AMON D??L II Bee As Such music review by Guldbamsen

Black hole night nurse

Wow - just WOW!! How is it even possible for an album made by one of Krautrock's finest to be this neglected - completely overlooked? This has got to be one of the best kept secrets inside the world of progressive music. Sure, the fact that Bee as Such only is available as a download off of the band's website, and that it hasn't even received a proper art work as of yet - and baby we're talking 2012 now - it has been 3 years for crying out loud!!! -Maybe just maybe that has something to do with the remarkable obscurity surrounding the release, but whatever the reasons may be, and whatever the intentions behind all of this hush hush - keep it on the down low big boy, it certainly doesn't complement the music found within. From this Danes' perspective, it is a crying shame.

The purpose of the album, back in April of 2009 when Renate Knaup, John Weinzierl, Lothar Meid, Chris Karrer, Danny Fichelscher, Jan Kahler and Gerard Carbonell entered the Dreamscape studios, was to remove themselves from the past and the Krautrock that had formed them - focusing entirely on making music for the new millennium. That may all very well have been their intentions, but the fact of the matter is that with an all-star cast like that - including some inspiring and psychedelic twin guitar serenades like fiery phoenixes, we were never going to get anything less than a solid and highly esoteric Krautrock album - Amon D??l ll style!

Renate sounds as witchy and foreboding as ever - reminding me of some ancient sea nymph luring men of the big blue oceans out on long strenuous ordeals just to wind up in the embrace of this poisonous female. John Weinzierl's playing is just like I remember it to be - high and mighty - constantly playing around with a loose notion of what he wants - relying on the instrument itself to make up the rest of the story as the music slowly unfolds and reveals its deepest and darkest secrets. Multi-instrumentalist Chris Karrer still sports an undying love of quirky instillations, and the way he approaches any given instrument is a thing of beauty. Come violins come saxophone - he is truly your man - AND he plays a mean guitar as well. Then we've got Lothar Meid who sits in the middle of the proceedings like a big fat Buddha - relegating warm and fuzzy blasts off his unique bass. He is a building block in himself. In short: Every band member is in top form, and whether the aforementioned idea of making music for the millennium ignited something special or these old warhorses just clicked and made music untethered and in the spirit of the moment - or it indeed was a combination of the both, still remains to be revealed, but the outcome sure is thrilling and rocking.

Comprised of 4 tracks one could be led into thinking that Bee as Such is but a brief exercise in music, but with a closing cut lasting some 26 wonderful minutes - you'd be wrong. It lasts nearly an hour. Every tune leading up to this monster of a closer take different routes - wandering freely around in pelting rock gymnastics, pseudo folk aspirations and teutonic gulps of towering Krautrock. If anything, I think this album has everything to do with the past. Albums such as Yeti and Tanz der Lemminge are timeless. They don't fit into boxes - and they certainly aren't ancient artefacts that speak about a once lost generation of musicians that dared to go outside of the confines of modern music. NO - it is infinitely more than that! It was and still is about the music and what it achieves in that fleeting moment, when it reaches your ears. It can literally become the whole world - speak for the whole world - and in sentences you understand with body and mind - only fuller and more intensely. Bee as Such has fragments of this. It dares to be something that is as modern and hip as a bicycle, but that doesn't change its usage and the way we are able to cherish it. I ride my bike every day, I'll have you know!

This is not the past, the present or the future, but it is some sort of hybrid of the three. It is Krautrock - and a damn fine example of it too. My only plea is that they release this little chameleon as a tangible entity. Something I can hold and lick - and something I can stare at, whenever I dream myself away on those German starry night skies with dark and sombre blues and blacks engulfing me, as if a black hole picked me up in its arms and cradled me to the gentle bobbing of Amon D??l ll.

Guldbamsen | 4/5 | 2012-6-10

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