Cosmic Jokers album cover
Cosmic Jokers

Cosmic Jokers

1974
Kosmische Musik

The name is too good—producer Ralf-Ulrich Kaiser played a joke on all these musicians, who recorded these sessions for other projects, most notably Ash Ra Tempel. Inspired by Timothy Leary, his partner Gille, and LSD, Kaiser stitched together hours and hours of tape and made several albums of blissful jamming entirely without the input of the people who jammed on them. Synth player Klaus Schulze and guitarist Manuel Göttsching are the best known people here, though everyone pulls their weight. The aspect of krautrock that is now least hip is ironically what was hippest at the time—the idea of freedom and unrestricted mind and spirit power. As cynical as this exercise ultimately was for a guy with a label looking to cash in on a youth movement, all that utopian spritz is actually here in a bunch of very obviously jammy jams with delightful sprawl and flavor. In some ways the most dated krautrock and the freshest? These albums feel wonderful.

Sasha Frere-Jones

Who also suggested

If you select your preferred streamer here, we will save your preference and link to that platform if possible. This can always be changed in the Settings menu.

Apple Music

If you’d like to prioritize Bandcamp if available, tap the Bandcamp logo.

Since some albums are only available on one service, you’ll still see logos for other services if the album is only available on that service.

Next