

Four and a half stars.

The Peyote Diet

Strange time in a band's career to be experimenting with hallucinogens, but then again what do I know? David Gilmour started flirting around with cocaine in his 40s...

Starting out with a a series of menacing violin strokes, screeching and writhing over an elegant, if not rather mumbling piano, hazy synth percolations from way in the back and then something as disturbing as strings being plucked like a rooster losing it's feathers. There is no melody only brooding atmospheric noise.........but navigated through by the utmost care and fragility that the piece becomes musical, albeit a strange hybrid of it though, with ambient whiskers attached and long yearning cello like cries.....and then the hypnotic Shaman drums commence and you're out on the prairie running with the buffalo.

To me it feels as if the opener, Paraboiled, welcomes you into an album that seeks out the same as the old Indian medicine men of the west. As a matter of fact, I hear a lot of Indian spiritualism in Volume 10. Paraboiled is like walking into an Indian séance - with Richard Harris suspended from the tee-pee roof, dangling away in eagle's claws. The whole track is like a small 7 plus minute raga that ends in those drums and an organ that only rarely takes form, and when it does it's like a warm gust of winds.

By stripping their expression down to a raw caveman-like essence Electric Orange have succeeded in doing something, that I thought was near impossible. They have actually managed to do a modern Krautrock album, that not only sounds incredibly unique and original, but interjects itself straight into what the real and genuine Krautrock of yore was all about: mystery and fumbling around in strange dark places with but a mere flashlight and an adventurous soul. Volume 10 takes Krautrock back to the trip - the interstellar space voyages and freak out sessions of 1971.............but it's never a real "throw-back" album. It utilises some of the same instruments sure, but the overall musical expression has more in common with a modern SWANS release than say Yeti, Tago Mago or NEU!'s debut. I often think of SWANS The Seer when I listen to this album. Maybe I've completely gone fishing, but there's a similar magnitude of sound going on - something that almost sounds teutonic and Magma-like huge, only far more loosey goosey, wavering and Hiawatha inspired.

Another one of Volume 10s defining qualities is the free form of the material. The music often wafts overhead you in swirling patterns for then to be sculptured into something altogether different - a sporadic rhythm intervenes, an organ cuts through, a guitar slushes away and swoosh now the music seems to have caught wind of something intriguing and consequentially adapts and transforms into a collective sonic force: The tune is now under way.

Ranging from phonofiddles and banjos to double bass, moog, mandolin, mellotron and guitars in reverse - the arsenal of this group is anything but ascetic, even if the flow of the music occasionally can feel that way - meaning that it sounds like a 'back to the basics' kind of thing 'Let's just jam together, although it'd be cool if none of you had any preconceived ideas coming into it'.

What more? Well some of this album genuinely sounds like a band trying to make ambient music - only with all acoustic instruments...............and then suddenly the electronics turn on together with a full rockin' explosion of the aforementioned Shaman sensibilities, and what you had in mind with those thoughts about ambient music are suddenly put to shame; -everything now is different and a thousand miles from the tee-pee where Richard hung (out) at the very beginning.

If you have ever wondered about how prog would've sounded like, if the Cherokee had been a major contributing factor in sculpting it, then this is the album for you. Dig out your old tomahawks and some peyote and get ready to party like it's 1999, there's dust and colourful feathers everywhere and you're in a drug induced trance. HEIYAHH YAHH YAHH!!!

It took me awhile to realise that I should listen to this, but now I have and the stars should tell you what I think of Electric Orange's "tenth" outing. I had listened to "Platte" in the past and loved it, so my lack of awareness of this 2014 release - up to not listening to my raving fellow reviewers - was rather foolish. None of that matters now, as I now know that the Orange is the uppermost of the various and varied krautrock revivalists. "Suite Beef" is a crystalline example of their ability to forge great soundscapes, sounding like a beautiful dark orange haze. The other two exceptionally long tracks, "Behind The Wall of Sheep" (har har) and "Worn Utopia" are alongside it the best tracks. It is, yes, a dour record, with the result being that their ethereal backgrounds, killer guitar work, and various other instruments and influences come to together into a magnificent and unique album. And I have to agree with Guldbamsen: Electric Orange have truly put themselves into the shoes of the early '70's in West Germany, actually sounding like a krautrock band of old. I just relisten to this record again and again, and I have yet to stop chuckling whenever I read "A Tuna Sunrise" *chortle*chortle*chortle*. Here is a future for krautrock, and you will enjoy listening to this "Shape of Kraut To Come".

It was ELECTRIC ORANGE's "Morbus" album that made me a fan of these German space rockers. I proceeded to pick up a couple of their earlier albums from the early 00's but they weren't nearly as good in my opinion. "Krautrock From Hell" which came out after "Morbus" was an excellent release but I sort of lost track of these guys until this 2014 release called "Volume 10". Man this is such a good release and one that rivals "Morbus" for my favourite from them. It's interesting how different this one is from "Morbus" though as they've changed their sound to a much darker and melancholic vibe while delving deeper into the roots of Krautrock. In fact while "Morbus" is in my opinion a Space Rock recording, this is pure Krautrock. Again as usual with this band they get as close to 80 minutes as possible with this album.

Oh I have to mention the song titles which are BLACK SABBATH song titles but changed up some and they are quite funny. "Paraboiled" is dark as sounds come and go. I love the haunting atmosphere after 5 minutes and the violin that slices away throughout. "Slowbind" has this relentless beat that leads the way along with plenty of atmosphere as strange sounds come and go. "Symptom Of The Mony Nurse" features guitar feedback and atmosphere as we get this dark and experimental mood with spacey sounds joining in. It starts to build before 2 minutes and the guitar starts to solo. Some electronics later. "Suite Beef" has floating organ as percussion and other sounds help out in this relaxed journey. This is one of my favourites.

"A Tuna Sunrise" has these sparse sounds that come and go but it's slowly building. Despite it building it stays very mellow. Mellotron sounds late as it continues to be very relaxed. "Behind The Wall Of Sheep" is eventually led by a beat that becomes the focus. Fuzzed out sounds join in as well as spacey ones. The beat stops after 10 1/2 minutes as it turns quite spacey. Drums are back before 13 minutes. "Seven And Smell" is led by drums as atmosphere and spoken words help out. "Worn Utopia" is the most experimental track and the hardest one for me to get into. Sounds come and go until we get silence 2 minutes in then drums, atmosphere and more return and start to build. It's experimental after 7 minutes as strange sounds come and go then it turns spacey after 12 1/2 minutes. Organ to the fore after 14 minutes.

4.5 stars for this one. This band really surprised me with not only how good this record is but also with how prominent that Krautrock spirit is here on "Volume 10". A must!

The output of psychedelic jam bands tends to be a bit of a mixed bag, and this remains the case for Krautrock- influenced units like Electric Orange. Many early Krautrock releases were produced on an improvisational basis, and the results were often as hit-and-miss as more modern jam band releases, but Volume 10 is a particular gem from the Electric Orange back catalogue, with a stripped-back production that really helps capture the atmosphere of the freewheeling experimentation of the early Krautrock era. The song titles are weird spoofs on Black Sabbath songs, and whilst there's not much that's specifically doom metal about the album it's heavy enough that it feels like something Sabbath might have produced had they dropped Ozzy and gone Krautrock.