ALPHA COLLECTION 1.

Kinda fantastic atmospheric soundgarden. A German one-off project ATTEMPT TO RESTORE (what a great moniker really) expressed one and only existence with a creation entitled "Alpha Collection 1." released in 1993, where they should have tried to get over the authentic pioneers of Krautrock like Guru Guru or Ash Ra Tempel. We don't know what is their real purpose upon launching such a unique item because of too little information about them, but can understand their spiritual passages into space, nature, environment, and atmosphere whilst listening to such a so-called unplanned production. Basically they featured four basic instruments in the rock scene - guitar, keyboards, bass, and drums - and completed their material with environmental sound or noise, for summarizing their psychic intentions. Kinda clear aura can be heard here and there overall.

This album "Alpha Collection 1." (no following one actually) consists of three long dispatchments. All tracks might be played and produced in an improvisational manner. Their play technique itself is not so good nor impressive indeed, but sorta mysterious charm should be around them. The first shot "In The City" sounds like the bustle of a big city plus idle, nonresistant citizens living there. Much flexibility and improvisation in their melody lines by guitars and keyboards based upon relaxing rhythmic turfs should confuse us apparently. Noises of cars, ambulances, baby cries, or wind blowing drive us sorrowful. Wonderfully they expressed the city appearance without any special issue, by their superb innovative musical style. The very last phase reminds us the city would be collapsed quietly under a sandstorm. The following track "Breath" has more and more slow-tempo and lazy, freaky sound messages filled with psychedelic, hallucinogenic hints. The whole musical phenomena full of dreamy texture would lean towards Can's Bel Air. Smooth, rough, swift, or accelerated breath by human beings or dogs (?) gives this tranquilizing song flowery psychic mushroom-y agents. In the middle part we can hear obvious Kraut-y jazzy inspiration. The latter compartment fully with loud stormy noises sounds like respiratory distress or obstructive manner. Wondering if it might be only me who get strongly influenced by such tough vibes? The last suite "Alpha" should be their main dish in this creation. There are much more lyrical sounds and noises deeply in this track than the two previous ones. Dissonant, dissected melodic temperature is so energetic enough for us to get filled with heartwarming gasoline. At a quick listen, it sounds like that every single member plays their instrument upon their own attitude. It's correct but it's also incorrect. Each phrase in pieces should be collected with others and created to a big sound mountain. The last run is a killer flooded with keyboard-oriented psychedelic aroma and repetitive guitar attacks, plus various atmospheric noises, painful breathing, explosively broken sound collective.

Definitely by orthodox Krautrock successors we can call them. It's a shame they ended up as a one-off project really.

I first heard of Attempt to Restore in 1995 from some mail-order catalog that specialized in prog imports. I thought the Attempt to Restore CD sounded interesting, but I never bought it then seeing it seemed a bit difficult to make an order, and no one knew who they were. Years later I never forgotten then name and now I finally own the CD and glad I did.

The 1990s weren't exactly a golden age of Krautrock and certainly not in Germany, as many of these bands pretty seen their best and most innovative albums by the mid '70s and by 1974 many of them were either steering towards prog rock or electronic music. In the early '70s there was Tiger B. Smith that had more to do with hard rock had released two albums, one on Vertigo, the other on Bacillus. Long after Tiger B. Smith was a forgotten footnote, members reappeared in the 1990s as Attempt to Restore doing what they never did in the early '70s and create that type of Krautrock the likes of Guru Guru, Amon Duul II and Ash Ra Tempel did so well, and trying to bring it into the 1990s. And they do it pretty well. Like the Cosmic Jokers, this consists of totally improvised jams, with guitar and drums dominate, some sound effects like the sounds of cars being used, and keyboards, mostly non-intrusive digital synths, including a digital synth simulating the sound of an organ, rather than a real one. Whatever the case, had the Ohr label existed in 1993 they'd be right at home on that label. I seriously doubt ATR will give you anything new under the sun but worth it for those who fancy the idea of a 1990s recording hearkening to the glory days of Krautrock.

3.5 stars. ATTEMPT TO RESTORE was the project of Holger Schmidt the former singer and lead guitarist for TIGER B. SMITH. He owns his own recording studio called Woodland Studios and here he has attempted to restore that "sound" of Krautrock from the early seventies. This is dark and heavy at times with distorted guitar leads, organ, bass and drums in this four piece out of Germany. Interesting to me that the drummer here is Wolfgang Baade who was part of the short lived AUS DEM NICHTS which consisted of him and members of XHOL and EMBRYO. On my "Wiesbaden 1972" archival release from EMBRYO the bonus track called "Clockwork Blue" is done by AUS DEM NICHTS who opened for EMBRYO that night.

The music here reminds me mostly of GILA and THE COSMIC JOKERS but also it reminds me of the darker music done by AMON DUUL II and ASHRA TEMPEL. We get three long tracks ranging from 16 1/2 minutes to 21 1/2 minutes allowing for a lot of trippy jamming and improvizing. No vocals but we get some cool sounding samples that I feel aren't used very well on this album. The opener "The City" opens with traffic sounds so we hear cars, sirens, horns etc. and it's all good but the problem for me is that during this 16 1/2 minute song they just randomly it seems throw this sample in there while the music is playing so it comes across as being noise affecting my ability to hear the actual music. A siren will pop up once in a while too.

The same on "Breath" the longest track, we get these samples of German Shepherds on the chase after this guy that comes into the sound soon as we hear him running then breathing hard as he's being pursued. Again awesome but then this stuff just pops up out of nowhere throughout the song. Dogs barking or man running or breathing hard but not sequenced just one of the three here and there. I listen too closely to my music maybe but it bugs me that two great samples just get overused and used at inappropriate times. Again the music itself is very good and 4 star material although it would have also been cool to make it 40 to 45 minutes like vinyl instead of an hour. But this was 1993 and 20 years after Krautrock's golden age. And we all know if it's not Krautrock it's Krapp. So check it out!