Prae-Kraut Pandaemonium, Vol. 1

Given the many landmark German rock bands that emerged in the 1970s and beyond, the 1960s had gotten short shrift in comparison in wider critical circles – more than a little unfair, considering how many of those groups’ members had gotten their start then. 1994’s debut volume of Prae-Kraut Pandaemonium, the first of an open-ended series, aimed to right the balance in classic post-Nuggets fashion: a homegrown bootleg, certainly, but with detailed liner notes (in English, like the majority of the tracks featured) via its three compilers providing a deeper look at some of the stranger corners of a thriving scene. Would you believe a bright-sounding, sunningly-sung tribute record called “Jimi Hendrix” recorded by an already-established Catholic priest/recording artist named Kaplan Flury, much less a groovy organ-led soundtrack song by Improved Sound Ltd. entitled “Leave This Lesbian World”? Then there’s Malepartus II’s German-language take on Napoleon XIV’s “They’re Coming To Take Me Away,” a trip in and of itself, and the promises of a sometimes-ranting alien providing ‘atmospheric loving’ on the Blackbirds’s moody, uptempo groover “Space.” But perhaps the most amazing lyrically is the engaging “Heart Transplantation” by the Dragons, which, indeed, is introduced straight-facedly as a history of Dr. Christiaan Barnard’s breakthrough medical procedure from 1968.