Agitation Free
At The Cliffs Of River Rhine (1974)
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      Agitation Free - At The Cliffs Of River Rhine (1974/1998, Garden of Delights)

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      Artist: Agitation Free
      Album: At The Cliffs Of River Rhine
      Released: 1998
      Garden of Delights (CD 028)
      Genre: Krautrock


      At the cliffs of Krautrock ...

      The best live recording in my opinion from AGITATION FREE and one of the last gigs with this line-up which was recorded 2/2/1974 in Cologne (at the cliffs of the river Rhine). Excellent instrumental Space/Psychedelic Rock jams from this band but unfortunately very short for a live recording. Keyboards are used diversified, mostly sparingly, sometimes sacral or for serving spacy synth effects. But first of all the songs are dominated by Lüül Ulbrich and GustI Lütjens with their excellent guitar work.

      We have a very relaxed start with Through the moods , a song which never was released on a studio album. The music raises slowly as for the fine-tuning of the soundcheck and the warmup of the musicians. After some minutes it slips into the main theme and the song is meandering beautiful with great interaction between the musicians. My favourite of this release.

      The following songs are from the former studio effort 'Second'. First communication is somewhat bluesy, more dramatic and undulates. Laila indeed consists of some Allman Brothers themes. So this song surprises with southern rock feeling and might be played in memory of Duane Allman who sadly died in 1971. The album ends (too early) with In the silence of the morning sunrise , shorter than the studio one and with some birds singing. A nice song which sounds like a hommage to SOFT MACHINE.

      'At the cliffs of the river rhine' is a great live document from this german band which should be a part of every Prog Rock collection.
      by Rivertree (progarchives.com)


      Although AGITATION FREE inherited a major status in Krautrock history, their historical output was only of three albums, which is quite few compared to ADII, ART, Can, Kraftwerk, Embryo etc… But 00’s, AF’s total official output includes at least that many posthumous releases, of which At The Cliff Of River Rhine stand as the only one as essential and the only live album, which allows to think more could be heading our way, for there were lots of their gigs recorded. The Cliff part title does provide some confusion though, as it might hint that this record might have been recorded on the romantic Rhine (Koblenz to Mainz), at say Lorelei or something. …. But no, if indeed the live setting did happen in the Rhine valley, it was in Cologne, where the river lies calm and flat in what we can barely still call a very wide valley and there is not a cliff in sight for 100 km. This leaves the title taking inspiration on a cool-looking artwork that seems to inspire itself on the fantasmagoric world of Roger Dean. However these tracks had seen a previous release on Cd in a bootleg form under the title ”At Last AF Is Free”, because the concert had been a WDR radio broadcast.

      This recording however is absolutely pristine and probably one of the best I’ve heard (apparently no overdubbing either) and it came a few months after the release of their second album (which explains the predominance of tracks of that album in the concert). Sonically very similar to their Second album, and still retaining the ABB edge of that album (there is a tracks that very reminiscent of “in memory of E Reed”), due to their double drummer attack of the previous year (yet un-documented), their usual twin guitar turbo drive (Ullbrich & Lutjens) and Hoenig’s particularly superb electronic burbles (amazingly clear & audible for this live setting), etc…. No one single glitch on the whole 47 minutes of the broadcast. Not all that essential a posthumous release if you own their Second album, but if you’re an AGITATION FREE fan, you’ll know you’ll need this.
      by Sean Trane (progarchives.com)

      Track List:
      01. Through The Moods [0:13:27.63]
      02. First Communication [0:08:56.57]
      03. Dialogue & Random [0:00:57.33]
      04. Laila [0:10:02.66]
      05. In The Silence Of The Morning Sunrise [0:04:42.02]

      Line-up/Musicians:
      - Lutz Ulbrich / guitar
      - Gustav Lütjens / guitar
      - Michael Günther / bass
      - Michael Hoenig / keyboards
      - Burghard Rausch / drums
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