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Trigon — Cosmic Kraut Jam
(Bandcamp no#, 2024, CD / LP / DL)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2024-11-12

Cosmic Kraut Jam Cover art

In the early 2000s the German psychedelic rock trio Trigon was cranking out new albums every year, and every one was flawless. I had a chance to see them play live at Baja Prog — I forget which year exactly, but at that point I bought copies of every recording they had available at the time, a couple of which were live albums and a couple studio albums (though recorded essentially live) and all were smoking hot stoner instrumental rock with some jazz influences thrown in. In recent years the band, led by brothers Rainer and Stefan Lange (on guitar and bass respectively), has slowed down their release schedule some, with this being only their second new album since 2011, the first with new drummer Rudi Metzler, replacing Macedonian drummer Tihomir Lozanovski, who had appeared on Trigon’s previous five albums. It was the late Jimi Hendrix back at the end of the 60s who pretty much defined the psychedelic guitar trio sound, albeit with vocals and a heavier dose of the blues and soul; Trigon certainly takes a cue from those heady days as well as  some of the blistering German rock trios of the 70s like Guru Guru and other travelers on the same trajectory, immersing their sound in swaths of swirling psych guitars that will leave the listener’s head spinning, while the rhythm section maintains the frenetic pace. Since this is Trigon’s first album to be released on LP (as far as I’m aware of), it makes sense that the opener would be a full album side, and so it is “Traumspoiler,” a 23-minute power-packed psychedelic adventure that never lets a second go to waste, reminiscent at times of the work of the recent three-piece version of Kraan; the intense jam seems to be constantly evolving as it proceeds from one idea to the next, as this telepathic trio executes their composition in real time. The B side of the album contains three more pieces beginning with “Guten Morgen Aurora” where the drums and bass lead the group into a slow, howling guitar groove. At only around three minutes, “Hinterm Ereignishorizont” seems like an extension of the previous number, while the closer, “Setzt das Sonnensegel,” trudges along a high-powered ten minute course that drives some of the deepest grooves and twisted guitar soloing you’re likely to hear anywhere. Mixed and mastered by Eroc, Cosmic Kraut Jam enshrines everything that this superb band is all about.

Filed under: New releases, 2024 releases

Related artist(s): Trigon

More info
http://trigon.bandcamp.com/album/cosmic-kraut-jam
http://youtu.be/JhNVghxJieA
http://youtu.be/SYtiFoLAdsM

 

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