A.R. & Machines - Die grune Reise - The Green Journey [1971/2007, KrautRock, DVD5]

Die Grune Reise (The Green Journey) is a fantastic debut released in 1971, a great year for both Krautrock and Prog Rock. This was my second album by A.R. and the Machines, and by no means a disappointment after the celestial bliss that is Echo. After hearing the first two albums by them, I was convinced that Krautrock is much more than just "experimental, random noises" like I once thought it was. A.R. and the Machines are my favorite Krautrock band at the moment, and although I'm still relatively new to the genre, this is saying a lot because many of the other, more popular, bands are excellent as well.
Such a shame this band isn't more popular, which is one reason I'm reviewing them. All their albums are in desperate need of CD reissues, since they are only available in this format as bootlegs or as expensive, out of print, issues from other countries. Of course, LP would be the best option, but they're hard to find and pricey.
Like Echo and the rest of their discography, Die Grune Reise is structured around the echo guitar playing of Achim Reichel. If you like guitar-driven Krautrock, this is the album for you! It is sung mostly in English, with a bit of German thrown in. I really enjoy Achim Reichel's voice, especially in A.R. and the Machines. Like Echo, there is quite a bit of vocal experimentation in this album, but it is never overbearing. Somewhat accessible compared to Echo, and perhaps one of the more accessible Kraut albums I've heard thus far. Don't get me wrong, this is still a challenging album that will require a few listens to sink in, just not to the extent of other Krautrock. I'm not sure how popular this album was in Germany, but a single was made out of "I'll be Your Singer, You' be my Song / Come on People" which are both catchy, but still great.
There isn't anything negative about this album, I'm just not going to give it a full 5 stars like Echo because the debut isn't quite as dynamic. Still, it's a 4.5 star album that is definitely an "Excellent addition to any prog music collection" mainly for fans of '70s spacey and psychedelic music with an emphasis on guitar. If you are a fan of Krautrock album, Die Grune Reise is a must, as is everything else by this band.
The album was an instrumental rhythmical feast that predated ideas used in various more complex electro-dance related albums from the late '90s. At the time of the publication, a cd review mentioned that Manuel Gottsching's "E2-E4", but also some of the private tapes from AshRa Temple, had similar electronic & guitar related pre-dating dance sequences, and that is certainly true, besides that at the same time (and simultaneously) there can be recognised similar inspirational areas in Can.
After having started as a German beat pioneer (Rattlers) and having had a bit more experiment on his 'Wonderland Band' cooperation, Achim made 5 solo albums, stimulated by a creative explosion, under the name of A.R. & Machines. Somewhere underlying is "the battle against the machines", using the human limit of control without ever being overwhelmed by the machine itself. Where Klaus Schulze's early experiments with analogue cynthesizer-monsters produced organic machine-controlled compositions, a creative soul like Achim Reichel had more the guitar as the main focus, and the help of tape control. In that way, as a creative soul, he is also comparable to what early Deuter did on his debute, "D", and perhaps also, to the few (French) Heldon & Richard Pinhas related albums that combined guitar and electronica.
"Grune Reise" is, despite my introduction, often a more related off-beat hypnotic rhythmic excursion, and this combined 50/50 with more normal rock-song inspirations or verses, into a experimenting teritory, and this combines with a few reappearing repetition loops, re-directing to the instrumental parts of melodic-rhythmic loops of electronica, guitar theme waterfall streams, and lots of acoustic percussion.
The last track, "Truth and probability" is based upon echoed recordings with voices mostly, and some guitar, and is a bit more simple in its idea, still with a very pleasant effect.
The second album which is included with the reissue is actually his 6th album already. The first track fitted so well I hardly realized I was already listening to a different album. The rhythmic guitars and percussion loops here are uplifted to two long band fusion rock improvisations, and taken into further, more relaxed (jazzy) improvisations. Drums by Peter Franken, sax, flute by Jochen Petersen.
The reissue is rather hard to find in Europe, seems to be printed in Ireland and indicates it is digitally remastered.
Another, great review :
"Two-fer reissue of two of the key missing links in the Achim Reichel CD catalog -- more epic Krautorck trance-outs from the echoplex master. Features his long demanded first album Die Grune Reise (aka: The Green Journey), originally issued by Polydor in Germany, 1971; plus his last (6th) solo album, Erholung, a live album from 1975, originally issued by Brain (bootlegged by Germanofon, back in '91). "Die Grune Reise (The Green Journey) doesn't sound like the handiwork of one person, but this first solo album of Achim Reichel's is exactly that. He wrote all the tracks, played all the instruments, and produced the entire scene himself (Actually, make that co-produced with Frank Dostal, who also penned the English lyrics within and had previously done time with Reichel in the popular West German beatgruppe, The Rattles.) And since the 'realization' is credited to A.R. himself, it would seem obvious that the album was more or less his effort and his alone. The refined qualities dash from the ridiculous to the sublime in a place where wordless vocals rhythmically run amok alongside trance-inducing interplay of multi-overdubbed guitars as the background fill of bass and drums, then percussion and acoustic guitar are all tweaked into a Mobius strip of interconnectedness plotted to perfection. For whether it is a signal or signal as repeated echo, all lands rhythmically assured on its assigned and intended position, despite the dense amount of sonic looping at work. Despite such potentially confusing effects at play, Reichel exhibits a skillful juggling act of sound on Die Grune Reise. It is the end result of the kind of heightened awareness that goes beyond merely coaxing results from his equipment (as only the most committed technicians do) to making that leap to communicating directly with his equipment and operating in a specific place where the interfacing going down is at such a basic and mutual level that it is the distance between the source (Reichel's untreated guitar lines) and the result (the echoed playback) that Reichel seems to be playing as much as the guitar AND its echoed counterpart. Parlaying this mental, three-dimensional game of ping-pong with innumerable multi-tracking of further guitars along with the supporting instrumentation at a variety of shades and strengths, it's a marvel to behold the breadth of Reichel's vision at work here. For this album was no such methadone clinic in LP form because Reichel had no Broadway aspirations and was already leagues ahead in innovative sound arrangements with far-reaching possibilities that what he wound up producing was deeply coursing music that weaved through myriad forms and spaces without ever getting lost in the process while simultaneously surfing several depths of the electric ocean in sound." -- the Seth Man/Head Heritage