Amon Düül II
Yeti

Amon Düül II. Eh, not easy to talk about. A huge, multicolored, shapeshifting, indefinable, free group. Virulently free.

Reviewing 'Yeti', such an important and at the same time liquidly elusive album, is not a task to be taken lightly. Just looking at the cover, you are filled with an insinuating sense of subjugation and repressed fear. Holding the record and putting it on the stereo requires an act of superhuman courage. I think I'll write about it while listening to something else, I don't know, maybe Buffalo Springfield.

Yeti is the most played CD in the car radio of Charon's boat; it's truly primordial and mind-expanding music, disinhibiting. In the disco-bars of the Second Circle, when they blast it, damned souls unleash on tables in orgiastic dances, like a thousand flames shaken by the wind.
A double LP as tall as the Himalayas, as vast as the Pacific Ocean, as immense as the Solar System; after listening to it, everything else will seem ridiculous, the Grateful's 'Live/Dead' in comparison is child's play, a paper airplane against an interstellar ship. Free-rock at galactic levels, improvisation like you've never seen (Side D is entirely improvised and damn if it's a spectacle!). The instrumentation is expanded to excess, especially on the percussive side: drums, bongos, African drums, maracas, tambourines, gongs, castanets, and more. These flashed maniacs naturally venture into electronic arabesques with an oriental flavor, always maintaining the pleasure of the most alien noise.

Now, those of you who already know it know what I'm talking about. When you put it on, you have to prepare for a pretty intense journey; it's not something you can listen to every day. Do what you want, sit in an armchair, lie down, stretch out on the floor, try to ignore it by reading something, but be sure that you will be captivated. The dwarf with the deadly scythe will eviscerate you, catapulting you into an unknown universe!
Yes, but where do these hyperspace heroes come from? Let's try to contextualize for a moment.
Amon Düül was a commune of political activists and part-time musicians who indulged in gigantic jam sessions lasting entire days, always in the freest sexual promiscuity. Obviously, there were quite a few assholes among them, and when relations within started to fray, the group split into two. On one side, Amon Düül I continued in the same mindset of political entanglement and free-form improvisation. On the other, Amon Düül II engaged in a project of higher musical value.

Already their first LP, Phallus Dei (God's Penis, for the record), was an incredible surprise, a mysterious object emerging from the darkest corner of the cosmos. However, it is with Yeti that they truly broke through the gates of Hell, creating something immortal. Velvet Underground, Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Jefferson Airplane, Love, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, all boarded on an interdimensional spacecraft and blended so they can get lost for good.

Call it what you like: kosmische musik, krautrock, psychedelia, freak-out music, experimental avant-garde, space-rock, or however you like, the fact remains that this is one of the most fantastic and mind-blasting double LPs in history. And that's that.