The 3 Libraries of Volker Kriegel and The Groove-Combination: Untitled, with Leaf, and With Rainer Bruninghaus on side 2

All the albums of the great German guitarist Kriegel are worth seeking out (plus the ones he made with the Mild Maniac Orchestra), even the ones dipping into the 80s.  He never gave up the original, relaxed, and warm & tender songwriting style he developed quite early on in such homages to females as Marie - Thérèse, though the wild fusion definitely petered out.

These three library records are still quite unknown despite their high quality-- not subpar in any way compared to the official releases.  The last one with the presence of ECM keyboardist and Eiliff player the great Rainer (everyone know his work, I hope?) really excited my curiosity despite the bland titles being all I had to go with and so I jumped in and grabbed it.

The first two are so similar to his other work I wondered if maybe they are hand-selected excerpts from the discography but I didn't recognize any tracks I had heard before, except maybe the Palm Dreams composition.  As an example from the second one-- you can't really expect much from a track called The Stripper but surprisingly it's tender and well-shaped unlike most strippers I've had the lack of pleasure to have ever seen in my Univ. days:





The final album (and the rarest!) is the big treat here, side one being Volker's and the second side Rainer's.  The titles are quite generic but the music is not so.  The Butterfly Landing is quite remarkable:





Enjoy...