Out of focus - Wake Up!

Out Of Focus biography:
This awesome band came from Munich and made three extraordinary albums on the super-collectable Kuckuk label plus another that never got released until recently. Hennes Herring on KB (mainly Hammond organ), Remi Dreschler on guitars, Moran Neumuller on vocals and winds, Klaus Spöri and Stefan Wisheu on drums and bass respectively made an incredibly tight unit although they were prone to a lot of improvisation moments also. Their music is somewhat similar to early British prog but will gradually evolve to a certain jazz-rock while staying very politically and socially conscious (in the typical German style of those years) although the singing does not hold a big place in their music, their third release (a double) being mostly instrumental. They released three albums on the legendary Kuckuk label, the same one that also reissued them in Cd format.

After their third album, OOF suffered their first major line-up change with keyboardist Hennes Herring leaving the band to join SAHARA (another excellent group that will release two very solid albums), and he was replaced by yet another guitarist Wolfgang Gohringer (that made double guitar and double horn attack), but if it affected the group's sound a bit, it was nothing drastic either. A fourth (excellent) album was recorded in the spring of 74, but for some reasons it was never released - until Ultima Thule/Cosmic Egg would in 99. Sadly these events lead towards a slow decline of the group who would gradually slow down activities, recording just one more single and playing their last concerts in 78.

The musicians went their way, but in the mid-80's, three of them met and participated to Kontrast and recorded one of the best Krautrock album of that decade, according to the experts. This album and its intended suite just got a second life by getting a reissue, again on the Cosmic Egg label. Among the other posthumous releases is the left-overs from FLMA albums (Rat Roads) and a Live in Palerme 72, both excellent records appearing on the great Garden Of Delight Label.

Let me quote D-E Asbjornssen in Cosmic Dreams At Play and use his final comment about OOF: "what an awesome band they were" and I fully adhere to that opinion.
(Hugues Chantraine, BELGIUM).

Out Of Focus "Rat roads" (Auszug aus Garden Of Delights 2002)
Muss Out Of Focus aus München näher vorgestellt werden? Es dürfte eine der bekanntesten Bands im deutschen Progressive Rock sein. Im Booklet wird die Geschichte der Band ausführlich wiedergegeben. Nach ihrem 1970er Debüt "Wake up!" folgte 1971 "Out Of Focus" und ein Jahr später das jazzorientierte "Four letter Monday afternoon"..

Tracklist

1. See how a white Negro flies - 5:48
2. God saved the Queen, cried Jesus - 7:29
3. Hey John - 9:37
4. No Name - 3:06
5. World's End - 9:55
6. Dark, Darker - 11:39


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