This album was posted long ago in poor rip and I feel it really deserves better, being an astonishing combination of fusion, modern classical, jazz, and that ethnic component typical of advanced Germanic music, a bit zeuhlish almost. It's surprising this was made in 1971. Like Soft Machine 3, it's a double-LP with each side featuring one track. On the back is written the following: "we are very happy to present to you this unique double-album based on an idea by bacillus..." It was recorded live in Zurich at Weisser Wind, which is across from the old railroad station by the large Zuhaftingsalter Timepiece...
...This reminds me of a time just after reunification in the late eighties when I was invited to the former East Germany as resident privatsdocent in biermeister wissenschafts, near the town of Neuschwanbergendorferingen which featured a similar timepiece at its old station. I was cordially invited for a prospectus in the Schaftsingencollegeschellsteintungserstellensgymnasium, which in English, you know as a co-op. It was curious to observe towards the twilight hour the pedestrians, often quite tipsy or even drunk on weissbier (of which the local one was notorious for its ability to remove the panties from young female students) waiting at the lights across the highway which often took some 5-6 minutes to change. Of course, as a westerner, I would attempt a crossing as soon as I saw there were no cars coming. Immediately some Bürgermeister would wag his long finger at me and comment, "ach no! it is not permitted to cross on das roten licht…! "
To which I would reply, "pardon me sir, there is no car coming, as you may easily observe, not even a lada, and it is a wonderful warm night... it is better to cross than to remain here waiting. Please, good night Herr B... Guten nacht."
Immediately with his cane across my nipples he would stop me, "no sir! where are you from? one does not cross here upon the red. This is VERBOTEN! "
I laughed gently, "sir, this is the night of quiet and we have had a bit too much perhaps to drink.. I shall proceed on my way with your kind forbearance upon the wings of my Erdinger ..."
Then, a local politician well-known in these parts for his war service in the underground naked-molerat burrows who had been listening quietly decided to speak up.
"Sir!! Herr K.!! you are not from here, are you!! perhaps you laugh at us simple townsfolk. Yes, we are unsophisticated, not like you. We stand at the red lights and do not cross. Even, some among us are mentally retarded [here he pointed out a teen chomping on a knackwurst who evidently had Down's Syndrome] -- even some of us are mental defectives [here he pointed towards an empty spot-- which occasioned my surprise, to which he replied immediately with] Ach! again I see Hans, the village idiot, is on stress leave!"
"stress leave?"
"yes! in Germany, these village idiots are now unionized-- they are permitted 452 days of sick leave per year!" whereupon I remarked in utmost perplexity:
"452 days--?"
"Sir!! you forget: they are a union of idiots!! -- as I was saying, in our town, we have multiple mental defectives, prone to long incurable stays in mental asylums of which there are more than four hundred in the area. But listen here!" and his face was contorted with rage, almost a centimeter away from me, so close one of his head lice made the long desperate plunge onto my neatly-combed hair and my alcohol-dulled reflexes were too slow to trap it in my teeth:
"But--- We are in Germany here! Wir sind in Deutschland! We DO NOT CROSS!!! NEIN!!!!"
Suddenly the others who by now numbered in the dozens (as the light still had not changed) would crowd me, in a riot of angry faces as if in a painting by H. Bosch with twisted expressions of murderous rapture, telling me to stop and forbear. At that time almost the entire town including the wet-nurses with their milk-laden breasts were standing there. I would then observe a grandmother in a wig and hair-net, an angry red-haired lady with a large potbelly and bunions of equal size exclaim:
"sir ! you have no children, ja ? "
"pardon me, madam, no I am not yet blessed with these beasts at this time " I dutifully replied.
She would then continue,
"You must not cross! for you are a poor example to the children of our town ! See here!! " At which she would point out the long-haired puppet called der Struwwelpeter in the nearby toy store for want of a better example (who to this day still gives me feverish nightmares). Suddenly, a drunken 10-year-old did in fact appear and shook his head at me, sadly, for attempting to cross, before proceeding into a large mountain in pursuit of a pied flautist.
By now angry, I yelled, "A pox upon you townsfolk!!!" -- and, "I shall be too old for children by the time this light changes!!!"
"You shall not cross this light!" the townspeople yelled in unison, all of them there, as if in a general assembly, some in their nightshirts, night-hats, and night-skiboots.
"I shall indeed!" I answered, badly needing to deprive my kidneys of their precious yellow nectar. But still they all blocked me in an impasse of contorted and stuporous bodies... and then, the witch screamed out,
"Cross--- AND YOU SHALL NOT HAVE CHILDREN!! "
Today, of course, I still stand at that red light, waiting for it to change… still waiting…
and I and frau K. do have children or kinder as we ironically call them in our language (which wild animals, I am loathe to admit, have indeed cursed our lives as the witch foretold) -- and how I wish that light would change!!!
ach--deutsche burokratie!!!
