Phallus Dei

Performer: Amon Düül
Distributor: Ryko Distribution

Notes: This is also available on CD on Captain Trip (30). Amon D��l: Dave Anderson (bass guitar). The post-psychedelic German phenomenon known as Krautrock pretty much starts here. The 1969 release PHALLUS DEI was the first album by Amon Duul II, who had split off from the more shambling, hippie-type communal outfit Amon Duul. The former had a darker, edgier spirit, and a greater sense of direction. That's not to say everything on PHALLUS DEI is tied up in a neat little package; it's a raw, bursting-at-the-seams sonic attack fully capable of melting ears at a thousand paces. Like their Krautrock contemporaries, Amon Duul II were influenced by the psychedelic sounds of artists like Jimi Hendrix and Jefferson Airplane, but they transmuted that inspiration into something even more exploratory, open-ended, and primal. Bashing at guitars and drums like men possessed, they create a brain-frying firestorm of sound, cementing both their status as found fathers of Krautrock, and PHALLUS DEI's reputation as one of its definitive musical statements.

Uncut (p.74) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "The title track is a colossal, sky-snogging freakout with a Burundi-style percussive centrepiece."

Best understood as a single concept split into two actual ensembles--Amon Duul I and Amon Duul II--with a shared origin and vision, Amon Duul is arguably the quintessential example of the style of music known as Krautrock. Born out of Germany's hippie art scene of the late 1960s, the Amon Duul name had divided into two separate entities by 1969, with the original band choosing a more free-form, improvisational approach to music making, while its sequel (and often contemporary) chose a more rigorous, technically adept progressive sound. Both acts went through various line-up changes over the subsequent decades, continuing to perform into the new millennium and benefiting greatly from the resurgent interest in German avant-garde music that took place in the late 1990s.

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