Kän Guru [PA] [Digipak]

Performer: Guru Guru
Producer: C. Plank; Mani Neumeier; Conny Plank; Guru Guru
Distributor: Ryko Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Ax Genrich (vocals, guitar); Mani Neumeier (vocals, keyboards, drums); Uli Trepte (vocals, bass instrument); Konrad Plank (guitar, keyboards). Liner Note Author: Matthias Mineur. Recording information: Windrose Dumont-Time Studio (02/1972-03/1972). Photographer: Tai M. L�dicke. Eschewing the absurdist sound collage aesthetic of Faust and the instrumental virtuosity of Can for mind-melting sheets of feedback-laden sound and unfettered improvisation, Guru Guru served as something of a Krautrock analog to England's Hawkwind, another gritty psychedelic act devoted to the simple pleasures of distortion, drugs, and more distortion. Guru Guru's third full-length, 1972's KANGURU, features four ecstatic forays into long-form improvisation and is often held up alongside 1971's UFO as the outfit's best work. Third album by the essential Krautrock power trio Guru Guru's early forays is as essential to the avant-rock collector as Faust's Faust Tapes, Can's Tago Mago, and the early experiments of Kraftwerk and Neu! This album dates from 1972 and is an unprecedented display of drone-rock on the heavier, psychedelic side of the '70s German underground. Guru Guru's lineup changed periodically, and throughout the '70s, the project took contributions from Conny Plank and Hans-Joachim Roedelius, among others, and were tightly connected with the Kraftwerk off-shoot Harmonium. This album is undoubtedly one of their greater works, alongside UFO and Hinten recorded by the essential trio of Ax Genrich on guitar, Uli Trepte on bass, and leader Mani Neumeier on drums and keyboards. ~ Skip Jansen

Record Collector (magazine) (p.84) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "'Oxymoron' manages to be both taut and gloriously messy, with Ax sounding like The Doors' Robbie Kreiger as well as Hendrix."

One of the original groups of the now famed Krautrock movement of 1970s Germany, Guru Guru positioned themselves quite clearly on the psychedelic rock end of the musical spectrum, considerably more so than their more proto-techno and ambient oriented colleagues. A predominantly instrumental act, Guru Guru mixed elements of free jazz, world music, and heavy American acid rock to create their sound. The band called it quits at the dawn of the 1980s, but have proven to be a quietly influential act on a host of contemporary psych bands.

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