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Peter Ström — Free Electric Rock
(Bandcamp Cosmic Egg UTCE 016 , 1992/2020, CD / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-07-24

Free Electric Rock Cover art

Peter Ström is the name of the group — there’s no member by that name among the trio of musicians, who recorded this rehearsal jam session in 1992, after which it sat unreleased for thirty years give or take, until the good folks at Auricle Music / Cosmic Egg transferred it from the original demo cassette to a CDR and then finally to a digital download. The group features the late Peter Frohmader (1958-2022) on guitars, along with drummer Andy Sowade and electric bassist Tobias Siegert; their music is pretty much an exercise in duplicating the attack, freedom and feel of early 70s German rock typical of bands like Guru Guru circa UFO and Hinten. Seems that Frohmader was involved in all kinds of collaborations that we are only finding out about now, like the recordings he made with Hiro Kawahara (Heretic) that only surfaced last year on Cuneiform’s download box set of all the recordings Kawahara did over several decades. Anyway, Free Electric Rock consist of six tracks, none of which have titles, the opener clocking in at a full twenty minutes, and a most impressive number it is, rolling in like a slow fog of percussive sounds, then finally around the three minute mark one begins to hear evidence of bass, then the guitar comes in, all very gently at first, then slowly taking shape amid the cadence put forth by the drums and bass, and a few minutes beyond the whole trio is laying down some mighty heavy freewheeling instrumental rock. By the time it all starts winding down, you’ll just want to go back and experience it all again. The five remaining tracks are all shorter in duration, together totaling just shy of twenty minutes, each taking a slightly different approach but most delivering an aggressive driving punch, sometimes filled with a chaotic sense of freedom, without any imposed restraints. Only the very short track four (91 seconds in length) delivers some respite as a soft jangly interlude of sorts, and the two-plus minute closer is a bizarre funk workout that almost sounds like two bassists playing with the drums. 

Filed under: Archives, 2020 releases, 1992 recordings

Related artist(s): Peter Frohmader / Nekropolis, Peter Ström

More info
http://cosmicegg1.bandcamp.com/album/free-electric-rock

 

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