Week of July 26, 1998
Cornucopia stood for fantasy, originality and variety. On their only album, "Full Horn", recorded in 1973, Cornucopia played an eccentric fusion rock that was as convincing in the 20-minute suite "Day Of A Daydreambeliever" as in the compact three-minute rock song "Morning Sun". Cornucopia cleverly avoided being too predictable and added their unique, intellectual style to the slowly growing German rock evolution. Responsible for their style was producer Jochen Peterson, a former member of "Ikarus".
The septet met 1972 in Hamburg and consisted of Wolfgang Kause (voc), Wolfgang Bartl (b), Christoph Hardwig (key, g), Wolfgang Gaudes (dr), Kai Hendrik Motler (g), Harry Koch (perc, effects) and Rudy Holzhauer (perc). The "lyrics are worth paying attention to and they have a richness of musical ideas" (Sounds). These ideas mainly sprang from Christoph Hardwig's mind and were brought to perfection by the entire team.
Even in the early stages of the developing German rock scene, Cornucopia embodied the principle of a democratic band and were only marginally influenced by Anglo-American institutions like "Vanilla Fudge" and "Genesis".
"Full Horn" remained Cornucopia's only album. Why the Hamburg band never was as successful as they would have deserved remains open to speculation. One of the reasons for their failure, perhaps, is that Cornucopia did not do enough for their image and had problems accepting the rules of the business. The band insisted on their liberties and only reluctantly fulfilled their promotion duties. They had hoped to get a lot of recognition for "Full Horn", but when it failed to materialise, Cornucopia were so disillusioned that in 1974 they gave up.
Christian Graf
Taken from the CD Reissue of "Full Horn" (Repertoire PMS 7049-WP)
This was a band of considerable size: Wolfgang Kause (vocals), Wolfgang Bartl (bass), Christoph Hardwig (keyboards, guitar), Wolfgang Gaudes (drums), Kai Hendrik Motler (guitars), Harry Koch (effects, percussion) and Rudy Holzhauer (percussion). There were also important musical contributions from producer Jochen Pedersen, previously a member of the little known group Ikarus, who released an album for the Plus label. On "Full Horn" (1973), Cornucopia presented a weird and eccentric jazz-rock fusion that is so varied and continuously shifting that it is hard to describe the music. The same could be said of their label mates Thirsty Moon. The album started with a 20 minute suite called "Day Of A Daydream Believer". This one was an attempt to link very different pieces of music (and twisted weirdness). The result was erratic, but quite interesting and unusual. On the other end of the scale, "Morning Sun" (3:07) was a tuneful little pop rock song. The remaining two tracks fall between these extremes. All were written by the Cornucopia leader Christoph Hardwig. The album is rare, but not very much in demand, and therefore still affordable.
Full Horn 1973 Brain 1030
Taken from Cosmic Dreams at Play - A guide to German
Progressive and Electronic Rock by Dag Erik Asbjørnsen, Borderline Productions,
ISBN 1-899855-01-7
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