News: Garden of Delights reissues Embryo - Live!

While we had been anticipating the Sunbirds reissue, Garden of Delights did manage to sneak this one in on us. It's been on their Coming Soon list for many years, but we had no indication of an imminent reissue. This CD is most welcome, and I believe this represents the last Embryo "proper" LP to be reissued on CD. Of course, they have tons of archived live material that remains in the vaults, and GoD has promised us at least one of those from their late 70s' jazz funk fusion heyday. Note that there's a lengthy bonus track as well!

Label says: "Neatly recorded in February 1976, it was released on LP in 1977 (April 0003), but has not yet appeared as CD. The gig had taken place in a town near Munich. The album features the jazz-rock typical of Embryo, influenced by ethnic music, with scarce vocals and some unusual instruments like marimba, dilruba, oud, and nagasuram. Christian Burchard and Roman Bunka wrote most of the songs together. Only 'The orange man' was written by Charlie Mariano. The long CD bonus track 'Just arrived' was recorded in Northern Italy on March 6th, 1976, by the very same Embryo line-up and was as yet unreleased. The cover was then designed by Roman Bunka and was used for the CD without any changes."

News: Garden of Delights releases archival Guildenstern

Garden of Delights comes up with what looks like another archival winner! Between them and Long Hair (and others like Sireena), the pot seems endless. I hope so anyway.

Label says: "Guildenstern were founded in the Hessian town of Rüsselsheim in the spring of 1976 and played some keyboard-dominated progressive rock in the style of bands like early Genesis, early Yes, Camel, or Eloy. The band didn't release anything, but some recordings with a satisfactory sound quality have been preserved: eight tracks recorded in the rehearsal room, as well as three pieces from their rock opera "Life's a stage", recorded live in Flörsheim on September 29th, 1979. They are now to be heard on the Guildenstern CD. All tracks - most of them instrumentals - were written by the artists themselves. Some of them are played on a doubleneck 12-string guitar. Guildenstern keyboarder Bernd Scholl has meanwhile released a lot of LPs and CDs with electronic music and has become one of the leading planetarium musicians in Germany."

GoD also reissued Embryo's "Bad Heads and Bad Cats", which was previously done about 10 years ago on Disconforme. They included the same 17 minute bonus track + added an excellent track from the 1975 Vlotho festival, which we wrote about in the UMR last year. I'll definitely pick up this version eventually, though it won't be a high priority as the Disconforme version that I own is quite excellent as well.

News: Garden of Delights latest releases

This batch includes the rare second album by Radio Noisz Ensemble, originally released only as a cassette. Also another archival Guru Guru release, this time a Wiesbaden concert from 1973 (they previously issued one from 1972). And finally, a another reissue of Embryo's "Surfin'", first done by Disconforme over 10 years ago and long out of print.

"The Radio Noisz Ensemble, successor of the folk group Emma Myldenberger, came from the Weinheim an der Bergstrasse area and released its only LP, 'Yniverze' (Ubu Muziek UMS 01), in 1982. It was compared to works of the Third Ear Band, Between, and Tri Atma. 'Odiszee-Parck'(Ubu Muziek UMS 03), appearing only as a small cassette edition, followed in 1983. The music on this album is of a significantly freer style, more unwieldy and harder to digest than its predecessor; less meditative. The CD was drawn from the master tape. The cover motif is the same as the one used for the cassette, the only difference being its coloured design - like the concert poster of a quite similar make - instead of black and white. Once again the oboe is the leading instrument, and also the remaining instrumentation, featuring English horn, zither, double-bass, violin, flutes, etc. is quite unusual."

"Guru Guru played in the Wartburg, a Wiesbaden hall, on September 17th, 1973. It was one of the gigs recorded by Xhol (Caravan) acquaintance Muck Krieger. His recording equipment was then state-of-the-art: an Uher tape recorder CR 124 and two Revox microphones for the stereo sound, the equipment he had used the year before (CD 'Wiesbaden 1972'). The result has turned out satisfactory, although the occasional singing sounds slightly thready and reverberant. That is partly due, however, to the live sound reproduction during the gig. With its 37 minutes, 'Ooga Booga' leaves a lot of space for free improvisation. 'Round Dance' and ;Das Zwickmaschinchen' are from their fifth LP, 'Don't Call Us', which had just been recorded at that time. Thus, Muck Krieger's supply of Guru Guru material has been exhausted. "