Günter Schickert

Günter Schickert dissociates himself from the contents of other profiles on myspace carrying his name in the headline!
This HERE is the only official profile run by Günter himself.
Sorry, folks, still very much of a building site here...only old stuff right now compiled from the net...read here about Günter´s present activities soon.
Though his name barely registers among most of the Krautrock intelligentsia, Schickert was both prolific in the back scenes as well as being an important artist. Along with the better-known Achim Reichel, Schickert pioneered the echo guitar, where the repeated guitar tones create unique multi-layered textures that take the instrument quite beyond the ordinary.
In 1973 Schickert founded the trio GAM, with guitarist Axel Struck and percussionist Michael Aleska, and with Schickert on guitar, vocals and trumpet this group created a unique sort of freaked-out space rock. GAM recorded some jam sessions in 1976, which were finally released on cassette in 1986 titled Gam 1976, and an unreleased album called Eiszeit in 1978.
At this time Schickert was also creating music for a theater company, and even performing live on stage in some of the productions. He also served as a roadie for electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze, and sometimes played live with Schulze as well. Schickert's second solo album, Uberfallig, came out in 1979 on Sky Records, this time with Charles Heuer on drums to augment Schickert's echo guitar textures.
In the 1980s Schickert's work in theater production continued, and he also took part in a couple of bands, No Zen Orchestra and Ziguri Ego Zoo. A third album under his own name, this one a completely solo effort with him on guitar, tapes, vocals, percussion, and trumpet, Kinder der Wildnes, from 1983 only came out on cassette, though it showed that Schickert was expanding into a wider range of musical styles. Another collection, Somnabal, was released in 1995 on CD with music from throughout the decade and a half before that. Though his recordings are few and hard to track down, especially the debut Samtvogel, Schickert is an innovative music creator who deserves more notice. ~ Rolf Semprebon, All Music Guide
Cesar Montesano 8-Sep-2006 Samtvogel
Like an alien mothership landing on your fanny, Gunter Schickert's deep heavy ooze dripping slab of Teutonic electronic bliss through treated mayhem overcomes you. This is probably what it sounded like inside of Jimi Hendrix's brain stem under that LSD-soaked tie-dyed bandana onstage - totally lit and lividly lucid, another planet opens up a searing tunnel through space and time while this sublime album plays on. Heralded as an underground classic for decades, we have "Samtvogel," an indiscriminate spacerocker's fantasy and diamond filled pocket through time and space. Working with overdubbed guitars never came off so thick with effects rife and rich. 'Apricot Brandy*' is a world unto itself wholly. NOTHING SOUNDS LIKE THIS! (*Well, actually, there's an 'Apricot Brandy II' on the followup, "Uberfallig," albeit not actually achieving the same insane headspace as this - very, very nice in it's own right, though.
'Kriegsmaschinen Fahrt Zur Holle (Tr.: War Machines Travel to the Holle)' launches itself *directly* past the stratosphere on its own mission heading directly to the very heart of the cosmos. The takeoff is delayed with a slow churning rise (not to worry, Houston, there is no problem) until it is clear that the ozone has been shucked off and there is nothing left but the growling intensity of careening through outer space. A soundtrack to a movie about being there never gurgled with the resonance of this. It's a long track clocking in at 16:58 which clips into a frenzy of guitar-wall smattering up right against your face creating stubble from the rubble of its rumbling on. Shortly after the first wave of madness comes plucking pizzicato at the speed of some "Music From the Body" over heavenly washes of reverbed vocals. As for what his multiple guitar tracks are doing at this time, ask Steve Tibbetts when he's multiplied by ten. Coming off that crest we get served some spacegroove with the urgent before the clittering-clattering electronic tinkles come in sprinkled liberally enveloping the room with the feeling of being inside a container of boingy-boing tic-tacs shaken about. Don't get me all wrong about the guitar work, some of it is very clean and gentle approximating the sound of folk progressive acts like Hoelderlin and Emtidi without the pastoral effect. Shredding does also play a serious factor in the conclusion as all the notes drop off the face of the sky churning itself back to the big black note it came from.
The other side is a humongous 21:35 opus splattered across every last little groove of this delightful platter. The air feels like Solaris in here, otherworldly and creepy while at the same time dreamy and sleepy. Spelunking over the sea of tranquility is his swansong of the magnitude Loch Ness that is 'Wald (Tr.: Forest).' Draping shimmering leaves of lush eternal electronic green sets adrift on memory wish to the turning of the akashic record. Striking a chord deep in the psyche of humanity, dense with textures, this piece is meditative while laden with universally rich sonorities throughout. Open up the pearly gates, I'm swimming home across the whole thing with this as the soundtrack in my head, dig?
GÃœNTER SCHICKERT
featured releases...
1. Kinder In Der Wildnis (AMC 009) deleted
2. GAM 1976 (AMC 017) c50 now also on CDR reissue
3. Kinder In Der Wildnis (AMCDR 020) 56'27" remastered + bonus
4. GAM 1976 (AMCDR 021) 45'52" remastered
5. Eiszeit (UTCE 002) 42'36"new!
Günter Schickert history
GAM 1976 (Auricle AMC 017) c50
A...
GAM JAM 21'00"
B...
APRICOT BRANDY 12'40"
FUR ELISE... 11'50"
Recorded in Günter's Cellar, Berlin (1976).
Günter Schickert: guitar, vocals, trumpet.
Axel Struck: guitars, vocals.
Michael Leske: drums, percussion.
Kinder In Der Wildnis (Auricle AMCDR 020) CDR
HOLLENTANZ 5'35"
RABE IN DER NACHT 8'58"
ES IST SCHON KURZ VOR 12 6'25"
GUITARRE WLAURNIAM 4'57"
SULEIKA 6'19"
SCHWARZ VOLL WEISS 1'51"
7/5 4'57"
KINDER IN DER WILDNIS 5'37"
HOLLENTANZ reprise 2'35"
POWOLERMAN 4'14" #
SULEIKA reprise 4'50" #
Composed & produced by Günter Schickert.
Recorded in Berlin, Germany (1983).
Original release © 1983 by Günter Schickert & YHR.
Auricle cassette reissue (Auricle AMC 009) © 1987.
# Bonus tracks © 1985, from "A Cage Went In Search Of A Bird".
Renovation & mastering by Alan Freeman at Tachyon Studio (May 2002).
Günter Schickert: guitars, tapes, vocals, percussion, trumpet..
GAM 1976 (Auricle AMCDR 021) CDR
GAM JAM 21'05"
APRICOT BRANDY 12'35"
FUR ELISE UND ALICE 11'55"
Recorded in Günter's Cellar, Berlin (1976).
Remastered by Alan Freeman (13 May 2002).
Günter Schickert: guitar, vocals, trumpet.
Axel Struck: guitars, vocals.
Michael Leske: drums, percussion.
GAM "EISZEIT" (Cosmic Egg UTCE 002)
TROPFSTEIN 3'40"
SEPP OBEN ICH UNTEN 7'40"
GEIGE 4'50"
DEMONS 5'25"
WILDERNESS 5'50"
VERLASS MICH NICHT 6'30"
ICH BIN EIN TEIL 8'20"
Recorded at CCC Studio, Berlin Spandau (1978).
Restored & edited by Alan Freeman (May & December 2002).
Günter Schickert: guitar, vocals, trumpet.
Axel Struck: guitars, vocals.
Michael Leske: drums, percussion.
An album that was almost lost forever. The producer absconded with the mix-down, and the studio mislaid the multi-track tapes, only a first generation cassette survived! You won't believe how good this CD sounds (okay, there are some slight anomalies in the sound effects backing track used on one piece, and a rogue click elsewhere that refused to be removed, but I'm finicky), it's nonetheless a roaring sizzler!
German pioneer of the echo-guitar, renowned for his classics "Samtvogel" and "Überfällig", he also worked with Klaus Schulze (in concert). Günter also ventured in to more explorative Krautrock and developed a style comparable to the early work of Achim Reichel. The GAM trio (Günter Schickert, Axel Struck, and Michael Leske) featured two guitars and drums, and is really freaked-out improvisations recalling the psychedelic space treks of Ash Ra Tempel or Pink Floyd.
Günter Schickert
Samtvogel
Released 1974 on private pressing
Reviewed by achuma, 15/01/2006ce
[Note: I only noticed after writing this that there’s already been a review of this album here, back in 2004, but it’s hardly unknown for different folks to review the same album here and I’d like to add my own perspective to Lugia’s. Reading both reviews back-to-back should give you a pretty good idea of what this album sounds like.]
In the world of experimental echo-guitar music, most of you will know of Manuel Göttsching and latter-day Ash Ra Tempel; if you’re lucky you’ll know the genius of Achim Reichel too. But Günter Schickert should be remembered right up there with them, because his greater obscurity doesn’t at all mean that he had any less creative talent happening. ‘Samtvogel’ was his first album, and probably his best, containing his most out-there and psychically penetrating music. In fact I think it’s a bit of a masterpiece, and although Schickert uses echo guitar as his primary sound generator, he doesn’t really use it in a way similar to the different approaches of Reichel and Göttsching. He produced the album himself, as well as making all the music, and after releasing it as a private pressing, he was picked up by an interested Brain who re-released it in 1975, and again a few years later with a different cover.
Now, this is a highly intriguing and enjoyable tripped-out album regardless of whether you’re out of your tree or not, but to get the most out of it (pun not intended, but worth leaving in!), some kind of psychedelic sacrament will of course make a big difference, and allow you to keep track of more of the multilayered textures and sonic events that will be unravelling across your synapses should you be lucky enough to find a copy of this album. But I wouldn’t tell you to break the law, folks, now would I? All the same, this whole album has the feel of taking acid alone on a rainy, overcast day and gazing out the window whilst disassociating into a deep shamanic journey.
‘Apricot Brandy’ [6:05] is a track that Schickert would re-explore later with his group GAM, and also on his second album, ‘Überfällig’. Here, though, it’s at its most spaced-out, with the structure – basically one tentative guitar riff and a string of lyrics – more restrained and abstract than either later version. Opening with the signature three note riff over which a simple melody is repeated, with Günter lazily oozing out the lyrics sounding a bit like Holger Czukay in a semi-spoken/whispered drawl. This repeats and repeats, slowly building in subtle layers of fragile weirdness, before the lyrics and melody float away in a light breeze and the structure just disappears in a mist of fractured sounds echoing around the inside of your skull. Chiming echo guitar strums enter and set up a glassy pathway which carries it all, the lyrics and vocal sounds re-entering and now hard to decipher even if you speak German I’d imagine, and then it concludes with a minimum of fuss.
‘Kriegsmaschinen, Fahrt Zur Hölle’ [16:40] concludes side 1 and is broken into four parts, not that it’s clear where the divisions are – a) ‘Komm Doch in Meine Fabrik’, b) ‘Sagt der Personalchef’, c) ‘Kriegsmaschinen Bau’n’ and d) ‘Dafür Gibt’s das Meiste Geld’. It begins as a wash of droning echo guitar fades in and out, hovering in the background ominously, as electronic tones and shimmering layers of treated guitar herald some alien energy field descending over your now prone and immobile body. This otherworldly soundscape makes me feel like I’ve been abducted by aliens who are now casually examining and passing over me with their strange instruments, taking notes and acting like I’m not even there, but there’s no fear, just a dazed, paralysed acceptance of this bizarre procedure. Soon they’re probing deeper and deeper (and painlessly) into brain tissue, tunnelling out new pathways straight into the pineal gland, as the layered guitars echo and throb, ever changing, creating complex lattices of sound that are both pleasurable and unsettling, as disembodied voices occasionally waft in and out in ür-speak chanting. Somehow the whole thing manages to maintain an air of sustained suspense that gives the feeling that you’re being taken somewhere that may or may not be where you’d like to go, but hell, you’ll hang in there and make the journey anyway, because the sight-seeing sure is interesting along the way, and it’s not like you have a choice in the matter. Even as the now-thick layers are stripped away and it all shifts into another different level, though still floating on guitar, the suspense and ominous portent remain, the chants continue to wash in and out unobtrusively like a shaman intoning protective spells over your journeying spirit, the whole psychedelic operation swelling and subsiding like waves of a cosmic storm. It’s restrained but unrelenting in its continuous onward plod, with layers of sound cascading all around but skimming over one droning groove. Suddenly the guitars start clashing and climbing to a frenzied climax, and for a while it seems like something’s gone wrong in the alien brain tinkering, is the operation out of control? Will the specimen enter psychic meltdown? But the technicians whip it back into equilibrium just in time, the human’s mind and spirit becomes stable as “hello, hello, hello” echoes in your ears as though spoken from across the room through an ether haze, and the oscillations of some healing machine pass over you a few times to restore normalcy so you can get up to turn the record over.
‘Wald’ [21:26] takes up the whole of side 2, and as you’d expect it is a deep and through journey into the mind every bit as much as side 1, and perhaps even more so. Fading in sounding quite similar to the start of the previous track, you’d wonder how much further Günter could possibly take things with just his guitar, voice and echo devices, but this guy is a constant source of surprises, and ‘Wald’ quickly enters its own cyber-mind realm. Intersecting lines of echo guitar lay down rung after rung in an interstellar ladder that is unfolding in front of us, as you glide into a tunnel of smooth shards of light. However just as you get close it all falls away, as a crystalline (echoed, of course) guitar riff enters as though having existed for eternity and carries us on a soft flight into heavenly skies. But it’s not all roses and sunshine, the cold shards from before are still following beneath the waters, and occasionally waft in and out of view, but now dark and ominous and threatening like lurking cyborg sharks, lending a shudderingly intriguing feel of paranoid melancholy to it all, as the dark and light intertwine and become entangled, eventually resolving into a unified structure but still being threatened by ever-darker washes of more alien droning guitar armies. Layers come into being and melt away like ghosts, as ‘Wald’ burrows deeper and deeper into the furthest recesses of your mind, aching with beauty and sadness but striving ever onwards with faith in its own inner strength and resolve. This pays off, as the layers are etched away and banished with a repeated simple guitar riff that fades into an echo loop, itself fading into a return of the crystalline guitar from before. So the journey’s not over yet, but reprieve is in sight, and despite the still-present ominous shifting undercurrent, the positive element is now more charged and confident, pretty but with chain-mail armour and a sword of blinding light. Android seek-and-kill drones shimmer darkly as they pass by closer and closer, hovering alongside, trying and failing to find a chink in the crystal lattice that has been built up around your core as you dive onward to your destination. As you get there, the threat falls away like so many harmless shadows in the night and the briefly played theme from ‘Apricot Brandy’ tells you you’re home again, and stronger for it.
Sadly there’s no CD reissue of this album yet, and it currently dwells in that same netherworld as Achim Reichel’s ‘Echo’ (and other albums of his that, whilst existing at one time or another on CD [unlike ‘Echo’], legitimately or not, are nevertheless currently unavailable or at least near-impossible to obtain on CD) waiting for someone to lavish upon it the reissue attention it so richly deserves.
Günter Schickert - Samtvogel - Though Schickert's second album Uberfällig (from 1980) has been available on CD for some time, Samtvogel, originally issued on Brain in 1974, remains unavailable. Too bad, as it's a milestone of minimalist Krautrock guitar, with cyclical, hypnotic phrasing, similar to the work of Achim Reichel and Manuel Gottsching's Inventions for Electric Guitar album. If anything, Samtvogel is darker, more psychedelic and less plodding in its repetitions than the Gottsching album. This is a must for Krautrock fans, and way overdue for remaster/reissue. [Kriegsmaschinen Fahrt zur Holle mp3]
[Source: WFMU´s Beware of the Blog : Adventures in the NWW List, Part 5
http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2006/01/adventures_in_t_1.html ]
Günter Schickert
aus: Deutschland
Bemerkungen
Günter Schickert stammt aus dem Umfeld der Berliner Elektronik-Schule. Mitte der 70er Jahre arbeitet er mit Klaus Schulze zusammen, als Roadie und technischer Assistent und war an verschiedenen Projekten (z.B. den von Schulze produzierten Alben der Far East Family Band) als Tontechniker beteiligt. Schon 1973 hatte er eine eigene Band gerundet, das Trio GAM (nach den Anfangsbuchstaben der Vornamen der drei Mitglieder: Günter Schickert, Axel Struck und Michael Aleska). Einige GAM-Aufnahmen, Demos für eine projektierte aber nie verwirklichte LP, erschienen erst 1986 ("GAM 1976").
1974 brachte Schickert sein erstes Solo-Album "Samtvogel" im Eigenverlag heraus. Ein Jahr später wurde es von Brain/Metronome wiederveröffentlicht. Erst 5 Jahre später spielte Schickert, unterstützt vom Schlagzeuger Charles M. Heuer ein zweites Album ein, welches 1980 von Sky-Records veröffentlicht wurde ("Überfällig"). Seither hat Schickert nichts mehr von sich hören lassen. 1998 wurde "Überfällig" auch auf CD veröffentlicht. "Samtvogel" wartet bis heute auf eine digitale Neuveröffentlichung.
(Achim Breiling)
Alle besprochenen Veröffentlichungen von Günter Schickert
Jahr Titel
1975 Samtvogel
1980 Überfällig
Überfällig
Informationen
Allgemeine Angaben
Erscheinungsjahr: 1980 (CD-Reissue 1998, MI Records / Green Tree Records)
Besonderheiten/Stil: Elektronische Musik; Krautrock
Label: Sky Records
Besetzung
Günter Schickert Gitarren, Stimme
Gastmusiker
Charles M. Heuer Schlagwerk, Stimme
Tracklist
Disc 1
1. Puls 14:39
2. In der Zeit 5:10
3. Apricot Brandy II 11:50
4. Wanderer 9:53
Gesamtlaufzeit 41:32
Rezensionen
Von: Achim Breiling @
Wenn man sich Cover und Titel der zweiten LP von Günter Schickert betrachtet, könnte man - auch wegen des Erscheinungsjahres - vermuten, dass es auf "Überfällig" irgendwelchen Deutschrock zu hören gibt. Mit dieser Einschätzung würde man allerdings ziemlich daneben liegen. Es gibt hier zwar einige Texte auf Deutsch, doch hallen diese meist gesprochenen Einlagen eher unauffällig im Hintergrund herum. Im Vordergrund steht krautig-elektronische Musik, die fest in der Tradition der Berliner Schule verwurzelt ist.
Schickert stammt aus dem Umfeld von Klaus Schulze, für den er Mitte der 70er als Roadie und Tontechniker tätig war. Schon vorher (1973) hatte er das Trio GAM (nach den Anfangsbuchstaben der Vornamen der drei Mitglieder: Günter Schickert, Axel Struck und Michael Aleska) gegründet, von dem aber erst posthum (1986) einige Aufnahmen auf Tonträger erschienen sind. 1974 nahm Schickert sein erstes, bis dato nicht auf CD erschienenes Album "Samtvogel" auf, mit dem er seinen auch auf "Überfällig" zu findenden Stil definierte. Auf beiden Alben ist eine Art von kosmisch-elektronischer Gitarrenmusik zu finden, in der Schickert unzählige E-Gitarrenlinien übereinander schichtet und diese als Grundlage für weitere, gedehnte, jaulende und hallende Gitarrenausflüge verwendet. Das Ganze erinnert an die "Echogitarrenmusik" der frühen Soloalben von Achim Reichel ("Echo", 1972), an Manuel Göttschings Gitarrensoloalbum "Inventions for electric guitar" oder gelegentlich auch an die gitarrenlastigeren Stücke von Heldon.
Im Vergleich zum ganz im Alleingang eingespielten "Samtvogel" ist die Musik auf "Überfällig" etwas härter und kerniger ausgefallen, fast maschinell ("Puls"), obwohl es auch einige sehr entspannte Tongemälde gibt ("In der Zeit", der Anfang von "Apricot Brandy II"). Zu den repetetiv dahinwabernden und fließenden Gitarrenklängen kommen zudem verschiedenste Tonbandeinspielungen (Wasserplätschern, Kinderstimmen, Meeresrauschen, Vogelgezwitscher etc.), das vorantreibende Schlagzeug von Charles M. Heuer und die oben schon erwähnten Vokaleinlagen. Dieselben sind meist mit viel Hall und Echo versehene Textrezitationen, bzw. eher unauffälliger Sprechgesang (in "In der Zeit"), die geschickt in das hallende, auf- und abschwellende Klanggefüge eingebunden sind.
"Überfällig" ist ein tolles Album mit sehr intensiver und abwechslungsreicher Musik, die auf gelungene Weise das Erbe der deutschen Krautelektroniker ins neue Jahrzehnt hinübertransportiert. Dazu kommt eine sehr druckvolle und glasklare Produktion. Wer die weiter oben aufgeführten Musiker und Gruppen schätzt, der sollte nicht ohne dieses Album sein!
Gunter Schickert
Samtvogel
Released 1975 on Brain
Reviewed by Lugia, 04/01/2004ce
Gunter Schickert: "Samtvogel"
Brain 1080, recorded June-Sept 1974, released 1975
Tracks:
1) Apricot Brandy - 6:06
2) Kriegsmaschinen, fahrt zur Hölle - 16:58
3) Wald - 21:35
Coming as late in the Brain catalog as this does, one might be tempted upon seeing a listing for it to dismiss it as some Deutsch Proggy thing or some of the scary metal that Brain sometimes turned out. But one look at the jacket dispels this, as you're greeted with this sort of "I saw this on the back of my eyelids while telepathically communicating with Planet Zg" drawing that might be more at home on some International Artists thing.
What this is, in a sense, is an album that might be considered to be the Evil Twin of Manuel Gottsching's "Inventions for Rock Guitar". Whereas Gottsching offers up a minimalistic and kosmische shimmer of corruscating guitar and delay multitracking, Gunter Schickert takes more or less the same apparatus and creates a soundtrack to some sort of lysergic bummer-trip. Not that that's a BAD thing, mind you...
The whole thing begins with some beatnik-like and seemingly-innocuous jazz-guitar noodly bits, until the echo-warpo vocal starts with something about "...a shot...of apricot brandy...". With something other than apricots in it, I would gather, as the track slowly vectors into weirder turf, and the pulsy mechano-delay loops that characterize later parts drift in and out among the psuedo-Les Paul on an ether binge-sort of lounge noodles. You get the definite feeling from this that things are going to head off in a very strange direction.
And they do. The next track, "Kriegsmaschinen, fahrt zur Hölle" ("War machines, go to hell") starts right off on the right sort of wrong foot, with heavily-pulsing delays and this sort of dark, mechanistic "chicka-chicka-chicka-chicka" playing that builds and ebbs and builds again in sometimes-consonant, but also sometimes-dissonant layers of overdubbing. Then it drops into this oppressive-yet-ethereal zone of delay, volume pedal tinkerage, little sequential bits building...and then out of this this Terry Riley-meets-NEU! pulse-matrix of guitar layers gets going at a pretty good clip, with voices and odd twangy repeating bits drifting in and out of the woodwork. Out of this, we get dropped into the 'song' part of this, with Schickert intoning "Komm' doch in mein Fabrik/Sag't der Personalchef" in a filtered echoed monotone. VERY creepy ambience to this...definitely not a 'kosmische' affair, but something that takes the kosmische sonic vocabulary and zangs it off in a direction that's almost proto-industrial. This, folks, is definitely an excusion on the dark side. No spacy kosmische overtones here, but something looking toward a different sort of 'psi-fi'; this would make good background music for some William Gibson-esque sort of dystopic futurist fiction, methinks. The whole thing gradually degenerates into dissonant loops, fragments, with that incessant guitar pulse underneath until...voila!...we're plunged thru an overdubbed raveup and then dropped into some sort of chasm of echo-box feedback and tape-speed tinkering as Schickert's voice pops in one last time saying "...Hölle...". Welcome to Hell, and end side one. Whoo...
"Wald" ("Forest") picks up where we left off, with the pulse-layering from the latter part of side 1 in predominance. This waxes and wanes for a bit, and then Schickert starts working with little looping patterns, dropping out of machine-mode for a bit, and slowly adding in layers of washed-in bendy chords. But it's still a dark affair, and even though what's going on is awfully pretty, it's also got a mood of foreboding to it. This forest seems to be one out of those scary Brothers Grimm stories. Werewolves lurking herein, perhaps. Tense. Especially tense as those mechano-pulse layers start intruding in washes and blocks, like some sort of attacking machinery bent on trashing what tranquility was there. The eeriness takes over toward the end, with tense "Twilight Zone" type figures phasing out...then in...then out...then back to the thematic echoed bits...and the machines attack once more...then more phasing...and then just for a final mindfuck, we're back to the jazzy-noodly-loungy part where we all came in. Looped all the back 'round the start of the trip. Turn over, begin again.
Those expecting vast expanses of spatial waaaaaah....nuh-uh. Not here. Overall, it's a claustrophobic sort of affair, very bad-triplike. But note that I'm not saying that this is BAD. Instead, "Samtvogel" is a sonic chart of the dark side of in-head amusement, definitely coming from the same psychological turf as what Pink Floyd was exploring at around the same time with "Wish You Were Here", but using a very different musical vocabulary to explore those zones. And as far as Schickert's playing goes, it's a one-man tour-de-force for what you can do with only a Fender Jazzmaster (or Jaguar? the pic on the back sleeve is a little dark to tell) and some cheap (these days) multitracks and echo boxes. Just to hear the variety of timbres that he coaxes out of the instrument alone is worth the price of admission, but the whole hauntedness of the affair, the ominous machine-pulses, the echoing creepiness...it's gravy! One of those great albums for a really dark stormy scary night, which isn't something you can often say about Krautrock.