Achtung! German Grooves

Overview

Any number of compilations in recent years have worked to exhume the simultaneously slick as hell and utterly weird amount of German funk recordings that flooded their home market in the late '60s and early '70s. Achtung! German Grooves provides another dollop of this with liner notes, clear sound, and more, though admittedly a lot of the fascination with this material lies in how well they ape American efforts in particular -- which tends to make one want to listen to that instead. But Achtung! does have a big advantage in that all the offerings are strictly instrumental, meaning that there's no schlager-style awfulness clogging up the performances (as anyone who has heard such things can testify, a little goes a long way -- too long). Familiar names abound in this compilation, including Peter Thomas and James Last, while plenty of new or at least fairly obscure ones crop up. The end result is one long romp through sounds that practically beg to be soundtracking the opening credits in contemporary wacky spy movies or bizarre sex comedies (or, as is likely the case, both). Nearly everything has a clean precision that may seem antithetical to funk as such, but if you take the principle that Kraftwerk were so stiff they were funky, most everything on here makes a lot more sense as a result. The secret weapon nearly song for song and artist for artist are the horn sections -- hyper-frenetic, slow and sassy, somewhere in between. Meantime, nearly every selection has a strange curve ball somewhere in the middle -- the whizzing synth noises collapsing into a sweet flute melody on Gerhard Narholz's swaggering "UFO Invasion," Thomas' killer touch at adding a swooping string section to "Chariots of the Gods." At worst, selections are pleasant-sounding time-killers that inevitably call '70s cop shows to mind; at best, they're insanely great. ~ Ned Raggett

Product Details

Release Date:	01/08/2008
Label:	Bureau B
UPC:	4029758595787
Rank:	217117

Tracks

1. Mabusso  - Rainer Michalke  - Ambros Seelos
2. Guitar' Showe  - Grischa Batanoff  - Don Kelly
3. UFO-Invasion  - Gerhard Narholz
4. U-Humbah  - James Last  -  Traditional
5. On the Way to Philadelphia  -  Warner
6. Hackepeter  -  Schumann
7. Mamy Blue  - Henry Arland
8. Chariots of the Gods  -  Thomas
9. Orbiter  - Heinz Kiessling
10. Easter Afternoon  - Ady Zehnpfennig
11. Soul Breeze  -  Greger
12. Es Steht ein Haus in New Orleans  -  Gollasch  -  Traditional
13. Hard Work  - Pete Jacques
14. One for You -- One for Me  -  Ehrlinger  - R.J. Kaltenbach
15. Catch Up  -  Catch Up
16. The House That Jack Build  - Helmut Zacharias
17. Mocoto  - Roberto Delgado
18. "BL"-Special  - Berry Lipman
19. Sport Extra  - Hans Haider
20. Tigerauge  - Walter Orchester Kubiczek

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Pete Jacques   Primary Artist
Max Greger & His Orchestra   Primary Artist
Hans Haider   Primary Artist
Orchester Guenter Gollasch   Primary Artist
Roberto Delgado   Primary Artist
Don Kelly   Primary Artist
Berry Lipman   Primary Artist
Henry Arland   Primary Artist
Ambros Seelos   Primary Artist
Helmut Zacharias   Primary Artist
Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra   Primary Artist
Catch Up   Primary Artist
James Last   Primary Artist
Hans Ehrlinger & His Orchestra   Primary Artist
Gerhard Narholz   Primary Artist
Ady Zehnpfennig   Primary Artist
Orchester Walter Kubiczek   Primary Artist
Theo Schumann   Primary Artist
Kai Warner & His Orchestra   Primary Artist
Heinz Kiessling   Primary Artist

Technical Credits

Traditional   Composer
Grischa Batanoff   Composer
Gareth Davies   Translation
Gunther Buskies   Producer,Concept
Thomas Worthmann   Liner Notes,Producer,Concept
R.J. Kaltenbach   Composer
Rainer Michalke   Composer
Willem Makkee   Mastering
Ady Zehnpfennig   Composer
Christine Krawinkel   Artwork