His name may be less known in Germany, but in France’s music scene Michel Geiss is a solid institution. And this is not only due to his long-standing collaboration with Jean-Michel Jarre. As a sound designer, arranger, studio and stage musician, producer and sound engineer, he was involved in most of Jean-Michel Jarre’s projects from 1976 to 1995. The credit list of artists (more…)
Foto: Fotodesign Gerd Dollhopf
“I had a nightmare boogie one last night / I dreamed I was trapped in a hall full of golden discs / Somebody said to me: *Which one is yours?* / And I had to confess I hadn`t got one”.
The nightmare Kevin Coyne describes in his song “Having a Party” (1978) was real. During his lifetime, the English musician, (more…)
EARTHSTAR was an interesting project of the US musician Craig Wuest. The band was assigned to the genre of electronic music and ambient. Although the musicians came from Utica/N.Y. a lot of journalists and fans called their style “Krautrock”.
The band outed itself as an ardent admirer of this music genre as well, especially of German electronic artists like Neu, Cluster, Roedelius (more…)
In 1973 OMAR & THE HOWLERS were founded in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, by guitarist and vocalist Omar Dykes, Shortly after the musicians moved to Austin, Texas. However, the band disbanded because some members felt they could not make a living from music. But Omar decided to stay in Austin and looked for new feloow musicians. With “Big Leg Beat” the first longplayer was (more…)
Good news for all fans of German progressive rock: This fall M.i.G. will be releasing the complete recordings of the Cologne based band SATIN WHALE. The musical retrospective includes all studio albums from 1974 to 1982 in the first box set. The second box set includes the soundtrack “Die Faust In Der Tasche” (1979, starring Manfred Krug and Ursula Monn), the live double (more…)
Welcome To ELECTRONIC PIONEERS
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Giuseppe Banfi, aka Baffo Banfi, former keyboardist of Italian Progressive Rockband Un Biglietto per l’Inferno, started a solo career; using the name J.B. Banfi; in 1978 with the album “Galaxcy My Dear”, which was released on the Italian Milan based Red Records label. Baffos musical style is deeply inspired by the visionary sounds of Cosmic electronic music, the “Berliner Schule”, and artists like (more…)
… Yes! Chronologically and geographically GATE has to be classified there. The music was experimental, but not focus on improvisations. Complex, often tricky, hardly danceable, but always strictly arranged, even in solos few/no free spaces. And the band had nothing in mind with electronics. In July 1976 GATE recorded one of their concerts in the Wuppertal “Börse” and offered the tapes – for (more…)
“Paratyphus B”, originally released in 1973 on the German Spiegelei label, is best known for its innovative fusion of jazz, funk and rock, with Urbaniak’s distinctive violin playing in the focus. “Inactin”, also released a few months later on Spiegelei, shows the band at their best with its unique style that combines jazz, funk, fusion and world music. Both albums are of great (more…)
Foto: Volker Beinhorn
Critics in the early 1970s called Gil Scott-Heron the most important Black voice since Martin Luther King Jr. and described him as a black Bob Dylan. “His poetry is with much muscle, with stiletto humor, with street talk, much of it justifiably angry and accurate,” the New York Times wrote in 1975, marveling at the angry man from the Bronx. No (more…)