Warner The Art of German Psychedelic

The complete collection of Achim Reichel’s innovative avant-garde project in the early 1970s. The lavishly designed 10 CD box-set includes all five studio albums and almost five hours of rare and unreleased music, a new remix-album – Virtual Journey – as well as a hardcover book with the artist’s own liner notes. A lucky accident was the catalyst. In Hamburg in the early 70s, while playing with his new Akai X330D tape machine, Achim Reichel discovered he could build soundscapes of guitar echoes and add even more simultaneously. He spent hours in his room with headphones on, growing his orchestra of guitars. A.R. & Machines recorded five studio albums. Their debut, “Die grüne Reise”, – The Green Journey – was released in 1971 on tape cassette and vinyl, and was met with complete confusion, even from the music press, who had no genre-drawer to stick it into, and is a lasting Krautrock monument captured on tape. The cosmic vibrations – overlapping guitar licks, distorting and edgy, supported with live percussion and futuristic electronic sounds – moved Brian Eno to such an extent that he named his solo-album “Another Green World” after it. The A.R. & Machines “The Art Of German Psychedelic (1970-74)” contains all five studio albums from 1971 to 1974: Die grüne Reise, Echo, A.R.3, A.R.4, and Autovision. Fifty years after they were released, then taken from sale by Achim Reichel before he set off on his solo career, the albums are the ultimate insight into one of Krautrock’s most mysterious artists. Alongside the albums are two live CDs, Live in Köln and Live in Krefeld, the former recorded for radio and rescued from the tape bin by Achim Reichel in April 1973, and the latter recorded by an avid fan at the German Rock Festival in September 1973. Three bonus CDs filled with previously unreleased material from Reichel’s tape archive complete the set. In Virtual Journey – produced exclusively for the box-set – Achim Reichel uncovers old demos recorded in the 70s by his younger self and pieces them together with modern audio software. The A.R. & Machines project hereby takes a step into the modern world. Remixes 96 is a collection of A.R. & Machines remixes from 1996, made by Reichel during the peak of his solo career and kept away until now. Last but not least, “Warm-up in a Birdcage” (Bonus A.R.4) is an improvised jam by the musicians on A.R.4 who were unaware that the producer-legend Conny Plank was actually running the tapes as they played. The 10 CDs are digitally remastered and accompanied by a written autobiographical history – The A.R. & Machines story – brimming with anecdotes about Reichel’s wild Hamburg years and the Krautrock scene. The bonus material comes with notes also penned by Reichel himself, setting the context for the rare material. On the 15th of September 2017, A.R. & Machines will play their first concert in 40 years in the already sold-out Hamburg Elbphilharmonie concert hall.