Electric Orange -
Misophonia


(CD 2016, 76:13, Studio Fleish SFCD05)

The tracks:
  1- Organized Suffering(18:09)
  2- Bottledrone(11:48)
  3- Demented(7:51)
  4- Misophonia I(8:57)
  5- Shattered(4:40)
  6- Misophonia II(1:18)
  7- Opsis(5:25)
  8- Misophonia III(17:36)


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Electric Orange from the city of Aachen in Germany have been around for almost 30 years now. They started in a time that psychedelic music and krautrock were considered outdated and a relic from the 1970s. Their second album Orange Commutation (1996) and their third album Cyberdelic were released on the legendary Delerium label that was one of the few labels at the time that dared to stick out its neck for psychedelic music. It also released the first Porcupine Tree albums. And then Julian Cope, formerly from the band The Teardrop Explodes wrote a book named Krautrock Sampler and suddenly krautrock was hip again. Even so Electric Orange kept on going their own way. Every few years they release an album, nowadays recorded in their own Studio Fleish, and occasionally they play live (mostly single gigs).

The nucleus of the band is formed by Dirk Bittner and Dirk-Jan Müller. Both founder members of the band and in the beginning they were a duo. On Misophonia the band is a quartet with Dirk Bittner (guitars, zither, mandolin, trumpet, phonofiddle, congas, bongos, cajon and voice), Dirk-Jan Müller (Farfisa Compact, Hammond, Erebus, Solina String Ensemble, MU Modular synthesizer, Roland system 1), Tom Ruckwald (electric bass, fuzz bass, synthesizer bass and bottle bass) and Georg Monheim (drums, percussion, cymbals, beerbottles on carpet).

Musically Electric Orange is heavily influenced by some of the krautrock bands: a bit of Neu!, Harmonia, Can, Embryo and Amon Düül II. Even more they carry the legacy of Ashra Temple and the Cosmic Couriers (later Cosmic Jokers). Most of all however this album reminds me of Agitation Free. A band that combined cosmic jams with some ethnic elements, and as their name suggested, had a very relaxing mood. But also fans from the early Pink Floyd, around the time of Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun will probably dig the music of Electric Orange. Long spaced out tracks, but inspired and exciting from start to end. The album has been mastered by Eroc, former drummer of Grobschnitt and well-known in Germany.

**** Erik Gibbels (edited by Astrid de Ronde)

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