Brain

German Rock Music in the sixties and seventies was by and large a mirror image of what American or British bands were doing, some good, some not so good. But the times were a’ changing and a different wind was blowing…..and soon a “different music” was coming to the surface from the underground, a music we now commonly refer to as KRAUTROCK.
Pioneering in this new “genre” during those “heady” days, was a label founded by Günter Körber and Bruno Wendel, who also worked for the Metronome label at the time, in 1972. The now legendary “Green Brain” label was launched and soon became the outlet for some of the best artists and music to come out of Germany in the seventies and well in to the eighties. Groundbreaking and influential bands that inspired today’s electronica like NEU! HARMONIA, CLUSTER, KLAUS SCHULZE as well as Progrock bands like GROBSCHNITT, NOVALIS and JANE all found a home on Brain. The label policy was diversity, as “fusion” bands like EMBRYO, GURU GURU, RELEASE MUSIC ORCHESTRA etc were also exposed to a new public. Hard Rock was also not ignored, the very first release, BRAIN 1001 was “Lonesome Crow” the first album from THE SCORPIONS !
Today, 25 years later, the music released on Brain still stands the test of time and is about to see CD re-issues, some for the very first time.
ENJOY LISTENING TO YOUR BRAIN!
Join US SPV USA
Click On the Album To Buy!!!
BIO's
EMBRYO – Steig Aus CD (Revisited/Brain)
Founded by Christian Burchard (drums, marimba, vibraphone) and still going strong almost 38 years later, Embryo are an excellent example of fusion music from 1973 and further demonstrate the vision of diversity the Brain label founders had. Aided by Dave King and Joerg Evers on bass, the famous Mal Waldron on electric piano, Roman Bunka on guitar, Jimmy Jackson on organ and Mellotron and Edgar Hoffmann on violin, Steig Aus is built of 3 long and wonderful tracks. Steig Aus is another “must own” record, not only for Krautrock collectors but for lovers of fine music in general.
EPITAPH – Epitaph CD (Revisited/Brain)
In the early/mid seventies, the German and English Rock band Epitaph was one of the “big ones” in the German Rock Business. Their feeling for good and irresistible melodies paired with powerful Rock soon made them a name to be reckoned with. Comparisons to their Anglo-Saxon idols like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep soon vanished with their own style and panache delivered on their 1971 debut album, Epitaph. Of particular note is the impressive ability and musicianship of the individual band members, giving this record a memorable and lasting presence.
EROC – Eroc 1 CD (Revisited/Brain)
Eroc 1 is the first solo album from Grobschnitt’s drummer and knob-twiddler extraordinaire Eroc, first released in 1975. Also known as Joachim Heinz Ehrig, he later became famous for his hit Wolkenreise from Eroc 3. This first outing is full of electronic effects and musical cut ups which Eroc created for the opulent and fantastic live shows Grobschnitt was famous for. At times sound collages but for the most part beautiful and harmonious instrumental pieces, which technical wizard Eroc turned in to clever gems. This definitive Brain reissue contains many never before released bonus tracks which because of previously existing time restraints of the album format are now finally available.
EROC – Eroc 2 CD (Revisited/Brain)
This is the second solo album from Grobschnitt’s drummer and knob-twiddler extraordinaire Eroc. Also known as Joachim Heinz Ehrig, he later became famous for his hit Wolkenreise from Eroc 3. Originally released in 1976, Eroc 2 is very much a follow up and continuation of Eroc’s talent for creative experimentation and musical adventurism. This reissue contains many never before released bonus tracks which because of previously existing time restraints of the album format are now finally available.
EROC – Eroc 3 CD (Revisited/Brain)
Eroc 3 is the third solo album from Grobschnitt’s drummer and knob-twiddler extraordinaire Eroc, originally released in 1979. Also known as Joachim Heinz Ehrig, he later became famous for his hit Wolkenreise from this album.
Eroc about this album: “Eroc 3 was a compromise. I didn’t have much time for my own stuff back then, because my band Grobschnitt meant a great deal of work in the late seventies. I put together everything I had done so far, added a number of souvenirs from my musical past and assembled Eroc 3 overnight. What I didn’t know was that this album was to sell ten times more that any other of my albums and that the Wunderreise Of The Wolkenkönig (later abbreviated to Wolkenreise) was to gain a huge momentum which completely changed my career. Wolkenreise became a huge hit and all of a sudden millions of people knew the song!”
EROC – Eroc 4 CD (Revisited/Brain)
Eroc 4 is the fourth solo album from Grobschnitt’s drummer and knob-twiddler extraordinaire Eroc, originally released in 1979. Also known as Joachim Heinz Ehrig, he had become famous for his hit Wolkenreise from the previous Eroc 3.
Eroc about this album: “Eroc 4 was laid back. Grobschnitt had become established as a band, the last few releases had brought us the appreciation we had long been fighting for. The fact that about one hundred thousand people attended our concerts every year showed us that we were on the right track. Apart from it, the huge success of Wolkenreise had made my life a lot easier. Most of the tracks and some of the bonus tracks of this album were conceived in a small house on the island Fanø to which I had transported a 16-track recorder as well as all my instruments for a couple of months, allowing me to spend one of the greatest times of my life in the mid-eighties there. I used to live with the light of the day and sleep with the quiet of the night. That was it and I didn’t need anything else.”
GURU GURU – Guru Guru CD (Revisited/Brain)
Founded by drummer Mani Neumeier, this is their 4th release in their classic album series and was originally released in 1973. Most music critics did not quite know what to make of the first 3 albums, which were a mix of psychedelic rock, free jazz and a healthy dose of humour, unclassifiable and great. This fantastic album is no exception and is one of the most important in the ongoing history of Guru Guru. The Rock’n’Roll medley on this disc gives a hint as to how much fun this band was and is live and also contains the unforgettable musical earworm Der Elektrolurch, which became Mani’s alter ego and is a classic in its own right. Produced by Guru Guru and Conny Plank.
JANE – Jane III CD (Revisited/Brain)
The excellent band Jane, from Hannover, made quite a splash on the international scene and was discovered by Brain founder Günter Körber. On this, their third outing originally released in 1974, the band delivers unusually raw songs. But despite the missing keyboards, Jane III disseminates an almost unbelievable and hard to explain mythical fascination, which emanated from a lot of the groups in the seventies. Through the instrumentation of two guitars, bass & drums and the (typical for Jane) slow and brooding tempo, Jane III sounds especially timeless compared to their other releases.
NOVALIS – Novalis CD (Revisited/Brain)
The real big breakthrough for these Romantic-Rockers from Hamburg came actually with their third album, but this, their second effort originally released in 1975, already shows their direction: poetic German text, surrounded by ever changing progrock with classic influences, which in this case is still rough enough not to descend in to insipid drivel. Their fondness for German Poet Friedrich Hoelderlin shines through and their music has also been borrowed in sound and style by French Duo Air, for their soundtrack to the Virgin Suicides. Guest guitarist Carlo Karges is present here, (who later became the guitarist for famous Nena) and his Track Wer Schmetterlinge Lachen Hört became the secret hymn of the band. Novalis are one of the best in the genre.
OS MUNDI – 43 Minuten CD (Revisited/Brain)
Simple title, simple cover. Originally released in 1972. From the outside, Berlin’s jazz rock band Os Mundi gave a rather sparse impression. In stark contrast, their music more than makes up for it in rich sound. A rather wild mix of rock, jazz and fusion, which was not really in existence in this form, make 43 Minutes a singular document of the German fun in experimenting so popular in the seventies. Add Über-Producer Conny Plank to the mix and how can you go wrong? He gave these recordings the necessary polish and today 43 Minuten is one of the most sought after Brain albums with the original vinyl fetching high prices from collectors.
THE SCORPIONS – Lonesome Crow CD (Revisited/Brain)
Lonesome Crow is not just merely the first album from Germany’s Number 1 Hard Rock export, but also the first ever Brain release, issued in 1972. Lonesome Crow is both highly coveted by record Collectors for the famous catalog number of Brain 1001 and also because it presents the Scorpions in a way we would never hear them again; rough and ready, with surprising twists and turns and unusual song structures. One can clearly hear the legendary talent and chemistry between Michael & Rudolf Schenker who were still “united in rock” at the time. Lonesome Crow certainly belongs in every music lovers’ collection.
CLUSTER – Cluster II CD (Revisited/Brain)
The most important and consistently underrated space-rock unit of the '70s, Cluster (originally Kluster) was formed by Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Conrad Schnitzler as an improv group that used everything from synthesizers to alarm clocks and kitchen utensils in their performances. Continuing on as a duo, Moebius and Roedelius eventually recorded many landmark LPs - separately, as a duo, and with all manner of guest artists from Brian Eno to Conny Plank to Neu!'s Michael Rother - in the field of German space music, often termed kosmische. Cluster also continued to explore ambient music into the '90s, long after their contemporaries had drifted into tamer new age music or ceased recording altogether.
Cluster's second album as a duo is a January, 1972 recording that is similar in style to their previous works. Cluster II is mostly an album of drones and industrial atmospheres; an ambient album before the label began to be applied to music. For the first time Cluster broke down their sound experiments into some bite-sized pieces that reflected their strange kind of humour.
CLUSTER – Zuckerzeit CD (Revisited/Brain)
The most important and consistently underrated space-rock unit of the '70s, Cluster (originally Kluster) was formed by Dieter Moebius, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Conrad Schnitzler as an improv group that used everything from synthesizers to alarm clocks and kitchen utensils in their performances. Continuing on as a duo, Moebius and Roedelius eventually recorded many landmark LPs - separately, as a duo, and with all manner of guest artists from Brian Eno to Conny Plank to Neu!'s Michael Rother - in the field of German space music, often termed kosmische. Cluster also continued to explore ambient music into the '90s, long after their contemporaries had drifted into tamer new age music or ceased recording altogether.
Zuckerzeit (Sugar Time) is a well titled release; after the stark and (at times) testing Cluster II, this is an altogether sweeter affair. The music here is much denser, with more colour and a much greater degree of poppiness, all lending the album a pleasingly light and upbeat feel. One very obvious difference to Cluster II is the extensive use of drum machines, meaning that where tracks had previously consisted of layers of synthesizer noise, they now have a definite rhythm, seeming to free the melodic side of the band. Actually, Zuckerzeit is an album put together by two separate artists operating under a collective title, with Moebius and Roedelius each contributing five tracks and while this kind of behaviour rarely produces a unified outcome, here the album holds together nicely. Although Cluster are less well known than the likes of Kraftwerk, this material deserves to be considered as being as influential and important in the development of electronic music. This is powerful and creative music and for anyone looking to venture into the less Rock side of Krautrock, or into groundbreaking electronic music, it’s a very fine place to start.
ELECTRIC SANDWICH – Electric Sandwich CD (Revisited/Brain)
Electric Sandwich were formed in late 1969 by a group of German students from Bonn. The band initially consisted of four musicians, all of whom had already played with other bands: bass player Klaus Lormann had been playing with Chaotic Trust; lead guitarist Jorg Ohlert used to be with Slaves Of Fire; drummer Wolf Fabian, the founder of the band, had been touring with a band called Muli And The Misfits, and singer Jochen "Archie" Carthaus sang with the Flashbacks. Their own material has been recorded into the legendary Dieter Dirks Studio in Stommeln. The music contains typical spaced out, freak n’ roll improvisations with many jazzy rock ingredients, folkish accents and mellotron excursions.
FAUST – So Far CD (Revisited/Brain)
Hamburg’s Faust can be considered the most notorious representative of early Krautrock bands. What made them so was their artistic and experimental approach to dealing with Rock music; radically breaking with the old conventions, they were way ahead of their time. Therefore it was quite a frequent occurrence that their gloomy sound collages met with point-black rejection. Nowadays, music experts almost unanimously agree that Faust must be counted among the most important and most influential German bands on an international scale.
So Far, their second album, was originally released in 1972. The album arrived in a black sleeve with paintings inside which apparently corresponded to each of the tracks. The album opens with the stomping, primal beat of It's A Rainy Day Sunshine Girl, Roxy Music would use a similar pattern on Bogus Man and Brian Eno identified it as one of the essential beats in 70s music. Following this outbreak of near-normality, the dream logic of the first album reasserts itself with abrupt shifts in sound and style. Acoustic interludes of almost classical formality are contrasted with electronic freak-outs, crossed with passages which sound almost conventional. Having mastered their studio technique, Faust created a seamless, otherworldly sequence of musical events that owes little to anything that had been done before. Faust are one of the legends of underground music and these are the albums that the legend is based on. Essential listening.
HARMONIA – Musik Von Harmonia CD (Revisited/Brain)
Though Harmonia began as a sideline excursion for Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster and Michael Rother of Neu!, the group became one of the most legendary in the entire Krautrock/kosmische scene with the release of several mid-'70s LPs. After two studio albums recorded as Cluster, Roedelius and Moebius moved out to the German countryside to build their own studio in the village of Forst. After several disappointments in his attempt to expand Neu! into a live unit, Rother retreated to Cluster's studio for a series of relaxed, improvisational jam sessions that wedded Cluster's exploratory space music with the chugging rhythms and guitar sense of Rother. Brian Eno had proclaimed Harmonia "the world's most important rock group."
The debut Harmonia LP, Musik Von Harmonia, appeared in 1974 (with an accomplished live track, recorded in Amsterdam) and marks the first collaborative effort between Cluster's Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius and Neu!'s Michael Rother: a German supergroup and genuine rarity, a colossal artistic success. The three members were skilled keyboard players, guitarists, electronic percussionists and composers. This was a group musically and conceptually miles ahead of its time. Musik Von Harmonia is at once a product of their source bands and a fine new twist on them, resulting in music that captures what for many is the Krautrock ideal, or more accurately, the motorik ideal. It's not Kraftwerk's all-synth, clean, clinical pulse, nor Neu!'s seemingly effortless glide, nor Can's stomping art world funk. Instead it's at once playful and murky, steady and mechanical, a supergroup of sorts who easily achieves and maintains such a seemingly overstated status by embracing a variety of approaches that work wonders.
HARMONIA – De Luxe CD (Revisited/Brain)
Though Harmonia began as a sideline excursion for Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius of Cluster and Michael Rother of Neu!, the group became one of the most legendary in the entire Krautrock/kosmische scene with the release of several mid-'70s LPs. After two studio albums recorded as Cluster, Roedelius and Moebius moved out to the German countryside to build their own studio in the village of Forst. After several disappointments in his attempt to expand Neu! into a live unit, Rother retreated to Cluster's studio for a series of relaxed, improvisational jam sessions that wedded Cluster's exploratory space music with the chugging rhythms and guitar sense of Rother. Brian Eno had proclaimed Harmonia "the world's most important rock group."
A touch more immediate and song-oriented than its predecessor, but no less enchanting and lovely to hear, De Luxe, originally released in 1975, again features the trio experimenting with a variety of approaches, most particularly including vocals here and there for the first time. There's also a guest musician helping out, namely Mani Neumeier from Guru Guru, and while he's not playing all the time, where he does appear, as on the wonderful lengthy jam Walky-Talky, a blend of his percussion and swooping guitar filigrees and keyboards, it's a fine choice. His slow, subtle build throughout the song helps send it higher and higher without seeming to. The various vocals really do fit the music in a lovely way, and it's little surprise that Brian Eno might have felt even more of an affinity with the group than before, being non-musical but still affecting, like mysterious chants or barks. The motorik pulses and rhythms, however soft and subtle, still dominate the proceedings, while the glazed, warm feeling of the whole album is astounding.
KIN PING MEH – Kin Ping Meh CD (Revisited/Brain)
Kin Ping Meh is a guitar and organ laden (with mellotron) hard rock/psych band whose name is taken from a 16th century Chinese poem (it means "Plum Blossom Branch in a Golden Vase"). Though pretty much hard rock most of they time, they show many strong Beatles influences, a la John Lennon, in particular. The self titled first album, originally released late in 1971 as a quintet. The Revisited/Brain CD release of Kin Ping Meh contains both sides of both singles released before their first album. Pop magazine described the album as “…eight melodious and catchy pieces. Perfectly produced and smoothly coordinated from a technical point of view, the album by Kin Ping Meh will easily become a commercial success.”
YATHA SIDHRA – Yatha Sidhra CD (Revisited/Brain)
Yatha Sidhra’s self titled debut album, originally released in 1972, pretty much sums up the psychedelia-drenched style exemplified by the German Krautrock bands of the early seventies. The music is a long, spacey, almost improvisational and pieced into four parts, consisting of guitars, keyboards and flute along with passages that vary from tranquil to aggressive. Influences from Popol Vuh and some others of the ilk are perceptible, but, overall, this is a unique blend of a variety of influences, in one flowing continuum of music. The title of A Meditation Mass sums up the atmosphere Yatha Sidhra create: very mesmerizing, dreamy and hypnotic space music, using moog, guitar, a variety of percussion instruments and flutes. The original LP, of course, had to break for the side but the reissue combined together all four tracks for 40 minutes of continuous cosmic ebb and flow. Highly recommended to all would-be cosmonauts!