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Anteater · 03-29-2010, 03:56 PM

Dzyan – Electric Silence (1975)

"Ihr Ganzes Krautrock Sind Gehören Uns!!"

1. Back To Where We Come (8:57)
2. A Day In My Life (4:03)
3. The Road Not Taken (4:54)
4. Khali (4:55)
5. For Earthly Thinking (9:38)
6. Electric Silence (4:30)

Reminiscent of Can at their most percussive whilst incorporating the improvisational tendencies of an ethnic jazz ensemble, Dzyan are a strangely underrated bunch from Germany's Krautrock boom in the early 70's who scoured the cosmos in their search for musical enlightenment, producing three albums in their explorations from their beginnings in 1972 toward the end of the decade. Electric Silence, the final release in this trio that came out in 1975, is the culmination of the group's labors and a testament to just how powerful music can be when it possesses both striking immediacy and some killer mood setting prowess.

The above opening number 'Back To Where We Come From' is oddly minimalistic for such a spacious, ear-grabber of a track; it defines best what Dzyan can do given some Eastern scales and a wicked bass/drum groove. By the time the guitar revs up a bit after the 5 minute mark and the jam begins to build up speed, it isn't hard to believe why this track, and furthermore the album, are considered oft-ignored classics in the Krautrock genre: it's exotic, but accessible and attractive despite its purely instrumental nature, and Dzyan couldn't have started off this record any better.

However, it's the song numero dos, 'A Day In My Life', where we go from excellent to beyond praise. Sitar dominates this piece from start to finish, strumming along to some wicked percussion lines evocatively in its hypnotic strut towards the finish line. Genius stuff really: you can hear echoes of songs like this in a lot of modern day psytrance and related electronic genres.

Following pieces 'Road Not Taken' and 'Khali' both continue the previously mentioned trends in Dzyan's music: percussion-heavy psychedelia contrasted against sitar and other exotic instrumentation. But it's the track before last, a 9-minute centerpiece 'For Earthly Thinking', where all these elements come together into one composition whist adding some new stuff to the mix: the opening minute features Mellotron, followed by pure acoustics for another minute, then scaling back to low-key percussion and some creepy chamber music as interpreted by Scientist or The Upsetters for the next few minutes, followed by a second half where the insanity is crunched together into something Hendrix might have done had he lived to 1975.

Hence, to put it lightly, this is a phenomenal slice of music. Heck, its mere existence making this album worth getting into your collection by default.

The closing title track is also quite something, if a bit quiet: drums dominate and boom and crash while keyboards vamp away in the distance, ending the album on a fading note that makes you wonder where it might have gone.

I know for some people Krautrock isn't that easy to get into: some folks pick up Can's Tago Mago and Amon Düül II's Phallus Dei for the indie cred and call it a night. However, that would be doing Krautrock and a lot of other music being done in Germany back in the 70's a great disservice. This is a scene full of great bands doing music that even prog-haters today look on with a begrudging respect.

For those who want to get their hands on some quality Kraut, you can't do much better than Electric Silence: it's mesmerizingly memorable!