Sold Date: March 13, 2018
Start Date: November 28, 2017
Final Price: $38.98 (USD)
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Buyer Feedback: 2

DRUM CIRCUS 'Magic Theatre' LP (Germany, Garden Of Delights, Catalogue #LP 028) Brand new/unplayed copy of limited Garden Of Delights LP edition of rare/previously unreleased Monster Swiss LSD Psych Rock recordings recorded in 1971 and unreleased until the 2000s (first on CD and here now also on a limited/numbered pressing of 1000 copies only) by members of Brainticket, Dzyan, Globe Unity Orchestra and Lost Peace.

A REAL MONSTER PIECE OF THE LSD INSPIRED WING OF THE SWISS/GERMAN KRAUTROCK/PSYCH ROCK AXIS!

(NOTE: LIMITED/NUMBERED VINYL EDITION OF 1000 COPIES ONLY!)

Rare album by Swiss band, featuring two members of Brainticket including their leader Joel Van Droogenbroeck; truly insane psychedelic music with LSD drenched lyrics by Timothy Leary; recorded in 1971.

"Founder and leader of Drum Circus was master drummer Peter Giger. “A giant on drums”, as the newspaper “Rhein-Main-Zeitung” called him. He was joined by two additional drummers, as well as by Joel Vandroogenbroeck and Carole Muriel, both from Brainticket. Therefore, it’s not surprising that “Magic theatre”, with its LSD-dripping lyrics (partly written by Timothy Leary, partly influenced by The Tibetan Book of the Dead), is a lot like early Brainticket. “Magic theatre” was recorded in the excellent studio of Horst Jankowski in Stuttgart. Yet, it remained unreleased. Shortly before his death, Horst Jankowski gave the tapes to Peter Giger."

"Recorded in 1971, the Drum Circus sessions compiled here find something of a European avant-garde supergroup - the band included Joel Vandroogenbroeck of Brainticket, Peter Giger of Dzyan, Gerd Dudek from Globe Unity Orchestra, and Marc Hellman of Lost Peace, among others; Hellman and vocalist Carol Muriel would join Brainticket following these sessions and play on Psychonaut - working through a very, very strange fusion of jazz and psychedelia. As other reviews have mentioned, there isn't really a solid point of reference for the title track; it is a completely unique rush of ideas, moods, tones, and sounds, constantly shifting. Individual parts will occasionally resemble free jazz (from ESP-Disk' style freakouts to the spiritual nature of something like Eddie Gale's Ghetto Music), others krautrock, others Alice Coltrane-esque spiritual bliss, and others just out-and-out noise abstraction. Nothing in my experience jumps around so suddenly and completely, though, and it produces one hell of a thrilling listen. The other tracks on this release are all considerably shorter and resemble the work their composers were doing with their more famous groups, but they're all still plenty interesting. "Now It Hurts You" is a looser interpretation of the same ideas Vandroogenbroeck explored on the first two tracks of Cottonwoodhill, distorted vocals and all. Hellman's "Papera" could almost be mistaken as an unreleased track from Lost Peace had it not been recorded 5 years prior, so similar is its style of funk-meets-ECM Records. Giger's two compositions both resemble Dzyan's formula of spiritual lyrics on top of busy, freaked out instrumentation, though here those spiritual lyrics are courtesy of Timothy Leary, so the results are predictably out there. The real killer among the shorter tracks, though, is Alex Bally's "Groove Rock," which is a very loose number that basically sees Bally, Hellman, and Giger lay down the world's busiest percussion groove while Vandroogenbroeck and Dudek battle it out. It sounds like a mess when described, but the group is more than capable of turning it into something alternatingly funky and fiery. This is an excellent archival find, a must-hear for fans of any of the aforementioned musicians or anyone interested in the funkiest sides of kraut, free jazz, or jazz fusion."

"A remarkable and very obscure exclusive discovery by Garden of Delights. Drum Circus was the project of three Swiss drummers: Peter Giger (pre-Dzyan), Marc Hellman and Alex Bally, previously undocumented except for a few gigs in the early-1970's. They also recorded this LP, aided by local talents from Brainticket and jazz winds player Gerd Dudek. MPS, however, didn't know what to do with such a strange album, and it remained unreleased (until the 2000s.) An extremely diverse and unclassifiable album that bridges too many genres to classify, it's much much more that its title suggests. The Brainticket connection is very strong with Joël Vandroogenbroeck's multi-instrumental work, and the unmistakable voice of Carole Muriel taking it towards Brainticket's CELESTIAL OCEAN at times. This is amongst an array of percussion work-outs and free-jazz freak-outs counterpointing other more rock focused sections. Fans of Timothy Leary will also find it a treat. It all amounts to what is a challenging listen even today."

Tracks on this LP are as follows:

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