Week of December 13, 1998

Sperrmull

Sperrmull's only album has all the musical variety you'll ever desire from an early 70s German album - the jolly mandolin tune on "Me And My Girlfriend", Floydian effects on "No Freak Out", Deep Purple-like guitar and organ lines on "Rising Up" and powerful solo work with dynamic arrangements on "Right Now" (the longest track). The rest, "Land Of The Rocking Sun" and "Pat Casey", were more conventional rock songs, and could very well have been the A and B sides to a catchy single (but weren't!). The recordings were done at the Dierks Studio, Stommeln, produced by a certain Chazadu, surely a more famous character appearing under a pseudonym. Sperrmull consisted of: Helmut Krieg (guitar, mandolin, vocals, he also wrote most of the songs), Harald Kaiser (bass, vocals), Reinhold Breuer (drums, percussion) and Peter Schneider (organ, electric piano, synthesizer). Their album is one of the rarest of the whole Brain 1,000-series, mint originals selling for more than 250 DM. In 1989, a limited edition of 1,000 copies (on black Brain) was made available through the influence of Second Battle. This edition sold out quickly, so the album is once again hard to obtain. Probably a CD-release of this classic will appear sooner or later in a legitimate form but for now if you're lucky, you'll be able to find a Germanofon bootleg, 941032!

Album:

Sperrmull 1973 Brain I 026

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