Quality: 2 out of 5Trip-O-Meter: 4.25 out of 5 (but it's a bad trip)
When you get right down to it, krautrock had a pretty steep learning curve. The first efforts from folks like Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk (as Organization) were pretty awful, and even Can showed some serious improvement over their first few records. I'd happily admit that Amon Duul is an exception to this rule as their first release is classic, but not these guys. Track down the Limbus 4 album (on this site if you wish) for an enjoyable cosmic music experience. This release, however, is more of the plinking and plunking trial and error and questionable experimentation that the krautrockers had to get out of their systems. I'd say that this is probably a little better than the truly cacophonous Electronic Meditation by Tangerine Dream, but it's really comparing rotten apples with moldy cheese.
Anyway, "Oneway Trip" is one I'd like to stay home for with the track's free jazz bass mingling with horrific and annoying bowed sounds. "New Atlantis" is more of the same, but more manic... for 22 minutes. Sandwiched in between are a couple of short tracks I find more enjoyable. "Valiha" recalls some ancient market place with mysterious dulcimer-like tones and simple percussion. "Breughel's Hochzeitstanz" is back to the screeching strings, but at least it's only two minutes long. So I guess it's not so much that I like it as that it goes away quickly. This means that I only really enjoy about three minutes of this album.
No, I'm not really giving this any sort of recommendation. The reasons that I'd imagine you'd listen to this is that you're a krautrock historian or completist, or you're simply mentally cracking. I think I fit in the former category.... hopefully.
