La Otracina
Tonal Ellipse Of The One

Mentioning any krautrock band as an influence has become the standard practice to be granted entry (regardless of actual artistic merits) into the semi-masonic circle of avant-whatever bands. Just unleash a guitar with an acidulous tone on a carpet of monotonal VCS3 coordinates, and accolades for references to Ash Ra Tempel or early Tangerine Dream quickly follow. Throw in a proto-electronic sounding synth for a solid fifteen minutes, and a singer groaning nonsensical things into the mic, and there's a subtle nod to Can and Faust. And it doesn’t matter if the rest of the album misses the mark entirely; the illustrious credentials are noted, and the attention of the niche is awakened.

Recently, however, there has been an increase in bands that don't vaguely cite krautrock but seem lifted straight from 1972 Dresden and thrust into the present. A sort of cubed citationism, which on one hand doesn’t seem like a sly artistic choice, but on the other relegates these entities to clones of the originals. With the now widespread knowledge of the '70s German scene, many new bands diversify their sources of inspiration. Not the kraut sound in general, but specific bands within it. La Otracina have chosen the Guru Guru of the tentacular drummer Mani Neumeier.

With an endless series of Cd-Rs, they arrive at their (let's say) official album courtesy of the beloved Holy Mountain, a label increasingly interesting for the quality and originality of its offerings (see Mammatus, Blues Control, and others). The 5 tracks present are offspring of a unified musical stream of consciousness, somewhere between the more liquid and hypnotic Guru Guru and the eternally jam session vibe of Ash Ra Tempel in "Join Inn". "Beyond The Dusty Hills" is a perfect example and an almost pedantic reproduction, albeit with a commendable approach to improvisation. The 10 minutes of "Sailor Of The Salvian Seas" toy with a hard rock guitar riff, stubbornly repeating it before deforming and deconstructing it under a post-rock lens, with the drums doing whatever they please, taking a free jazz tangent. "Ode To Amalthea" honors Pink Floyd's "Echoes" and the theme of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", with the usual free drumming making the otherwise peaceful journey into deep space less linear. The most well-realized episode remains the opening "Yellow Mellow Magic", which in 6 minutes condenses the solutions and musical atmospheres of the entire album.

An album for a few, but not due to excessive difficulty of listening, but due to the prolixity and perhaps excessive adherence to the sources. Consider yourself warned.