Deuter - D (1971) [Reissue 1998]

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Deuter - D (1971) [Reissue 1998]

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D is the debut album of composer Deuter, released in 1971 through Kuckuck Schallplatten.Beginning with moody bass and guitar plucking that wouldn't be a fraction out of place on albums by fellow German musicians like Ash Ra Tempel, D finds Deuter as both an accomplished composer and self-producer. It's not about simply technical virtuosity, of course, as the music throughout D demonstrates. At once epic in scope and with a sly, careful sense of entrancement, this is psychedelic music in the immediately post-psych world. The multi-part "Babylon," which takes up most of the album's first half, exhibits as much metallic flash and snarl on guitar as it does drowsy, dreamy studio treatment; keyboards are mixed with an endless amount of backwards taping.

Georg Deuter is a German born New Age instrumentalist who has released more than 60 albums to date since beginning his musical journey back at the start of the early Seventies. However, his debut album `D' in 1971 was a far cry from the placid and pleasing synth soundtracks he would later adopt, instead it's a pure daring Krautrock classic that sounds like no other album. Deuter's debut is comprised of a series of schizophrenic and psychedelic sound collages, mixing everything from electronic organ drones, acoustic and ethnic instrumentation with inventive production techniques for the time and avant-garde experimentations that are initially bewildering and disorientating, yet utterly fascinating and captivating, truly the result of an inspired artist with a reaching vision.
The surreal four part fifteen-minute `Babylon' is a fragmented and psychedelic work of beauty, a frequently ambient but often jarring and unpredictable soundscape. Pink Floyd- like brooding spacey guitars chime over a gentle cacophony of church bells, babies crying, machine-gun fire and soaring jets. Murmuring bass lurks behind distorting repetitive mantra-like guitar stabs, ethereal glistening organs rise and fall around backwards effect slivers and warping swallowing voices that float amongst cocooning deep space loneliness. This piece shares a similar defiant edge of anything goes that the early Vangelis albums had and the cosmic yet earthy ambience of Popul Vuh.

The rest of the first side contains the plodding `Der Turm/Fluchtpunkt', a compact but heady concoction of tabla beats, panning effects and wailing wordless siren calls, with eerie straining Gong-like glissando wisps and fuzzy guitar-fuelled chugging grooves to bring a Can-esque dirty stomp.Frantic, heavy grinding sitar drones race through the ten minute opener of the second side `Krishna Eating Fish and Chips', gradually speeding up to become overwhelming, hypnotic and almost maddening. Around the bubbling atmospherics of `Atlantis', a mix of snaking hissing electronic drones, a drumming pattering of tabla-like beats, shimmering unearthly sighs and backwards effects truly sound like a duelling storm between Heaven and Hell. The opening passages of `Gammastrahlen-Lamm' emerge like a bad nightmarish trip, but piercing droning slices, chittering whispers and reverberating machine hum quickly gives way to a thoughtful and melancholic pulsing organ drift that ends up almost meditative and enveloping…

Review by Aussie-Byrd-Brother

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Deuter - D (1971) [Reissue 1998]

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Deuter - D (1971) [Reissue 1998]

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