Week of May 17, 1998
This album is a genuine treasure! Through the years, it has become immensely rare, and is now considered one of the monsters of German rock, fetching 500 DM for mint copies. My Solid Ground was the one-off project of Bernhard Rendel (guitar, vocals), Ingo Werner (organ, mellotron, piano), Karl-Heinrich Dorfler (bass) and Andreas Wursching (drums). The recordings were done in February and April 1971 in Dieter Dierks' studio with Peter Hauke producing. The marvelous opening track "Dirty Yellow Mist" was as close as any group has reached into the atmosphere of Pink Floyd's "Meddle" album. The thirteen-minute track was driven by a monotonous, but very effective guitar riff. The organ passages really remind one of Richard Wright and there are pink pigs on the fold-out cover! "The Executioner" was a highly original and effective combination of mumbling vocal and heavy guitar and keyboard statements. There were three aggressive, punky rock songs: "Flash Part IV", "That's You", and "Handful of Glass". "Melanchonie" again recalls Pink Floyd, this time the mellow, peaceful romanticism of "Allan's Psychedelic Breakfast". "Devonshire Street Wl" was another highly original song, while the instrumental "X" ended the album. Definitely one of the ten best German albums of all time! It's a tragedy there were no further My Solid Ground albums. After this recording, all members seemed to drift back into obscurity and Hauke & Dierks were left to work with artists like Nektar and Omega.
Discography:
My Solid Ground 1971 Bacillus 6494 008
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