What do you think of this 1970s electronic album? Riechmann - Wunderbar

[The Good]

I am going into this assuming that you most likely have never heard of this album or artist. To start off, I'll explain a little bit about them. Riechmann - Wunderbar (meaning Wonderful) is a German album released in 1978, the only solo album (and second album) featuring Wolfgang Riechmann, who had been murdered only two weeks before the release of Wunderbar. Sadly, he was randomly stabbed by two drunk men while walking past a bar in Düsseldorf's Altstadt district. It's worth noting that during the late 1960s and early '70s (probably not after 1970), he was a part of The Spirits of Sound band alongside Wolfgang Flür (of Kraftwerk fame) and Michael Rother (Briefly Kraftwerk, then Neu! band). He was also briefly a member of the band Streetmark, and even sang on the album Eileen, later rereleased and renamed to Wolfgang Riechmann & Streetmark after his death. If anyone else here is interested in the music genre called Krautrock (or Cosmic Music), or even early electronic music in general, you will probably appreciate this album. Wunderbar is certainly one of my very favorite albums, despite the brief length. For those interested in early synthesizer technology, he used the ARP 2600, ARP Odyssey (I plan to buy the 2015 remake by Korg), ARP Sequencer, and an unnamed guitar, electric piano, electric violin, and drums. The music is similar to some of Kraftwerk's The Man-Machine album, or some of Klaus Schulze's and Tangerine Dream's mid-late 1970s work, as well as John Foxx's Metamatic and Gary Numan's The Pleasure Principle. It combines elements from the Berlin and Düsseldorf schools of electronic music, and as far as I'm aware, this album is quite distinct. Wunderbar has crystal-like, silvery sounds that remind me of space or wide-ranging landscapes, especially of a cold, icy nature. The cover art is definitely icy. I don't remember hearing another album quite that close to it's style. The band Kraftwerk is probably the closest I could think of, and their music is based around vocals, while here there are just a few wordless vocals on the first song and "Himmelblau." If you have any recommendations to similar albums and artists, please bring them up.

Here is the opening title song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0veI1yqIWF4

This video below has the entire album. I do urge you to listen to all of it, but make sure to listen to "Silberland" (17:01-24:41) and "Himmelblau" (24:42-33:19), which I think are excellent as well. I think the whole album is great, although the last piece is a bit short.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM-3p5G5oWU


In case you're interested, here is Riechmann's other album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1owAK-wmSEw

[John Doe]

I instantly thought of midnight express and oxygen, but that so obvious.

That's remind me of the old days, when I listened to D.A.F., front242, xmal Deutschland, trisomie 21, cabaret Voltaire, Cocteau twins...

[Kyriakos]

Jean Michel Jarre (spelling there?) was the main electronica composer

(Vangelis is more of an autodidact, and afaik has simple compositions, despite their popularity)



And there were some other notable (ha) greek electronica composers at that time.

[Halie Satanus]

Kraftwerk - but not as good. Kraftwerk were 'the' German electronica group of the 70-80's, they also crossed over through sampling into the early electro [hip hop] genre, and one of the most sampled (and plagiarized) acts ever, I'm guessing only James Brown is sampled more.





And one of the most sampled acts ever, I'm guessing only James Brown is sampled more.

[RubiconDecision]

It sounds like a plodding soulless electronic version of Blondie's New Wave "Call Me"(1980)

Compare




If into German electronica, listen to Kraftwerk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk (German pronunciation: [ˈkʀaftvɛɐk], "power station") is a German electronic music band formed by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970 in Düsseldorf, and fronted by them until Schneider's departure in 2008.
The signature Kraftwerk sound combines driving, repetitive rhythms with catchy melodies, mainly following a Western classical style of harmony, with a minimalistic and strictly electronic instrumentation. The group's simplified lyrics are at times sung through a vocoder or generated by computer-speech software. Kraftwerk was one of the first groups to popularize electronic music and are considered to be pioneers.
In the 1970s and early 1980s, Kraftwerk's distinctive sound was revolutionary, and has had a lasting effect across many genres of modern music.^[2][3][4] According to The Observer, "no other band since the Beatles has given so much to pop culture" and a wide range of artists have been influenced by their music and imagery.^[5] In January 2014, the Grammy Academy honored Kraftwerk with a Lifetime Achievement Award.^[6]

I'm seeing very little similarity with Tangerine Dream. Their work often mystical pre-New Age, a staple of college stations at the time.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangerine_Dream

Tangerine Dream are a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band underwent many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member. Drummer and composer Klaus Schulze was briefly a member of an early lineup. The most stable version of the group, during their influential mid-1970s period, was as a trio with Froese, Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann. In the late 1970s, Johannes Schmoelling replaced Baumann, and this lineup was stable and extremely productive as well.
Tangerine Dream released more than one hundred albums. Their early "Pink Years" albums had a pivotal role in the development of Krautrock. Their "Virgin Years" albums helped define what became known as the Berlin School of electronic music. These and later albums were influential in the development of electronic dance music, and also the genre known as new-age music, though the band themselves disliked the term. From the late 1990s into the 2000s, Tangerine Dream also explored some styles of electronica.
Although the group released numerous studio and live recordings, a substantial number of their fans were introduced to Tangerine Dream by their film soundtracks, which total over sixty and include Sorcerer, Thief, Risky Business, The Keep, Firestarter, Legend, Near Dark, Shy People, and Miracle Mile. They most recently composed the original score for the video game Grand Theft Auto V. As well during the summer of 1982 the Polish broadcaster Telewizja Polska used a part of Tangerine Dream's "Ricochet" as background of the weather forecast shown at the end of the major release of their then-information program "Dziennik Telewizyjny".