Ash Ra Tempel - Schwingungen (1972)

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For fans of: Brainticket, Can, Pink Floyd

It's a far out psychedelic space rock epic. The first two tracks are really great jams not unlike those of Brainticket or Can, with longing vocals that don't make much sense and all kinds of heavy loose grooves gliding along. The second side is mostly a more mellow track, with spacey drawn-out guitar sketches and ending with a build of drums and bass. It's a really nice example of the more spaced-out side of progressive rock, created with as much energy as anything. - Matthew Foster

"Ash Ra Tempel's second album featured the first of several personnel changes, Klaus Schulze having departed for other realms and replaced as a result by Wolfgang Muller. A few guest players surfaced here and there as well, with one John L. taking the lead vocals -- another difference from the self-titled debut, which was entirely instrumental. The general principle of side-long efforts continued, though the first half was split into two related songs, "Light" and "Darkness." "Light" itself sounded halfway between the zoned-out exploration of "Traummaschine" and bluesy jamming, a weird if not totally discordant combination that still manages to sound more out there than most bands of the time. Gottsching's fried solo, in particular, is great, sending the rest of the song out to silence that leads into "Darkness." Said song initially takes a far more minimal approach that bears even more resemblance to "Traummaschine," fading out almost entirely by the third minute before a full band performance (including Uli Popp on bongos and Matthais Wehler's sudden alto sax bursts) slowly builds into a frenetic jam. John L.'s vocals become echoed screams and yelps not far off from Damo Suzuki's approach in Can, and the overall performance is a perfect slice of Krautrock insanity, sudden swirls of flanging and even more on-the-edge solos from Gottsching and Wehler sending it over the top. "Suche & Liebe" takes up the entire second side, the performers this time around concentrating on the quiet but unsettling approach, Gottsching's massive soloing kept low in the mix but not so much that it doesn't freak out listeners. The song concludes on an almost conventionally pretty band jam, something that could almost be Meddle-era Pink Floyd, only with even a more haunting, alien air thanks to the wordless vocal keening." - AMG

Chrome - Alien Soundtracks (1977)

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For fans of: Can, Swell Maps, Pere Ubu

This is some crazy psychedelic stuff! It's full of strange audio effects and sounds that give it an alien feeling, but it also has a very prominent electric guitar not far from what you'd find on any classic rock album. The guitar will lure many in, and some very odd beats and sometimes Iggy Pop or Damo Suzukiesque vocals make it surprisingly enjoyable, not just as a novelty, but as a sophisticated piece of music. Something to just sit there to and fryyyyy. - Matthew Foster

'With Creed recruited to replace original member Mike Low (though allegedly Edge initially turned Creed down after the latter appeared wearing a pirate outfit or something similar), Chrome started kicking into high gear at last. While Spain and Lambdin weren't out of the picture yet, cowriting half the songs with Edge, Creed's mind-melting guitar swiftly took prominence, turning a wiggy band into a total headtrip. Rather than just aiming at acid-rock styling, Creed stuffed his fretbending into an evil, compressed aggro-sound, at once psychedelic and totally in-your-face. Edge equals the activity by stepping into the vocal role himself, sounding like Iggy on a live wire with occasional attempts at weird, wailed crooning, while his electronics and drumming starts sounding a lot more vicious and totally scuzzed as well. It's not the short sharp shock of punk rock per se -- it just sounds like the title puts it, alien, sounds and TV samples firing out of nowhere and throwing the listener off balance. That many numbers are constructed out of short fragments adds to the weird overlay. Even the quieter numbers like "All Data Lost" play around with echo and drone to create disturbing results. The songs themselves allegedly were recorded as the soundtrack to a live sex show, which probably goes a long way towards explaining the sex and sci-fi combination of much of the lyrics. Not to mention the titles -- to quote some at random: "Nova Feedback," "Magnetic Dwarf Reptile," and the truly hilarious "Pigmies in Zee Dark" (there's some creepy crooning on this one) and "Slip It to the Android." The artwork adds to the weird effect -- a hand-colored late fifties 'cool' living room and busty babe setup with the band's and album name hand-scrawled in usual Chrome fashion over it, plus huge disembodied eyes and lips that make everything really disturbing. Overall, the combination of screwy sound and art on a budget placed Chrome as something like West Coast cousins of early Pere Ubu and Destroy All Monsters -- not a bad place to be." - AMG