Amon Duul

[Andrew Gilham]

Max asked about Amon Duul:

Originally, Amon Duul was a hippy commune in Munich, Germany, which did hippy-commune-type things, and made some music too.  Eventually, some of the more musically-minded split to become Amon Duul 2, releasing _Phallus Dei_ - and around then, those left in Amon Duul released some freak-out stuff as _Psychedelic Underground_, which was was followed by some other percussion-heavy freak-out albums.  But since, as Julian Cope put it, you just needed a spliff and a pair of maraccas and you were in, the musical quality is a bit iffy.

But the real stuff was going on with AD2 - and their best albums followed: _Yeti_, _Dance of the Lemmings_, _Carnival in Babylon_, _Wolf City_, _Vive la Trance_.  Amon Duul made a proper studio album, _Paradieswarts Duul_, which is also excellent.  I'd recommend all these unreservedly.  (There's also two live albums from this period, _Live in London_, and the more recent BBC _Live in Concert_, which some people have slammed for being a bit rough, but I think are still pretty good.)

Around 1975, things started to go wrong with Amon Duul 2.  Although _Hijack_ and _Made in Germany_ have some very good stuff on them, the primal punk side began to fade, to be increasingly replaced by a prog-fusion-Europop sound; and the later 70's albums are frankly a bit dodgy.

The "Amon Duul UK" albums, by John Weinzierl and Dave Anderson, are also of variable quality.  Some of these have recently been reissued in nice digipaks by the French label, Spalax, so they might yet re-issue _Die Loesung_ (which featured Bob Calvert, of course) in that format - but even though you sometime see copies around of the Castle original, I believe it's out of print.

Amon Duul 2's two new albums, _Nada Moonshine #_ and _Live in Tokyo_, made since they reformed in '95, are both worth checking out; but pick up the early albums from their great days first.

See more on my Amon Duul 2 page:  http://www.btinternet.com/~andy.gilham/ad2.htm.

- Andy


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