Round To The Stars

Another post about my favourite German band, this time we explore another side of their sound. In 1972 Amon Düül II released a couple of albums on which they had been able to use their experimentations to compose shorter and more accessible songs, with brilliant results, right before they became a too commercial band, very different from the old freaks' commune.

The first video is a promo clip for the single version of All The Years Round, a song included on Carnival In Babylon, that, thanks to John Peel, had been played several times on British radio. It is a wonderful psych-folk song, on which Renate Knaup's shrill falsetto vocals play a main role, with the typical Amon Düül II's gothic atmosphere. The clip is very beautiful and evocative too, it reminds of the imaginative artwork they used for their albums' covers.

I found this video in mpeg format with a size of more than 200 Mb; to reduce it I've converted it into a wmv file of just 60 Mb, with almost the same quality. You can preview it with Real Player here, I think it was also included as a bonus on some CD re-release, but I'm not sure.

Surrounded By The Stars is the opening track of Wolf City, another fascinating ballad, that here is played live in 1975, with one of the best performance I ever heard by Renate.

This last clip is one of many old German rock videos that the TV channel WDR had the good idea to get back from the archives recently.

Amon Düül II - All The Years Round (1972)

Amon Düül II - Surrounded By The Stars (1975)

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Mirco