Search - Holderlin :: Holderlins Traum

Germany's answer to 1967 Donovan and Jefferson Airplane

W. T. Hoffman | Pennsylvania, United States | 04/13/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was the only Hoelderlin CD available for a long time. Recently, "OHR"/XYZ must have sold the copyright, because now their major albums from the 70s are all available. I have a lot of krautrock, and few albums get replayed by me more than a few times. It's hard to buy an album blind, without hearing the material. You will need to make a leep of faith. I will try my best to discribe their sound. At least on this album, the band is firmly attached to psychedelic folk music. What makes this band stand out for its time, is that it's one of the 4 or 5 bands that actually sung IN GERMAN during the 70s. If you know the sound of early Fairport Convention and Donovan, as well as the first 2 Jefferson Airplane albums, then that is what you are in for here. The instruments used are acoustic guitar, cello, bass and drums, recorder, piano, organ, flote, violin, with sitar and tabla on one cut. There is a man and woman singing, with very complementary harmony vocals. The titles translate into "requiem for a witch", "weather report", "Awaken", "We were", and "Dream". The song STROHHALM (straw) is the one with sitar, but at just over 2 minutes is by far the shortest song. The other songs are dreamy and slow, and the beats really DONT sound like your basic krautrock. So, don't expect Kraftwerk, NEU, Cluster, CAN, nor, any song I know about, that Amon Duul II has sung. These are very colorful folk songs, but based on what must be very old germanic folk tunes or teutonic folk traditions. (Likewise if you hear DONOVAN, the Celtic melodies come thru, and if you listen to JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, you hear on their early work acoustic blues and early 60s vocal folk bands from Greenwich Village.). So, if you buy this, and dont want to hear a band sing in German, or sing with middle European melodic traditions, you might not like this. Also, if you think you are going to hear any hits, or up tempo rockers, you wont like it. BUT, if you like mellow freak folk preformed and written by hippie Germans who play and sing well, then this is a great album. I wish I knew their other music, so I could compair this to their later work, but personally, if i were new to this band, I would want to start here. They had been playing together for two years before they cut this record, so the band had a long while to develop. Also, the album was produced by Dieter Dirks, a legend in 1970s German music production. His production is normally clear and crisp, and well balanced."