How does it feel to be on your own? Sifting through the rubble, bringing up the dead, reassembling history from below.
"Archangels Thunderbird," Amon Duul II (1970)
Classic riff rock from Germany, 1970; lady singer, Renate Knaup, caterwauling dark gothic prophecies. Amon Duul ii emerged out of a post-'68 Berlin art commune, and are often initially confused (or by non-Germans, anyway) with Amon Duul, a competing splinter group from the original commune (who actually didn't start recording until after Amon Duul ii had already recorded several albums) and by most accounts are mediocre at best. At any rate, Amon Duul ii's album Yeti is stone-cold classic Krautrock. Histrionic pirates on sonic prog adventures into riffology, pastoral landscapes, and free rock music racket. And, likewise, their first album, Phallus Dei (1969), is an experimental rock juggernaut.
(Original Amon Duul ii's bassist, Dave Anderson, joined Hawkwind for 1971's In Search of Space.)
"Quark, Strangeness, & Charm & Uncle Sam's on Mars" and "Spirit of The Age," Hawkwind (1977)
The droning riff-ology of late-classic, stoner-boogie, proto-punk missing link, Hawkwind Space rock.
Robert Calvert can't really sing but he can do a mock-cabaret Bowie-esque sneer w/ diverting, apocalyptic charm: "Uncle Sam's on Mars," while people around here can't find enough to eat.
"Where's the action, where's the light"?! The kids are NOT alright but they want to know!
It's 1977. (Budding punk rockers taking notes.) Survivors of the counter culture driven to riotous interstellar overdrive; the religion of rocking out as its own reward. Boldly go where you were "born to go"; outta here (outta your inner space), into outer space, centered by a compulsively throbbing bass charging straight into the sun, chant, chant, into the "Spirit of the Age."
"Quark, Strangeness, & Charm & Uncle Sam's on Mars"--
"Spirit of the Age"--
Denouement: La Monte Young, "Composition 1960 No. 7"--
