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Necronomicon- mind melting awesome prog/kraut guitar wanking


deepak

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I think anyone that likes kraut rock should give this a listen. Like Amon Duul or Can on steroids (or more drugs). This is one of my favorite albums in the last few years.

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...just looking at the album art you know this is going to be some crazy drugged out Germans making crazy drugged out music.

Originally released in 1972, came back in print with Garden of Delights in Germany. Also available on vinyl (kinda pricey).

The entire album is 10 tracks of progressive kraut, a pretty good rollercoaster of music. There's the non-stop guitar shredding, shrieking male vocals, female chanting, slow droning synthesizers pretty much everything you'd think of that goes hand in hand with kraut/psych.

Sound quality: it's no audiophile recording, but it's pretty damn good. Being recorded in the 70's it's not squashed to hell and back. There's plenty of dynamic range, and there isn't much post processing; what you're hearing is basically just amplified instruments.

Aquarius has a much more entertaining summary:

"At last, again, reissued: a masterpiece of suicidal, political Krautrock heaviosity from 1972. NECRONOMICON. Freaky then, freaky now. Psychedelic hard rock that was about as 'extreme' as it got at the time...definitely if Terrorizer magazine had existed back then, these Germans would have made the cover. Not that this extreme by today's blackened metal standards, as there's enough pretty and melodic elements included amongst the fuzz riffage to satisfy the mellower hippie types in the Necronomicon freak-scene. And, they're no Black Sabbath. Still, pretty far gone for '72. The title: How To Kill Yourself. Now that's a bad trip. The very first track, the seven-minute "Prolog", almost makes the remainder of this album superflous, as it's a full, epic encapsulation Necronomicon's heavy prog excess. Theirs is an album replete with stinging acid guitar, heady Hammond organ, and monkish chanting. Ecclisastical choirs wail over trudging, yearning guitar and organ -- shades of Magma and J.A. Caesar. It's like Amon Duul II murdering Pink Floyd and riding their animated corpses all the way to hell. Again, not in any way metal, but what you might call Wagnerian garage-psych. This was first reissued on cd some years ago by Little Wing of Refugees (with a different, generic cover). When we first got it in at Aquarius then, we were all ready to be disappointed 'cause what band ever lives up to an H.P. Lovecraft inspired name like Necronomicon? Well, Shub Niggurath did, and so do these guys. I've had a copy lurking in my cd collection for years now, and now am happy to replace it with this new edition, complete with four bonus tracks and the usual, deluxe Garden Of Delights packaging (a cd booklet thick enough to barely fit in the jewel case, full of text and full color graphics). Actually, come to think of it, who knows? With a '70s era psych import LP like this, we might have once stocked it REALLY long ago, way back in Aquarius' storied past, when it first came out on vinyl...well no, not this, the private press original was/is waaaay to rare. And too weird. Definitely an obscure but A-list kraut/psych album for those with occult tastes... "

Here is a sample of the first track (~100 kbps LAME MP3, so quality is ok)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OO8P6M26

So where do I buy this most righteous album? Aquarius Records (or ebay) are the only places I know of: http://aquariusrecords.org/

Aquarius is a small record store in San Francisco with truly awesome customer service. When they process your order you get a personal email from their inventory/packing people letting you know it's shipped out. They also include all sorts of cool promotional stuff like mini posters and stickers with every order. At the very least add your email to their mailing list, they stock some pretty dank stuff.

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