Guru Guru

Guru Guru - Hinten - 1971 - Ohr

Guru Guru's second album starts off on a chaotic note, but "Electric Junk" soon resolves itself into a full-on band jam and takes it from there, showing again that the band readily trod the fine line between merely skilled and truly inspired. There's always a nagging sense on this album that the group is but one step away from prog rock wank of the worst kind, but then there'll be a thick blast of righteous noise or a suddenly lovely dark chime that feels more Blue Oyster Cult than Emerson, Lake & Palmer, say. This can even happen out of nowhere, like the odd spoken word pronouncements interrupting the attempted drum solo on "Electric Junk" or the open-ended electronic moans and echoed calls during the floating midsection of "Space Ship." "The Meaning of Meanings" has the most "way deep, man" feeling on the whole album, as the title perhaps demonstrates, but even it has room for a rather bizarre midsection where the lyrics aren't sung or shouted as much as groaningly sighed over a slowly building full-band burst. Neumeier's drumming here is actually some of his best, while Genrich sounds like he's inventing some of Daniel Ash's feedback freakouts years in advance. The oddest number of the four mostly is such due to the name -- one would figure that calling a song "Bo Diddley" and clearly chanting the title at various points during the song would mean a full-on rave-up in the rock legend's vein. Anything but! There's enough of a smoky feel going on to suggest the influence the likes of Quicksilver Messenger Service incorporated, say, but a Diddley-beat workout this isn't, though there are a few game attempts here and there to try -- sort of. © Ned Raggett, All Music Guide

1971 classic second album of progressive psychedelic acid rock from the legendary German group. Quite rockish like their first album, with good guitars. Considered to be a krautrock classic. Check out the band's "Kanguru" and "Tango Fango" albums, and for music in a similar vein, check out Can's great "Tago Mago" album.

TRACKS

A1 Electric Junk (10:58)
A2 The Meaning Of Meaning (12:09)
B1 Bo Diddley (9:56)
B2 Space Ship (11:05)
Recorded at Star-Studio, Hamburg in July 1971
All tracks composed by Guru Guru

BAND

Bass, Performer [Radio], Voice - Uli Trepte
Composed By, Producer - Guru Guru
Electronic Drums, Cymbal, Gong, Kalimba, Voice - Mani Neumeier
Guitar, Voice - Ax Genrich

REVIEWS

Perhaps the greatest and most meaningful cover of all-time! For those of you who aren't aware, the English translation for 'hinten' is behind; hence, Mani Neumeier's (presumably) hairy ass with Guru painted on each cheek. Building upon the strength of their first album, 'Hinten' is more structured than its predecessor and contains an infectious mixture of psychotic percussion, throbbing bass, guitar riffs and solos out the hinten, Mani's obscure psycho babble vocals, and awesome studio effects courtesy of Konrad Plank's engineering brilliance. In all the album contains four extended tracks, all but one topping the ten-minute mark. 'Electric Junk' kicks off the album with a lightning fast Hendrix-style guitar riff which I'm sure made Genrich's contemporaries, including Hendrix, cringe with envy. The remainder of the track plays like an acid trip gone horribly awry. 'The Meaning Of Meaning' is a slower track featuring some ferocious distorted guitar. Towing the narrow line between genius and idiocy, 'Bo Diddley' features a tight bass line, wild percussion and a nonstop guitar freak out which will make you stand up and scream "Bo Diddley". Transcending musical boundaries, 'Space Ship' guides the listener on a journey into an acid riddled brain writhing in agony due to an overdose. This album features some of the freshest and most original jamming ever heard; it is safe to say that Ax Genrich's brilliant axe-work is second to none. Play this sucker loud! © [5/5 Doug] © www.geocities.com/krautrockgroup/GuruGuru.html#1973

Despite possessing one of the most tasteless album covers I've ever seen, the second album in Guru Guru's classic early 70s trilogy is another fine example of bombed out Krautrock bliss. Fittingly, it's sort of in between the complete deep space mayhem of their revolutionary UFO and the more (relatively) structured, riff-oriented blitzkrieg of KanGuru. Once again, newcomers to the genre might find it difficult to get into. While the rhythmic drive of the album is a little more logical than the thrilling cacophony of UFO, the frenetic, soaring guitar and sheer irreverence will send those not attuned to the style screaming away in droves. The goofy, addictively eccentric vocal style of the band makes its first appearance here, making itself known through strange grunts and spoken word nonsense. Musically, the album begins at a point that isn't too dissimilar from Hendrix or Cream; ball busting riffs and wailing, psychedelically inspired guitar solos. However, Guru Guru takes this approach into the stratosphere, complementing it with free form structures, strange electronics and often straight up noise. While the album doesn't provoke the same kind of priceless "what the fuck?" reaction as UFO, or provide the same level of sheer enjoyment as its follow-up, KanGuru, it's not a terrible starting place in that it strikes a middle ground between the two, and might be the most representative of the band's early style. . © Greg Northrup [January 2002] © 2003, The Giant Progweed

ABOUT GURU GURU

Formed in 1970, Guru Guru was a German prog rock outfit whose largely instrumental work set the group squarely within the boundaries of what is commonly referred to decades later as Krautrock. While guitarist Ax Genrich, Uli Trepte, and keyboardist/drummer (and Cluster collaborator) Mani Neumeier remained the core of the band throughout its ten-year existence, a number of other musicians passed through the band's ranks, including Cluster co-founder Hans-Joachim Roedelius, who played keyboards on 1976's Mani und Seine Freunde, and keyboardist Ingo Bischof, who assumed increasing control of the group until its 1979 dissolution following the release of Hey Du, recorded under the name the Guru Guru Sun Band. © Jason Ankeny

BIO (Wikipedia)

Guru Guru is a German Krautrock band formed in 1968 as The Guru Guru Groove by Mani Neumeier (drums) and Uli Trepte (bass) later joining Jim Kennedy (guitar). In time for their debut in 1970, Ax Genrich had replaced Kennedy to solidify the classic Guru Guru line up.Guru Guru was both related to the free jazz music scene and both worked with Swiss female pianist Irène Schweizer. Neumeier already won several Jazz-prizes. The band was influenced by rock music, such as Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, The Who, Rolling Stones and early Pink Floyd. Among the band's friends were Amon Düül, Can and Xhol Caravan, with whom Guru Guru played jam sessions. Frontman Mani Neumeier (drummer and singer) has an original style of playing drums, and is known in the European jazz rock-scene. He was also involved in numerous other projects, as Tiere der Nacht, The Psychedelic Monsterjam, Damo Suzuki's Network, Globe Unity Orchestra, Harmonia, Acid Mothers Guru Guru, Voodootrance & Lover 303. Guru Guru's live performances in the late 1960es and early 1970es were politically left-oriented. They organized concerts together with the Socialist German Student Union, read political texts between the songs, and sometime played at the jails. Their shows were extravagant and anarchistic, some of the musicians lived together in a commune in German Odenwald region, experimented with hallucinogens (one of their songs is titled The LSD March/German: Der LSD-Marsch). Mani Neumeier is one of the organizers of the annual Krautrock-Festival Finkenbach. Guru Guru released over 20 LPs, and over 500,000 copies of their records were sold (all releases together). The band played numerous live concerts, appeared in films, radio and television. In 1976 Guru Guru was the first German band to play live in the TV-show WDR-Rockpalast.