Abacus

ABACUS (The name is based on the Greek/Roman board game Abacus) is a German Krautrock legend. The band, founded in Hamm/Westphalia in 1971, had their breakthrough at the Germersheim Rock Festival (2nd. British Rock Meeting), where they were celebrated in front of over 100.000 music fans just like Pink Floyd, Wishbone Ash or Status Quo, who also performed at this event. In the 1970s, Abacus released four records, the last three were recorded in Giorgio Moroder's Musicland studios in Munich.

German rock band formed in Hamm (north-east of Dortmund) in the late 1960's, originally known as Fashion. Adding English vocalist Chris Williams (from Grail), they became Abacus in 1971.Their debut LP was progressive rock with a classical edge mixing British and Krautrock elements. After that they got more jokey and eccentric, and released three further albums with a borderline pop sound (hints of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and The Move). Through to the mid 1970's the line-up changed completely, with only Klaus Kohlhase from the original line-up in a 1979 reformation. Jürgen Wimpelberg from that line-up kept the band going issuing a CD much later.

Like Van der Graaf Generator and their lesser-known contemporaries Aardvark, Abacus represented an early 70′s wave of prog that tried to bring the keyboards to the forefront, usurping the long-held role of the guitars in rock music. With the use of distortion and thick organ textures in the keyboards however, most of the bands that took this approach never distinguished themselves a great deal from their guitar-based counterparts. While Abacus did not steer away entirely from the use of guitar in their music, they were one of the few bands that really capitalized on the use of rock organ in their music. Released at the beginning of their genre’s golden age, Abacus’ self-titled debut is a convincing slice of progressive rock, with a welcome dose of jazz and 60′s beat pop to add extra colour to the style…