Out Of Focus - Palermo 1972 (Garden Of Delights/2007)
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Artist: Out Of Focus
Album: Palermo 1972 (Live on 26.5.1972)
Released: 1972/2007
Garden Of Delights (CD-135)
Genre: Krautrock, Jazz-Rock
Crack In The Cosmic Egg: Existing for ten years or so, Out Of Focus were amongst the finest of German rock fusion bands. Formed in late-1968 in Munich, they rapidly established a stylish and refined blend of rock and jazz, that drew in psychedelic overtones and also a profound socio-political awareness in Moran Neumüller's songs. The early albums exhibited that unique character of Krautrock (akin to Xhol, Thirsty Moon, etc.) with pure invention in a music that transcends boundaries, taking the rock song beyond its normal format with extended instrumentals featuring an abundance of solos and surprises. I would argue that Out Of Focus started excellent, and got even better with each album. WAKE UP! is a music as exclamatory as the title, very underground and still with an air of psychedelia. The eponymous second is possibly their most refined, and the most well-balanced mixture of songs and instrumentals, with stunning Xhol/Embryo hybrids. Probably the finest of all their albums was the monumental double FOUR LETTER MONDAY AFTERNOON, almost certainly a dedication to Soft Machine's revolutionary double THIRD, it similarly had mainly instrumental and lengthy tracks, although the first LP is a little more down to earth, the unprecedented surprise is the extended suite that encompassed the whole of the second LP! It seems amazing that a band were able to start off with a masterpiece and better it with each subsequent album, yet that's what Out Of Focus did!
It's a shame that Kuckuck withdrew its interest in Krautrock in the mid-1970's, as it left Out Of Focus without the chance of a contract elsewhere. So the story goes, Eckart Rahn was not that enthusiastic about FOUR LETTER MONDAY AFTERNOON and gave it no promotion. This was a bizarre state of affairs, as it was the most choice selection from hours upon hours of recording sessions financed by Eckart and Kuckuck. No, he wasn't interested any more, which found Out Of Focus in a similar position to Embryo, in that they could easily get a record deal if they did something commercial, but not to do what they wanted to do. The best of the unreleased recordings from the FOUR LETTER MONDAY AFTERNOON sessions are now documented on the album RAT ROADS. Further to my inquiries about a later unreleased album, Remigius Drechsler rediscovered tapes from 1974 of rehearsal sessions for an album that was never fully realised. Remastered and remixed these appeared as the album NOT TOO LATE which stepped-on style-wise from the longer tracks from the second Out Of Focus, but without keyboards, and instead a second guitarist and expanded wind section. It's a remarkable gem that proved Out Of Focus to be moving on despite the media apathy. There were plans for a release with the April/Schneeball collective in 1975, in fact some recordings were made, and maybe some day they will gain a release on a planned anthology CD. All that eventually emerged was one track on a festival LP, by which time they had changed into a more conventional jazz-rock band, featuring only one original member, leader: Remigius Drechsler. Since their demise Remigius went on to numerous other projects, joining Embryo several times over the years, organising music events in Munich, the Out Of Focus revisited Kontrast project, and more recently the Latino fusion combo Sarasir. - By By Steven Freeman & Alan Freeman
Album Reviews:
#1: The well-known band from Munich. The best concert of their Italian tour 1972, played at the Teatro Biondo in Palermo on 26.5.1972. German progressive with strong jazz touch. With flute and organ. Top sound quality. Recorded between the releases of their second and third album. - Freak Emporium.
#2: In May 1972, Out Of Focus went on a Goethe Institut financed Italian tour, which brought their music among other things to Rome, Neapel, Palermo, Genova, Milan and Triest. The clay/tone engineer and sound mixer of the tour - Stephan Saddlemeier - cut most concerts professionally on a Revox A77 tape recorder also. "Palermo 1972" is the concert at 26.5.1972 in the Teatro Biondo from that collection. Long jams are allover the album -- organ, guitar and saxophone and/or flute is dominated, enriched from time to time by singing and by the solid rhythm section. "Palermo 1972" sounds very fresh, all instruments stands well in mixes. Here's your chance to listen to this "awesome" band live on stage. - By sakalli.
#3: Embarked on a Germanic culture promotion tour in Italy, OOF played some five or six gig in the peninsula, the last one being Palermo (Sicily) and it got recorded, even though some of it had to be thrown away due to an hilarious “cut the power” incident between the concert hall janitor and the band. The great Garden Of Delights released these tapes in 2008, placated a very average colour picture of the band and as usual took great care in giving all of the possible infos surrounding the gigs, hence the incident recounting mentioned above. Unlike many of the Live albums released by the label, the length of the session makes this release particularly worthy. If you’ve been reading me for a while, you’ll know I jumped on this album as soon as I heard of its release date, because OOF is one of those groups that have yet to find a flaw in their discography, even if out of their six albums, three are posthumous releases. This live album took place well after the release of their second eponymous album, which is about the time of their peak (arguably some will say the FLMA album is their apex), and I was expecting to hear a lot of that sophomore album. Surprisingly, only two of the six tracks are from any other albums of theirs (and both from the OOF disc), the other four being song projects interrupted by jams and extended solos. As usual with GOD releases, the sound is remarkably good, when not simply superb, and this is all the more enjoyable, because the disc allows us to see a side of the band that was not previously documented on disc before: OOF was as wild, energized and improvising on stage as they were in the studio and here, they played their set in continuity, most of the time linking their tracks together. If the opening Whispering (taken from OOF) appears to be shortened from 13+ to roughly 9 minutes (not counting the first “crowd and adjustments” minute), but an extended Hennes Hering KB solo (this is close to a Moog experiment that Emerson would’ve done some two years before) links it with the (surprisingly?) Drechsler-credited Café Stilleto and its 13 minutes KB extravaganza. Again taking no time, the group unleashes into a Moran-credited groove (the I Want To See Your Face No More improv) where he pulls a lengthy flute solo, followed Spori’s lengthy drum solo, directly leading in the Where Is Your Home Town improv with Moran pulling an excellent sax solo, joined by Hering’s great underlining organ. There is a real track that was probably in the works in what I call the “improv”, but obviously, it never saw the light of day. The only time the group actually stops between tracks is at the start of Fly Bird/TV Program (taken from the eponymous album) that if extended, remains fairly faithful to the studio original, even if with OOF and certainly in the light of this release, such notion can be relative. The closing I’m Kissing Right (where the hell do they get their track titles??? ;o)) is probably the best “improv” of the album and might have been the closest to a future track, Moran not only having real lyrics and actually going wild on the scatting, yelling out his pleasure. I will allow just one comment on the attribution of track credits: on the three historic Kuckuck albums, the song-writing credits were all attributed to the full group, but in the three posthumous release, they are mostly credited to guitarist Dreschsler (a bit strange when knowing his guitar parts are not that determinant to the group’s overall sound, but he was at the production desk) and sometimes Moran Neumuller. So Palermo 72 gives us an excellent look at the live side of Out Of Focus, which seems not that much different from their studio facet, if you’ll except an understandable looser and jammier mood on stage. While this live album might not be as strong as the three historic ones and Never Too Late, it certainly matches the usefulness of the Rats Road and is no lesss essential for progheads. - By Sean Trane, Prog Archives.
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