Pyramid - Pyramid (1976? / 1996 psi-fi)
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Artist: Pyramid
Album: Pyramid
Released: 1976? or 1996
psi-fi (PSCD0004)
Genre: Psychedelic Krautrock
**"The mystery band of the Pyramid label, the eponymous 1 track album would seem to be what Toby Robinson told me was their attempt at a Cosmic Jokers type album.
"Dawn Defender" is quite obviously mixed from many different sessions, and runs a wide range of styles, from trippy Ash Ra Tempel with echo guitars and scintillating synthesizers through to headfirst plunges into Hawkwind overdrive territory. The feel is much like what Porcupine Tree and Electric Orange have attempted more recently, that is except for the authentic Mellotron textures and old analogue delay techniques. In all, an excellent album of spacey Krautrock." (The Crack In The Cosmic Egg)
**"Gorgeous German acid rock project. The obscure and underrated "Dawn Defender" is constantly mysterious, abstract and experimental, delivering interlocking electronic soundscapes punctuated by electric guitar manipulations and echoing effects. The album was originally released by Tony Robinson for Pyramid label. A serious "kosmische" krautrock manifestation, a perfect & strange dreamy-like musical journey throw ultra psych textures. Pretty close to the Cosmic Jokers (first) and A.R & the Machines." progarchives.com)
**"'Pyramid' consists of one long 33 minute track named Dawn defender . Mellow ambient spaced out sounds are dominating with a decent rhythm work - trance pure partially remembering at the AMON DÜÜl 2 Yeti jams. The track once is interrupted by a heavy psych part for some minutes but in the whole the song is meandering with its own special mood. First of all the spacy guitar work is to remark. Nothing is known about the way the band worked out the music. Is it recorded on the fly or reworked with overdubs?
For me it's secondary that this one is announced to be a hoax in the meanwhile. The obscure british label named 'Psy-Fi' is expected to be responsible for that. 'Pyramid' seems to be originally recorded in the early 90s by engineer Toby Robinson of the german Dierks studio. The british musicians are still unknown and therefore provided with fantasy names and a seventies german krautrock background because of a little revival of this genre at that time.
Hoax or not - it doesn't matter - the music is definitely fitting into the krautrock category. Mysteriously and rare per se, musically not spectacular but a solid production with a nice mix of psychedelic and electronic ingredients.
It would be really interesting to know what musicians are responsible here. (Rivertree, progarchives.com)
**"The album is not listed in any kraut rock discographical guide, because it is NOT a krautrock recording [it is listed on the new CD-Rom Crack in the Cosmic Egg, which seems to accept the 1976 release date] but a hoax adout an hypothetical label "Pyramid". The session had been recorded during the early 90's by people connected with the group SUNDIAL and the Acme label. All 6 of the Psi-Fi albums are pseudo-kraut albums and are to be considered as 1996 releases by UK musicians (probably the same involved with the Prescription series). I assume all responsibility of the above given info, as I happen to be a kraut rock collector since the mid-70's owing almost everything from there and I 've never seen or heard about a copy of the abovementioned albums (and I have seen monster obscurities), nor did any German dealer/collector I know.
I can go on commenting on the non-existence of these albums for pages, however I leave it up to you to decide whether they are true 70ies releases or a hoax to cash on the early 90's krautrock revival. Musically speaking though, some of them are great albums, with the Nazgûl (which had an ultra-obscure second 10' vinyl UK release a couple of years later) leading the lot." (anonymous blog comment)
**"Just like a couple of other strict and underground German rock bands, Pyramid is a psych-kraut-experimental trio, holding a bit of “gorgeousness” in their little but frightful and challenging music, still vanishing for good right after their album gets printed. The krautrock movement that’s focused on psychedelic or acid (stone) rock movement can be indicted for its bands and jam groups that value a lot their identity, because many offspring, radical or common bands have the tendency to crash in their own personality even if the style is plainly recognizable; here Pyramid treat their music with a flash of originality - a powerful feeling that kraut isn’t “ded” standing aside too – otherwise, though, Pyramid is a bit of a shuffled, absent, indifferent project, for which it didn’t last at all either. The three musicians, that seem to interact so freely, could be psychedelic mages and stone ruling rockers, but, for all we know, they’re “Frodo”, “Gandalf” and “Pippin” – and it isn’t even sure what instruments the “hobbits“ play and what’s left for the “wizard” to improvise on...
Pyramid is a project combining kraut and psych from earlier wonderful years right during such a late 1976, something that’s a bit wonderful and can earn a full recommendation for them; the upset, however, is in how their minimal and metical project has in the end only a good shine, even with all the over-upload of music and tempting bleaches and even with the small sensibility of “amazing”, curved, rip-up music being played in a rare condition. Also not a happy thought, Pyramid’s unexpected moment of music and free-tested pensiveness has a weakness which will make it out-dated at some point, if it isn’t already for some people and for a distinct ratio of the kraut-rock world. It really doesn’t matter that Pyramid treasures and uses a fine amount of ideas from “die macht das hypnose und acid traume” that is generically krautrock – despite that they do it in a good way – since they don't have more than a pure and nice album.
Pyramid’s music works well with a couple of complex styles and generics, but it would have been moreover good for the style itself to have a lower concentration; being high, it makes an overall easy to listen music excessively dependent on the genre it presses, ordinates and meddles into. Dealing with a “short epic” of tense fibbers and condescending (as possible) flavors, Pyramid likewise plays krautrock, psychedelic, acid, dark ambient, „kosmiche”, progressive, dusty, magnetic-tape, helical rock, undermines that are all pretty great overall, but not surprising one bit, if thought retrospectively. A particular moment from Pyramid draws into a delicious bass-guitar-drums melanged and huffy beat, which sounds a bit jazzy, but in reality hasn’t got anything to do with jazz-rock, not even with jam-druggy such experiences. Bands like Popul Vuh, Cosmic Jokers/Ash Ra Tempel or A.R. sound, indeed, close to what Pyramid plays, but moreover this trio acts similarly to any band or artist that worked on abstract, fuzzy, experimental or chaotic kraut.
Running for almost 35 minutes, Dawn Defender is this close to a charming composition that isn’t defined purely by how its music, its themes or its interlocks evolve. But, eventually, the contrasts, the changes in the chemistry and even some cliques do act in favour of an epic concept that’s poignant on several individual themes. For a very abstract and noisy introduction, the first theme is actually effectively interiorized, including the rhythmic dark moment I mentioned earlier next to a blossom of crystal psychedelic drops and heavy (still not brutal) rock imagination. The switch happens a bit later, as the music mellows to some abstract, psychedelic, sonic samples, and finally catches an atmosphere of rock and electronic sensibility that’s definitely more “modern”, more apart from the artistic early 70s, plus a bit too new to qualify anymore as “acid rock”; still the kraut experiment goes on, only conjured in a more open and vibrating manner. The epic that practically defines everything there is known about Pyramid is a powerful psychedelic adventure at first (with the usual noise and bad sound art), going softer once the ideas themselves can’t think of anything else abstract.
In conclusion, a definitely underground and bit under-class krautrock/progressive psych project, a goodie of experimentalism and sharp instrumentality for any fan, whilst only of a gaining taste in the great scheme of the German Rock scene. Three stars worth." (Ricochet, progarchives.com)
**"As written on the back of the cd release: "Personnel Unknown: hammond, electric guitar, bass guitar, drums, mellotron, mini-moog, electric piano and tibetan bells" this is obscure music, played by unknown musicians.
The cd release features only one track: 33 minutes Space/Kraut music very reminiscent of Popol Vuh's "In Garten Pharaos" period, featuring a lot of cymbals in a generally "Aztec" or "Inca" mystic atmosphere, that means in a way that this has nothing to do with blues or rock music conventions or clichés, this is in fact a very avant-garde point of view of what would "New age" involve in the future: The contradiction of two types of New Age music: Easy Listening and Mind Music... This is definetively Mind Music..
As I personally like this album very much and as I do often listen to it, I would personally rate it 2/5 as it sounds too underproduced (sometimes amateurish), this kind of album would only fit to collectors and Die-Hard fans of German Kraut bands and wouldn't be entertaining at all for the non-Krauthead..
4/5 for the music 2/5 for the "Collectors/Fans only" category.." (samhob, progarchives.com)
Track List:
1. Dawn Defender 33:12
Musicians:
Unknown
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