Talking about krautrock "from the vaults" mid 90ies Acme Psi-Fi releases, promoted as ultra rare german reissue series (they were 6 of them as far as I can remember). No doubt there will be people who purchased these things thinking (not unreasonably, given the packaging) they were getting hyper-rare Krautrock treasures heretofore unheard of. In point of fact, these are hoaxes - perhaps not unpleasant to
listen to, but hoaxes - perpetrated by the Acme label and that jaded guru of hoodoo himself, Genesis P. Orridge. Prior to the release of these single artist discs, Virgin put out a compilation called "Unknown
Deutschland: Krautrock Archives Vol. I", which featured the same artists and others. I bought this thing back then and could immediately tell that this was
inauthentic stuff, which does not, of course, make it bad, but does leave me with a bad taste in my mouth, both because I'm not interested in cheap, literal-minded imitations, and because some folks will doubtless really
believe they've purchased the genuine kraut-article.
Genesis pulled something slightly similar with acid-techno several years ago, releasing a pseudo-comp called "Jack the Tab" that was actually comprised entirely of his own noodlings. In that instance, however, nobody cared particularly because the genre was dominated by faceless artists working under pseudonyms, and the music was mass-produced for functional (dancefloor) purposes. Obviously things are different with krautrock, and although I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily offended by the hoax, I do
think it's mean-spirited and tasteless. I hope nobody passes up a BRAINTICKET or early Achim REICHEL disc for one by the COZMIC CORRIDORS or NAZGUL.
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