VA - Kraut!: OST-KRAUT! - Progressives aus den DDR-Archiven (1970-1982) @ Flac

After the great success of the four-part double CD edition 'KRAUT! The Innovative Years of Krautrock, 1968 - 1979' on Bear Family Records®, it was obvious to honour the progressive music of the GDR for the first time with a similarly elaborate release!

Admittedly, this series is a bit of a misnomer - the term 'Kraut' was completely uncommon in the GDR music scene, just as 'rock' was still dubbed 'beat' there until the mid-1970s. 

However, since about 1970 - and largely unnoticed in the West - many GDR groups played extremely 'progressive' music under this label. Since artists and bands in the GDR had to pass a state aptitude test before they were allowed to earn money with their music, the pioneers of GDR prog often came directly from the music academy - with corresponding craftsmanship. The often sympathetic dilettantism of Western colleagues of the early '70s was an alien phenomenon to them.

 In those days, live concerts developed into a real competition between bands to play songs from progressive Western idols like Colosseum, Yes or Emerson, Lake & Palmer faithfully down to the last syncopation - whereby the socialist brother countries, especially Poland and the CSSR, also provided important impulses for the GDR scene. Despite all this, no band in the GDR called itself progressive at the time, if only because the term was otherwise occupied by state cultural policy. In 1970, for example, the youth radio station of the GDR's German Broadcasting Corporation tried to sell Ludwig van Beethoven and Ernst Busch to its listeners as the true progressives - in clear demarcation from the western rock underground, which was defamed as a ploy of the capitalist music industry. These were the last offshoots of a cultural policy from above that had banished almost the entire, then still young GDR beat scene into the underground by the end of 1965.

In contrast to their GDR colleagues, the musicians in socialist brother countries like Hungary, Poland and the CSSR did not suffer from a beat ban in the sixties - their technical and stylistic advantage was now correspondingly considerable. This did not go unnoticed by the music producers at the radio station and at AMIGA, the GDR's only - and of course state-owned - record company for underground music. Some of the recordings on this compilation provide examples of the 'development aid' of groups and performers from the Eastern Bloc given to the GDR scene, especially in the first half of the 1970s. They often re-recorded their successful songs from their home countries in German, which - as you can clearly hear - they sometimes knew more and sometimes less. 

The first part of the edition 'Ost-Kraut! - Progressives aus den DDR-Archiven' (East Kraut! - Progressives from the GDR Archives) brings together on two CDs the crème de la crème of the rock scene of the GDR and the then socialist foreign countries with recordings for AMIGA and the Deutsche Rundfunkarchiv (DRA). All the titles were recorded between 1970 and 1975 and were stylishly compiled by journalist and East German rock connoisseur Marcus Heumann. The history of progressive rock in the GDR is vividly reflected in the 80-page accompanying book with numerous illustrations, photos and biographies of the bands and musicians.

This small series is not intended to be a 'best of' compilation. Bear Family Records® documents what happened in official, media-present GDR rock off the mainstream by means of well-known tunes and some rarities from the German Broadcasting Archive that have never been released on record before.

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VA - Ost-Kraut! - Progressives aus den DDR-Archiven 1970-1975 (2022)

Teil 1 CD 1

 1. Peter Holten-Septett - Weiter, Weiter  (4:24)

 2. Wir - Zeit  (6:29)

 3. Skaldowie - Kennst du das nicht (Czasem kochac chesz)  (5:12)

 4. Bayon - Input  (5:02)

 5. Czerwone Gitary - Wachsein im Dunkel  (5:28)

 6. Ekkehard Sander-Septett - Kein Märchen  (4:43)

 7. Puhdys - Steige nicht auf einen Baum  (5:07)

 8. Joco-Dev-Sextett - Stapellauf (Erstfassung)  (3:28)

 9. Pavol Hammel & Prúdy - Schluss mit dem Märchen  (3:47)

 10. Uve Schikora und seine Gruppe - Deine Augen  (7:32)

 11. Bürkholz-Formation - Sei kein Vulkan  (4:14)

 12. Omega - Zerbrechlicher Schwung  (4:17)

 13. Breakout - Ich hab die Sonne (Na dnie mych oczu)  (3:57)

 14. Collegium Musicum - Hommage à Johann Sebastian Bach  (7:57)

Teil 1 CD 2

 1. Electra - Tritt ein in den Dom  (10:14)

 2. Die Nautiks - Wir gehen am Meer  (3:18)

 3. Lift - Roter Stein  (3:28)

 4. The Blue Effect - Clara  (4:18)

 5. Klaus Renft Combo - Was mir fehlt  (4:06)

 6. Kati Kovács und Juventus - Wind, komm, bring den Regen her (Add Már Uram Az Esöt)  (2:55)

 7. Panta Rhei - Gib dir selber eine Chance  (8:52)

 8. Hungaria - Die Farben der Natur  (4:31)

 9. Skaldowie - Ein ferner Punkt (Jak znikajacy punkt)  (6:40)

 10. Set - Eisen  (2:13)

 11. Illés - Hier stand die Sonne hoch  (3:38)

 12. Klosterbrüder & Stern-Combo Meißen - Gedanken an Fusion: Aktivität  (7:00)

 13. Jürgen Kerth - Nacht unterwegs  (4:15)

 14. Modern Soul-Septett - Sagen  (3:05)

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VA - Ost-Kraut! - Progressives aus den DDR-Archiven 1976-1982 (2022)

Progressive rock from the German Democratic Republic! Never before has the GDR scene been so extensively honored with studio and live recordings.

Bear Family Records documents what was happening in GDR rock away from the mainstream by means of well-known rarities and some never before released on record.

'Progressives from GDR Archives' collects on a total of four CDs the cream of the rock scene of the GDR and socialist foreign countries at that time with recordings for AMIGA and the German Radio Archive (DRA). 

The tracks on this second and final installment were recorded between 1976 and 1982 and were stylishly compiled by journalist and East rock connoisseur Marcus Heumann. 

Recordings by the Stern-Combo Meissen, City, electra or Lift are just some of the many highlights of this double CD. 

While the first volume covers the history of progressive rock music in the GDR between 1970 and 1975, the second part deals with the period from 1976 to 1982.

The second half of the 1970s and the early 1980s see the AMIGA concept albums of the Stern-Combo Meissen ('Weißes Gold', 'Reise zum Mittelpunkt des Menschen'), electra's one-and-a-half LP side-filling homage to the Sixtinische Madonna, the fifteen-minute art and jazz rock synthesis Meeresfahrt by LIFT and, of course, City's mega hit Am Fenster, which also stormed the charts in Western Germany and Greece, among other places. 

Certainly inspired by the legendary Tangerine Dream show at the Palast der Republik in 1980 and its release on an AMIGA LP, a new genre of music developed, which in the GDR was labeled 'electronics' by the media. 

This meant instrumental tracks that were composed and performed - using exclusively electronic instruments - mostly by a single artist. 

Often the concepts of these (mostly overlong) compositions were created during months of tinkering in private and home studios of musicians, which became more and more established - much to the suspicion of the monopolists radio and records. 

In 1982, AMIGA released Reinhard Lakomy's 'Das geheime Leben', the first 'electronics' LP, followed by others in the years that followed. 

The spillover of the New German Wave into the GDR (labeled there as 'New Dance Music') led to stylistic uncertainty and hectic lineup changes for many formerly progressive bands starting in 1982. 

Progressive rock music in the last five years of the GDR took place almost exclusively in the musical underground or semi-legal gray areas, as part of a scene that was eventually dubbed 'The Other Bands' by the media and - carefully filtered - also produced and broadcast in nightly niche programs. 

The second part of the edition 'Ost-Kraut - Progressive Kost aus DDR-Archiven' gathers on 2 CDs the crème of the then rock scene from the GDR and the former socialist foreign countries with recordings for AMIGA and the Deutsche Rundfunkarchiv (DRA). 

All titles were recorded between 1976 and 1982 and have been stylishly and competently compiled by East rock connoisseurs Marcus Heumann and Christian Reder. 

 Teil 2  CD 1 

 1. Magdeburg - Alte Bänder  (4:24)

 2. Wir - Der Eisberg  (4:49)

 3. Stern-Combo Meißen - Der Alte  (4:57)

 4. Bayon - Haus der Kindheit  (4:07)

 5. Karat - Das Monster  (4:35)

 6. SBB - 2.10  (2:08)

 7. Prinzip - Sieben Meter Seidenband  (4:27)

 8. Passion - Morgendämmerung/Herzallerliebstes Mädel  (7:09)

 9. Kleeblatt - Kinderlied  (7:05)

 10. Zoe-Band - Himalaja  (5:42)

 11. City - Der Tätowierte (Single-Version)  (4:08)

 12. Karussell - Entweder oder  (6:14)

 13. Electra - Einmal unsichtbar sein  (5:46)

 14. Modern Soul Band - Meeting  (6:34)

  Teil 2  CD 2 

 1. Pond - Planetenwind  (4:03)

 2. Stern-Combo Meißen - Licht in das Dunkel (Studioversion)  (7:56)

 3. Reform - Stadtgesicht  (7:17)

 4. City - Aus der Ferne  (5:13)

 5. Bernd Dewét & Horst Krüger-Band - Der Rock'n'Roll King aus dem Thüringer Wald  (3:42)

 6. Jürgen Kerth - Auf die alten Tage  (5:33)

 7. Bayon - Ouvertüre aus "Die Schlacht / Der Traktor"  (8:10)

 8. Transit - Sturmflut  (5:26)

 9. Lift - Große Landschaft  (6:07)

 10. Gong - Mammon  (4:59)

 11. Stern-Combo Meißen - In den Kosmos  (4:56)

 12. Dina Straat & Kleeblatt - Drachenfliegen  (4:01)

 13. Reform - Rock 'n' Roll  (3:44)

 14. 4 PS - Träume wie Segel  (7:31)

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