Dupe Guru

There’s been a gradual increase in genre bending bands emerging from the artful depths in recent years. KING GIZZARD AND THE LIZARD WIZARD, RAKETKANON and GIRAFFES? GIRAFFES! all spring to mind, and nestled within their ranks are Belgian five-piece THE GURU GURU. Their new album Point Fingers is a record that refuses to conform to any already established boundaries yet holds it’s own with some semblance of structure that feels like every single chaotic moment has been thought about deliberately.

The 3rd Essen Pop & Blues Festival took place in the Gruga Hall between 22 and 25 October 1970, featuring bands such as Guru Guru, Xhol, Embryo, Fotheringhay, East of Eden, Q 65, Gun, Quiver and Taste. Roland Verheyen, a staff member of promoter Konrad Mallison, recorded the entire festival directly from the soundboard. About a half of the tapes had meanwhile been used for other recordings, but a large part of the original recordings has survived. Garden of Delights has acquired the rights to these tapes. A lot of studio processing without any noticeable changes in the sound had become necessary to make the Guru Guru gig suitable for release. The 36-page colour booklet contains everything a collector might be looking for: a detailed history of early Guru Guru, an 11-page discography, reprints of covers and partly unpublished band photos.

Over four phenomenal extended tracks this 1973 major label debut for the German Krautrock group is an essential ride through space rock territory for fans of early Kraftwerk, Can, and Faust. "Africa Steals the Show," "Round Dance," "200 Clinches," and "Das Zwickmashinchen" are mind-boggling forays into avant-rock territory - recorded by the stripped-back Guru Guru incarnation. At this point in 1973, Guru Guru was a trio of Ax Genrich on guitar, Hans Hartmann replacing Uli Trepte on bass, and leader Mani Neumeier on drums and keyboards. Essential primitive guitar overload meets avant-rock experimentation results in a powerful album, to say the least.

The third album from the essential Krautrock power trio Guru Guru's early forays is as essential to the avant-rock collector as Faust's Faust Tapes, Can's Tago Mago, and the early experiments of Kraftwerk and Neu! Dating from 1972, it's an unprecedented display of drone-rock on the heavier, psychedelic side of the '70s German underground. Guru Guru's lineup changed periodically, and throughout the '70s, the project took contributions from Conny Plank and Hans-Joachim Roedelius, among others, and were tightly connected with the Kraftwerk off-shoot Harmonium. This album is undoubtedly one of their greater works, alongside UFO and Hinten recorded by the essential trio of Ax Genrich on guitar, Uli Trepte on bass, and leader Mani Neumeier on drums and keyboards.

Guru Guru played in the Wartburg, a Wiesbaden hall, on September 17th, 1973. It was one of the gigs recorded by Xhol (Caravan) acquaintance Muck Krieger. His recording equipment was then state-of-the-art: an Uher tape recorder CR 124 and two Revox microphones for the stereo sound, the equipment he had used the year before (CD 'Wiesbaden 1972'). The result has turned out satisfactory, although the occasional singing sounds slightly thready and reverberant. That is partly due, however, to the live sound reproduction during the gig. With its 37 minutes, 'Ooga booga' leaves a lot of space for free improvisation. 'Round dance' and 'Das Zwickmaschinchen' are from their fifth LP, 'Don't call us', which had just been recorded at that time. Thus, Muck Krieger's supply of Guru Guru materials has been exhausted.

Live 1978 by Guru Guru is a captivating album released by Repertoire Entertainment Gmbh. This live recording showcases the innovative and dynamic sound of the German krautrock band during their performance in 1978.

Guru Guru's second album starts off on a chaotic note, but "Electric Junk" soon resolves itself into a full-on band jam and takes it from there, showing again that the band readily trod the fine line between merely skilled and truly inspired. There's always a nagging sense on this album that the group is but one step away from prog rock wank of the worst kind, but then there'll be a thick blast of righteous noise or a suddenly lovely dark chime that feels more Blue Oyster Cult than Emerson, Lake & Palmer, say. This can even happen out of nowhere, like the odd spoken word pronouncements interrupting the attempted drum solo on "Electric Junk" or the open-ended electronic moans and echoed calls during the floating midsection of "Space Ship"…

Guru Guru's debut album shows why the band, even if it never reached the levels of appreciation and influence the likes of Can or Neu! did, still maintained a healthy reputation over the moons for its early work. Opening number "Stone In" has a quite appropriate title for a starting track - it is wonderfully tripped out, to be sure, and if Manuel Gottsching was more of a guitar god, Genrich kicks up a lot of frazzled noise. The principle of the Trepte/Neumeier rhythm section seems to have been "find loud weird grooves and then play them, sometimes chaotically." Again, they aren't Can's wickedly effective combination of Holger Czukay and Jaki Leibezeit, but they're not just falling over themselves either…