(KrautRock) Deuter - D 1971, Germany - 1971, FLAC (tracks+.cue)

Deuter is quite possibly the most overlooked artist of the Krautrock genre and 'D', his first album, is

certainly an overlooked, unappreciated gem of Kraut madness. The entire album was composed, arranged,

performed, and produced solely by Deuter with no outside help. It's not hard to imagine the opening track

'Babylon' as a companion piece to Amon Duul II's 'Restless Skylight-Transistor-Child' off of Tanz Der

Lemminge. NOTE THE IDENTICAL BASSLINE! The second track, 'Der Turm/Fluchtpunkt' is a mind trip utilizing

creative panning and a distorted guitar that sounds extremely Faust-ian ('Don't Take Roots' off of '71

Minutes'). 'Krishna Eating Fish and Chips' displays Deuter's affection for Eastern instruments, a love

affair which would later dominate his career and his life. 'Atlantis' is a journey through a sound

effects-laden land filled with natural sounds and echoed percussion. Finally, the album closes with

'Gammastrahlen-Lamm' which is a soft keyboard exploration. This track ends with the sound of a Bavarian

Kuckuck clock, obviously thrown in for good measure because the album was released on the Kuckuck label!

This unknown german artist released this first album in 1971. Deuter is classified as "new age" cause that's what most of his records are. But his two first albums -D and AUM- have nothing to do with insipid relaxation music.

This is psychedelic experimental prog entirely done by the master himself, showing there its great skills as a musician, composer and producer.

The first long piece "Babylon" is crossed by psychedelic guitar, while bass offers a hypnotic and slow rhythmic pattern. Electronic effects and sound illustrations (baby's cry, distorted bell's ring) show the heavy LSD influence. Not surprisingly, the mood is very cerebral and requires to be in a similar state of consciousness than Deuter when composing it, or at least to be very open-minded, in order to fully enjoy it.

The others short pieces use water sound as a rhythmic element and much sitar, also rolling percussion showing there the world, natural side of his music. The last one "Gammastrahlen-Lamm" features cyclical repetitive synthe.

A strange and fascinating record, not to put between all ears.

Widely known as the first new age composer, Georg Deuter started out a s one of the most inventive musician, mixing eastern folk music with electronic sound collage and his first two albums are widely regarded as the equivalent of Tangerine Dream or Klaus Schulze's best works. This stunning debut is the work comes after many trip to Persia and further, to study the music and the philosophies. Those of you aware of Deuter's later New Age works (from 76 onwards), please be aware his first two albums are NOTHING AT ALL like that. And what stunning works they are even if it has not aged all that well. Most of his discography will be released on the legendary Munich-based Kuckuck label, and his records are probably the main reason for this label's long life.

The first side of the album is dominated by an almost 15-min Babylon soundscape that will have you completely charmed as it alternates between Indian classical music and some of the best synth sounds that TD or early Popol Vuh could've dreamed of. The stylus lifts off the wax after the second track, on a repetitive fuzzed out guitar sounds. The other cornerstone from D is the funny but aptly-titled Krishna Eating F&C. If you can resist lighting a doobie while listening to the album, you are probably not made for this type of music. Atlantis, however is much gloomier, just as you'd imagine from the mysterious tales of the lost continent > maybe my fave on the album. The album termites on a short wink to the label.

Surely, some progheads will not appreciate that much the (sometimes self-indulgent) hippy feeling pervading throughout the whole album, and I warn them, that this is VERY MUCH worth the investigation, but make sure you get an ear-load of it before making the investment.

Before turning to something more peaceful, soft and accessible with terribly boring "new age" efforts, Deuter made a name in the krautrock scene with the absolutely marvellous "D", essentially made of extended "tribal", "droning" and noisy improvisations. All tracks provide an ecstatic, glorious and sacred dimension that allows a comparison with the pioneering "Inside of the dream syndicate" and some archetypal psychedelic stuffs from Germany (Cluster at their beginning and Amon Duul at their most experimental moments). "Babylon" is an amazing, freaky composition with bizarre, strange, concrete "manipulated" sounds and fuzzy spacey guitar parts. "Der Turm/Fluchtpunkt" develops a ritual stoned theme always bringing to the fore some fuzzy guitars, tribal percussions and chaotic noises. With its large, cyclical organ sound and its patterns for sitar "Krishna Eating Fish and Chips" is a small interlude dedicated to spiritual music. The last track, "Atlantis" is the pick of Deuter's musical creativity: an intense, abstract dreamscape mixed with tribal, ritual percussions. "Gammastrahlen-Lamm" is a ferocious, dense level of transcendent sounds obtained by organic collages & loops; something nostalgic with ultra psychedelic effects. A progressive rock masterpiece and one the best effort produced during Krautrock's golden years.

EAC extraction logfile from 19. September 2008, 17:38 for CD
Deuter / D

Used drive : IDE-DVD DROM6216 Adapter: 0 ID: 1
Read mode : Secure with NO C2, accurate stream, disable cache
Read offset correction : 738
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No

Used output format : C:\Program Files\FLAC\flac.exe (User Defined Encoder)
256 kBit/s
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "COMMENT=EAC FLAC -8" %s

Other options :
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Installed external ASPI interface

Track 1
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Track 5
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No errors occured

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