Recreation

Kristian Schultze Set - Recreation

* originally posted on July 28, 2006

This is flippin' great stuff! Anyone with even half an ear for funky European jazz-rock should get hold of a copy of this LP now! Originally released as the 'Overdrive' album under the band name The Bridge in 1973 on Tempo records, those good people at Crippled Dick Hot Wax have dusted it off, added a couple of additional cuts and reissued it under its main creators own name…and it rocks!!!! A few of you might recognise Kristian Schutlze as being the keyboard player with Passport during the mid part of the 70's, and there is often a marked similarity in approach, but much more stripped down here, being largely performed by a trio of bass, drums and Shultze's Fender-Rhodes, with occasional brass and flute, and hence is far less overblown and ten times more funky! In fact it reminds me most of a more aggressive and punchy take on the Placebo sound, and if Fender-Rhodes is your thang, then the sounds Schultze conjures up as he drives the thing through a ring modulator will blow your hat off missus! The keys are crisp and sharp and cut right through the fluid backing to really grab you. Musically, it's a fair mixture of slow grooves and up-tempo blasters, the latter of which I personally prefer, with opening/closing track 'Phrase/Overdrive' being one of the most wonderfully kick-ass things I have heard recently, and is often flicked right back to the start to revel in repeatedly. Any chance of picking up the original? I wouldn't have thought so-it's so obscure it's not even in Crack in the Cosmic Egg. That fact alone makes this record a wonderfully realized excavation of the German jazz-rock archives by what is perhaps the best reissue label around today. Grab one if you can! (Vinyl Vulture)

Tracklisting:

1. Phrase/Overdrive {2:26}

2. Ambiualens {5:16}

3. Dinghi {2:56}

4. Alles Klar? Alles Klar? {3:32}

5. Start (Echo Drum Suite) {3:38}

6. Stupsi {4:49}

7. Recreation {2:59}

8. Don't Count It {2:43}

9. Relation {3:18}

10. Puls {2:41}

11. Phrase/Overdrive (add. edit) {2:24}

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