ABACUS

2-CD (6-page digisleeve) with 100-page booklet, 22 tracks. Total playing time approx. 137 minutes.Four-part double CD series - comprehensive and first cross-label documentation of the only relevant German contribution to the international phenomenon of rock music.

• Progressive Rock from Germany!
• Never before has there been a comparable compilation!
• Towards the end of the 1960s, German bands began their first attempts to emancipate themselves stylistically from their US and British role models.
• ProgRock and Pchychedelia from our country were initially smiled at internationally and disparagingly called 'Krautrock' by cult DeeJay John Peel, among others.
• Unorthodox formations could not be pigeonholed, and so a scene with a wide musical range was created.
• The first part is dedicated to the North of Germany and presents popular bands such as Atlantis, A.R. & Machines, Nektar, Eloy, Lucifer's Friend or Frumpy and the internationally highly respected guitarist Michael Rother alongside Gash, Ramses, Abacus or Ikarus.
• Mostly remastered from digital tape copies by Marcus Heumann without wasting the original sound.
• Compiled and commented on 100(!) pages by Burghard Rausch (DeeJay, vinyl collector, drummer, radio presenter/author and book editor).

With the release of the first of a total of four issues, Bear Family marks another milestone on the way to a comprehensive documentation of the history of popular music in Germany from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s.

'Smash! Boom! Bang!' covers the complete history of Beat music in Germany on a total of 30 individual CDs; the CD documentation 'Für wen wir singen - Liedermacher in Deutschland', consisting of four triple CDs, describes the singer/songwriter scene with 274 individual songs, supplemented by the 10 CD box set 'Die Burg Waldeck Festivals 1964-1969'. And finally 'Aus grauer Städte Mauern - Die Neue Deutsche Welle 1997-1985', Bear Family's four-part double CD series with popular and weird sound examples and a total of about 600(!) pages of accompanying text.

With 'Kraut! Die innovativen Jahre des Krautrock 1968-1979' we will release a double CD every three months in 2020 with a booklet of about 100 pages and biographies of each band, an exquisite selection of the exciting and influential bands of those days, some of which caused a sensation far beyond Germany.

The four editions are regionally structured. The first part deals with the North. All editions are compiled by Burghard Rausch and commented on in detail. The publisher of several books on 'Rock in Germany', radio author and presenter, drummer (Agitation Free, among others), vinyl collector and DeeJay with enormous expertise has already been in charge of the NDW series for Bear Family.We are convinced that 'Kraut!' will be the most comprehensive CD documentation of this era, which has shaped the history of rock music in Germany, licensed by various rights holders!

Please contact Bear Family Records for more information.