Rokukai Kraan sometimes gets lumped with the fusion crowd because of the presence of an electric sax and their penchant for improvisation. Andy Nogger is a rock and roll record, and a first rate one at that.

Their sound is incredibly original and this album is an all-time classic.

The musical diversity on this 7 song record is enough to boggle the mind--listen closely and each song is like a musical tapestry steeped in rock, jazz, psychadelia, pop, even blues. The standout cuts are obviously the instrumentals "Nam Nam" and "Holiday Am Materhorn" but the entirety bests the individual. Superb production values and fabulous instrumentation pervade the whole record.

Every fan of jazz tinged rock should own and celebrate this album.

Rokukai I've been fishing around this website looking for stuff I'd heard and not heard and learning a ton. On hiatus from progressive rock, it didn't occur to me to look up Kraan, but I'm glad I did.

After a six year progressive diet I've come to the conclusion Kraan is my favorite band in the genre. I had a difficult time choosing which album to review first--Andy Nogger is my favorite progressive album, and one of my all time favorite albums. Kraan live is great, but the rousing energy and lengthy solos make it something of a saturday night jam record for me at my advancing age.

It just happens to be saturday and I'm listening to "Hello Ja Ja I Don't Know" for the first time in ages, what a glorious funky sound! Not featured on any of their studio albums, the song captures the spirit of this record perfectly--lengthy, propulsive improvisational jamming dominates here, and Kraan favorites "Nam Nam" "Holiday am Materhorn" and "Kraan Arabia" are the featured jams. These musicians play incredibly tight rock and roll that skirts with jazz (primarily in their improv skill and presence of an AWESOME electric sax courtesy of Johannes Pappert). The sax really adds a great color to many songs in the Kraan oevre, and Kraan Live! throws it down in spades. Nam Nam, wow. Have mercy.

One of my favorite live albums ever, the energy crackles in the room. Nobody's really cheering, it's like everybody's standing around with their mouths open gaping at the magic they're witnessing. Hellmut Hattler's bass really propels the songs, and his interplay with Peter Wolbrandt's guitar is sensational.

Then, on some songs, Pappert plays lead sax. This gives Kraan the edge over their contemporaries in the variety department. I can see how the Wolbrandt's snide vocals could turn a listener off, but they are hardly the showcase here, or on any Kraan tune for that matter.

Great rock from an awesomely underrated band. Many fans consider this their best work, although I prefer the shorter, Conny Plank engineered Andy Nogger. Hey, you can't go wrong with either, or almost any Kraan record from the early seventies for that matter. They're still churning out quality, genre-bending albums to this day.

I can't call it a masterpiece of jazz music, because it's really not jazz. Still, it's an alltime classic that should be remembered forever. I'm giving it the full five.

Sean Trane Probably their best album and certainly the one showing their talents best, this double vinyl really gives the best possible selection of tracks from their first three albums plus three new tracks as well as an improvisation on another track. What might be revealing about this album is the absence of tracks from the Wintrupp album (which I thought was rather patchy), and the concentration on the debut and third albums. Again placated with disputable artwork, this

Of course as you might have guessed there are some lengths on such an album (but this was so typical of that era’s recordings), most notably on lenghty soloing and indulgent duos even if showing that these guys probably knew their crafts so well that they slept with their instruments. This is so evident with bassist Hottler’s Rickenbacker bass (check out the lenghty version of Nam Nam, which is much livelier than its studio version). Matterhorn is also double its original length, but so much less indulgent showing us the songwriting difference between the previous album’s first and second vinyl side. The first disc ends with a superb rendition of the opening track of the Kraan recording career.

The second disc (the Cd reissue is a single CD so this would be track 5 ;-) is the title track of their last studio album at the time and is followed by an improvisation on its theme afterwards. A lenghty new track (well actually more of a jam) ends the third side on a rather subdued manner. It should be noted that all three “new tracks” presented here are not of incredible calibre, but stay on-par with the average. The double album closes on a version of the superb Kraan Arabia, standout from the debut album.

The musical position of Kraan in Germany was quite unique, with its almost Krautrock sound (ala Amon Duul II), but a clear jazz-rock influence, but not quite like other German bands such as Thristy Moon, Passport or Release Music Orchestra which were much more classic fusion, but this actually adds to their interest. They will go on for many years, but future albums will be increasingly average and more common (what I really mean is less-inspired, but I am not willing to admit it ;-), but this album is really worth it, but I would not suggest it as an introduction for the group.

Sean Trane Kraan’s third album is a bit singular and has a sound of its own, not to say it has ONE sound of its own: this is obviously due to the production, but my ever-lasting impression is that this is a very monotonous record, with relatively few dynamic range (as opposed to the first two albums) and limited inspiration. I realize that I may be going a bit against the majority current here (as it is widely seen as an important album), but I will certainly not deny the other qualities of this record, either

Lead-off track stars is an interesting up-tempoed funk beat tracks with Jack Bruce-style vocals and Wishbone Ash-tinged lead guitar lines (Argus period). Next up is a rather similar title track with fuzzed-out saxes (Canterbury-styled); I personally think this was a mistake to do two such similar tracks one after the other. The same can be said about the other two tracks on this side of the album, rounding up a rather lacklustre halftime result. But clearly better is to come. One of the weird things about Kraan is the rather atypical guitar sound since guitarist Wolbrandt uses mostly a Fender Telecaster (an odd choice since the Stratocaster is so much better suited for solos) as his main instrument although he also uses a hollow-bodied Gibson at times.

The second vinyl side starts with the highlight of the album, with the instruments clearly given a bit more space but guitarist Wolbrandt stealing the show, but again early W A sounds dominate, with saxman Peppert doubling up on his reeds to provide that twin lead effect. Home is maybe the track that breaks most away from the mould in which this record was cast, and its many instrumental prowess finally reveal the genius uncovered in the debut album (but almost absent in the next three vinyl sides) but moreover it has a soul of its own and a spacey ending. Final track Yellow Bamboo has a slight eastern influence sometimes Arabic-influenced sometimes Far-Eastern induced, but the main feature is its heavy psych-rock feel.

An album that finishes much better than it started, but cannot help but deceive the fan expecting a return to the first album. Clearly the second side of the album indicated they still had it, but if that first side had been as good, this might have been their best album!!!

Sean Trane Second album from this very interesting jazz-kraut-rock group having a major blow with their artistic freedom, but wanting to stay sufficiently accessible and therefore reasonably wise. This will not mean that these guys will sign you lullabies, either! Their second and still self-produced record is slightly more restrained and definitely more succinct “propos musical”, and should get our review moderators up on their feet and awake, just as the tone of the album hints at after that oh-so-very-little slightly self-indulgent debut.

However nicely succinct the album maybe, it sometimes lacks the space to expand the themes or ideas. Maybe not that many ideas also a tad uninspired at times. This should of course saddenb the average proghead, but he should know that the raw sound has been preserved and the energy is intact. The mid-song and mid-tempoed section of the opening Silver Wings is still there to prove everything is still intact, but all too short. But they probably had some artistic directives, as the obvious cost of making such a record holds obvious guidelines for a proper administration of a small label such as Spiegelei. Kraan did manage to get this and the following released in the States.

Overall a not-as exhilarating album, but nevertheless very worthy record. I am just checking to see if this review will get read by the review masters so have to keep talking about an album whose highlights are Backs and Gut & Richting. Not quite as enthralling as their debut, hence the three star rating. But I must be fair to the group and to me, please be aware that I hate conniving snitches, always ready to cheat me of a trick of the tail, so this remains to the prospective progheads investigating into this interesting group. The least we can say though is that they had disputable choices for artwork, but this seemed to be common for a lot of German bands, which seemed to choose rebellion and voluntary poor taste as opposed to their UK counterparts out for stunningly beautiful artworks. But with this album, I thing they go far into kitsch territory, but a constant in their artwork is a large open sky preferably at sunset.