Lisnaholic

Who’s afraid of Amon Duul II ?

In a way, I have been for years; their long, “difficult” tracks and huge reputation can be daunting, plus the fact that personally, back in the 1970s, I never heard anything on their albums that sparked an interest, despite the recommendations of friends.

Innovative, sometimes rocking, sometimes spacy, they nonetheless kept to a pretty conventional rock-band line up – a violin, a sitar and two individualistic vocalists being about the closest thing to a signature sound in terms of instrumentation. Perhaps the way they alternate between acoustic and elec guitars also counts.

Rather like the Grateful Dead, Amon Duul II’s original appeal was largely tied up with counter-culture drug-taking experimentation: the soundtrack to a thousand trips, etc. But approx fifty years on from the release of their albums, all of that innovative weirdness has long ago been normalized and surpassed, so that listening to them is a little like reading H.G.Well’s “First Men On The Moon”: a view of what was considered futuristic back in the old days.

I’m going to try a speed review of their discography, one comment per track, as a guide to anyone else who wants to explore this Krautrock behemoth. Even though they surely deserve credit for being bold mind-expanding improvisers back in the day, I´m going to ignore the historical perspective and review them as I find them now, with the cold, sober mentality of a musical ignoramus in the 2020s. So perhaps the real question should be: “Are Amon Duul II afraid of me?”

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953