Xhol Caravan / Xhol (Germany)

Xhol - Motherf**kers GmbH & Co. KG (1972, Ohr - 1999, ZYX Music)

Xhol's last studio release is certainly the one with the highest portion of Krautrock atmosphere by them and a highly experimental one. Actually three of the six tracks on here consist mainly of sound experiments whereas the other three depict really brilliant jammin' jazz-rock done in the best tradition of Canterbury bands. BTW they cancelled the part Caravan from their name later on to avoid confusion with this well-known band. I guess it's worth mentioning that the material presented here has been recorded already in 1970 which is shown by the label "2 years old" on the cover. Taking this fact into account this band certainly has to be considered as one of the most inventive and adventurous ones of those days.

The album starts quite oddly with tuning of a radio and interferences, bits of announcements and excerpts from some soul/blues songs (all of them from their debut still under the name Soul Caravan BTW). The last one reminding slightly to SOFT MACHINE leads over to "Leistungsprinzip" which is basically jazz-rock in Canterbury vein with organ, playful sax, droning bass and drums. Next one "Orgelsolo" is exactly what it's titled that is a quite extended spacey and "kosmische" weird solo on organ. Last song on side one of the vinyl "Side One First Day" is a rather up-tempo jammin' piece of jazz-rock with organ, flute, bass and drums. Second side starts with the next sound experiment "Grille" which is actually just the recorded sound of a cricket with some descrete flute and percussion in the back. The rest of the record is occupied by the long jammin' piece "Love Potion 25" which is actually a jazz-rocking rendition of a song by doo-wop band The Clovers from 1959. Having plenty of slightly psychedelic organ sound and great sax playing in its middle part and quite a fiery and rocking finish, this song is for me the highlight on here and offers a kind of final reward for listening to this admittedly wearisome album.

This oddly named album is certainly not suitable for every Prog fan and might be considered as aquired taste, at least in its experimental parts but anyway I'd highly recommend it to any fan of Krautrock and adventurous music. ESSENTIAL EARLY GERMAN PROGRESSIVE ROCK!