EROC

Honestly I wouldn't consider any of the solo works by Grobschnitt drummer Joachim Ehrig aka Eroc an essential addition for a Prog collection, even not for one based on Krautrock I would say. Certainly there are some experimental parts included, mainly with electronic sound and tape recordings but on the other hand after taking out those few ones and some recorded smalltalk (which isn't even funny if you're a native German speaker) there's not much left over that's able to impress me. After subtraction of those experiments and supposed to be jokes we get to listen some nice and pleasant music played on guitar, synthesizer and accordeon which could easily do its job as some background acoustic irradiation, something that might be called Muzak. I mean, a track like the super-long (and much too long if you ask me) "Little Eva" could have entertained easily my grandma (born 1900) getting me to the point to question what that's supposed to do with progressive music. It might have to do with the fact that I'm really not into electronic music, usually I find it rather suckin' than fascinating. Don't get me wrong that's a lovely track, maybe just too lovely and gets boring after a while. Others like "Des Zauberers Traum", "Norderland" or "Horrorgoll" are sounding at least into parts slightly more interesting but only for 1 or 2 spins and quite dated on the other hand. The latter one in particular is clearly the most experimental track on here consisting exclusively of a collage of tape recordings (probably taken from tv/radio) with the addition of some echo effects. "Die Musik vom Ölberg" had been the introduction for a Grobschnitt live show and last one "Sternchen" sounds a bit like an excerpt of "Solar Music". Overall this record (like all of Eroc's solo catalogue) should be considered rather an interesting addition for Grobschnitt fans and seams vastly overrated here IMHO. This one might still be the best of his first three solo albums (the fourth one I don't know yet) but nonetheless I'm hesitating to rate it with 3 stars!