As enthusiasts are aware, Kraütrock encompasses wildly disparate musical tendencies.
But if you tend to the freak-out side and want the opposite of the amorphous ambience/mellifluous melodies tendency, Anglo-Belgian-German seven-piece Brainticket’s debut LP, Cottonwoodhill, could be just the thing.
One of the most bad-trip records ever made, its rock band instrumentation was augmented by flute, tablas and primitive electronics, with the unnerving vocalising of Dawn Muir adding to a suffocating sense of carnivorous negativity, lightened by screaming . . .
It was roughly similar territory to that which Gong and Hawkwind were mapping out at the time, but so much further out in the cosmos that it made their fellow astral travellers sound like day-trippers to Rhyl.
The back cover advised “Only listen once a day to this record. Your brain might be destroyed”.
The original Brainticket collapsed after the recording of Cottonwoodhill, but organist/flautist Joël Vandroogenbrock simply resurrected the band with brand new musicians (including Carol Muriel, Barney Palm, Jane Free and others).
The resulting Psychonaut LP was an obvious reaction to their previous album – in fact, it was the complete opposite, containing actual songs and devoid of any disturbing experiments.
Dawn Muir
Vocals
Ron Bryer
Guitar
Joel Vandroogenbroeck
Organ, flute, vocals
Hellmuth Kolbe
Electronic sound effects
Werner Fröhlich
Bass
Wolfgang Paap
Tabla
Cosimo Lampis
Drums
Werni Prahlach
Bass
