Completing the discography of Georg Lawall, part 3, his Rock Opera from 1982, and the dreaded Boogie and Blues LP from 1979

What could have possessed him to put together a rock opera in the early eighties, complete with symphonic backing and rock band?  At least it's not a mystery why this was completely forgotten in the mists of time.  Had it been released ten years before when there was a taste for these things, it might have been remembered, at least slightly.

And the music?  well, it varies between good and bizarre.  So that's quite a wide continuum of possibilities and you can gauge for yourselves whether this enormous space allows the consistency one would earnestly hope for in such a project.  At least (I thank god) the songs don't run into each other or I would have never had the patience to listen to 24 minutes at one sitting, never mind two sides of that same or slightly less length.  As always, without any exception, one can expect a reggae song, at least one, on these early 80s German albums.  From a promisingly composed overture unfortunately too often these projects wind up sounding like off-off-Broadway musicals with overly simplistic numbers and too many different styles without any unifying feature other than, presumably, the plot.  (And what a plot this story must have had!)  There were even times when I was listening to this record where I thought my kids were playing some other song in the background close by, it sounded that chaotic.

One thing that absolutely floored me was the presence of Li Garattoni, the beautiful singer (her album is a masterpiece of progressive jazzy pop), as one of the characters Indi (she sings tracks A3 and B5), and the musicians aiding Georg Lawall include Fuchs, Goos, and Knut Rossler i.e. the members of the Fuchs-Goos Band posted earlier here.

As for the cover, it is simply awful.  The rainbow, the Michael Jackson-like character carrying a violin, the peace symbol a la Max Ernst surrealism-- it just doesn't work,  It doesn't work at all. 

I'll post the Li Garattoni song "Die Geier" which is in the B5 position, the way she sings the melody is quite entrancing:





Gotta love that beautiful voice.

Of course all music and lyrics were by Lawall.  I will not mention, to avoid embarassment, how the overture was recycled from 'Bittersuss in Stuttgart".

What about the other album, the Boogie and Blues?  I am chagrined to say I did purchase it, and I will post it after the other.  Luckily it was quite scratchy.

Tidying up the discography of Georg Lawall and Orexis - PART 2

An astonishing set of acoustic guitar music from this awesome genius, note that, so far as I can tell, only one song is borrowed from another disc, as was the case in the live album from pnf I think.

I think somewhere in the past I mentioned that artist shocks us by how uncompromising he was, even in 1982 he was still utterly dedicated to pursuing progressive avant-garde music even as the world was filling up with fuzak, digital keys and drums and all-round silliness everywhere.  And like the German band Alcatraz, he never gave up the progressive spirit.

Simply have a listen to the most wondrous track on this record, called 'perpetuum mobile,' and be prepared for your jaw dropping if perchance you have ever tried to learn to play the guitar at one time, so long ago, in your past history:





An amazing, amazing artist, a true artist...

Tidying up the discography of Georg Lawall and Orexis - PART 1: Carnaval and Bittersüß Wie Stuttgart

I thought I had completed the Orexis discography in long ago pnf days, but I was wrong, two albums were missing as you can see.  The Bittersüß is just spoken word but has some awesome guitarwork from our hero Lawall, while the 1984 album here presented turned out to be quite good, not at all silly Hispanic or fuzak throughout (it is, of course, here and there) as one might have expected from the late year.  No, it seems Georg was an uncompromising artist all the way to the bitter end....  as it was indeed the end for progressive (ethnic) fusion for us in Europe and North America, only in Eastern Europe did it prosper a little.

Here is the best track, which was written by Gert Kilian (the band's percussionist), it's called 'Morgentau:'





So in short we will present to you the following missing albums:
Musical portions from Stuttgart, Palette from 1982, and Carnaval from 1984.  And I think that's all that I'm interested in hearing.


With regards to our Bittersuss, what a shame we can't edit out the talking to just focus on the music which I however attempted to do in the excerpt posted below, which guaranteed comprises all the music on the record and a bit of the speech.  Because really the compsition is fabulous and highly inventive and definitely in the realm of progressive folk-jazz. The record is in mint condition, but I'm not surprised since everyone who owned it probably only played it one time!

That opening riff is simply fantastically killer and I won't be surprised some deejay somewhere borrows it and turns it into a current pop hit with ridiculous lyrics.  But isn't the cover copied from Thick as a Brick?

Now if there is one musical excerpt you should hear it's this one.  Just listen to the improbably dissonant and oddly rhythmed riff that opens the record and speaks to me of the genius of the man:

If anyone needs the other pnf albums which are Orexis 1977, Inspiration, Reflection, Communication, and Georg Lawall Live, let me know, I have them all and reviewed them for the purpose of this post.  Here follow a few comments from the earlier posts (on pnf):


"Continuing on with the Orexis completion, we have their first album from 1977, entirely composed by the amazing Georg Lawall, who plays not just guitars but percussion and sitar. Back of the vinyl describes his musical formation, he was in Total Music Association (free jazz I believe) which produced the LP Walpurgisnacht, then formed the Georg Lawall Trio before Orexis. He was educated in the Munich conservatory and played concert guitar as soloist (not surprisingly given his virtuosity). The other members are Erik Erker, bass, and Gert Kilian on percussions. Erik plays I think cello with a bow in the track 'Tombstone' -- as usual giving it a plaintive funereal sound especially when playing in a very light way on the highest notes. Erik played music by Bartok, Webern and Stravinsky, as well as with Albert Mangelsdorff the great german jazz musician, and other jazz combos in Frankfurt. The percussionist played with the "Ensemble for new music" in Stuttgart as well as multiple jazz groups.  In general this is acoustic music with a great many jazz and classical elements in the composition. Similar to Contact Trio, for those familiar.  In my opinion Lawall's writing is not quite as proficient as the two later albums, Inspiration and Reflection. Several songs meander with the acoustic guitar soloing with no real direction. A couple of tracks are marred by monotonous sitar.

Finally, I include in the comments a new good quality rip of Reflection (1979), which to me is the big masterpiece of Georg Lawall. I can't help but mention the incredible photo cover, in which the mirror shows a lovely blonde topless german girl (Lawall is holding a small mirror inside the wall-mounted mirror). Again Lawall is responsible for all compositions except Bassart, by Wolfgang Lauer the bassist on this record. Trilok Gurtu plays tablas and percussions, along with Gert Kilian. Dieter Bihlmeier plays flutes and Bruckdorfer oboe on the second side, called the Catalan Suite. (Side one is the Reflection Suite.)"


And indeed with hindsight, Reflection was his masterpiece, though Communication really came close to equaling it.

Incidentally the files now have a password, which is the obvious: progressreview.