Zoppo Trump - 2009 - Zoppo Trump

Zoppo Trump 

2009

Zoppo Trump

01. Man Of Peace 6:16

02. Queen Of War 4:25

03. Get Out Of The Fixer Circle 7:43

04. Confusion 6:41

05. From My Window 7:01

06. Six Of Eight 6:42

07. Dream Of Hope 11:18

08. Wellengang 6:46

09. Fluktuation 5:15

Bass – Udo Preising (tracks: 8, 9)

Bass, Backing Vocals [Hinter-grundgesang] – Thomas Laleicke (tracks: 1 to 7)

Drums – Wolfgang Hahn (tracks: 8, 9)

Drums, Percussion – Nicky Gebhard (tracks: 1 to 7)

Guitar – Ulrich Beck (tracks: 3 to 7)

Piano, Organ, Mellotron, Alto Saxophone [Alt-Saxophon] – Martin Buschmann (tracks: 8, 9)

Vocals, Guitar, Tenor Saxophone [Tenor-Saxophon], Organ – Ferdi Eberth

1-2: Studio Pomerin, Dortmund, Weißenburger Straße (bisher unveröffentlicht) © 1971

3-7: Studio Pomerin, Dortmund, Bleichmärschstraße (bisher unveröffentlicht) © 1972

8-9: Förderturm-Studio, Dortmund (von Sampler-LP „Scena Westphalica“) © 1976

Dortmund-based Kraut Rock band, originally formed in 1971 by drummer Nicky Gebhard, keyboardist Reimund "Ferdi" Eberth and bassist Thomas Laleicke.Despite having a hard time finding decent rehearsal rooms, Zoppo Trump (named after a character from a book of Tilder Michels) were a live beast around the Ruhr area.For some sort time they opearated with Uli Beck as a second guitarist.This most important period of Zoppo Trump covers most of the self-titled archival album, released in 2009 on Garden of Delights.We find here a group of little character, generating from the already established fundamentals of the Kraut Rock movements, playing in a cliche jam mood, adding a few jazzy spices into their music and mostly performing over a variety of rhythmic paces with little imagination and a spirit, that's been long outdated.Stretched instrumental material with the guitar and organ in evidence and a few sax lines, lyrics come in English, but there is not much to recall after such loose executions.In complete shock Laleicke left the band in 1972 to relocate with his girlfriend and was replaced by Martin Buschmann on keyboards and -for a short period- Dieter Gorny on bass, who was soon left his spot to Udo Preising.The band became trully active again in 1973, until in 1975 Gebhard left to join Wallenstein and he was replaced by Wolfgang Hahn, who stayed with the group until its demise in 1977.Two tracks from 1976 show a totally different group, now playing much in a delicate Prog Fusion vein and unleashing some nice progressive values on organ, sax and guitars as well as different stylistical segments within the same track.A pair of cool pieces to save this archival document from going down to the hill.

The first two tracks here are when Zoppo Trump still existed as a guitar/keys-bass-drums trio. The music has a certain sophistication, but is also quite informed by the West Coast USA psych sound. At this point, they could be considered a parallel group to Walpurgis. Summary: Good not great. However change was on the horizon. Adding dedicated guitarist Ulrich Beck in 1972, which freed up band leader Ferdi Eberth on the Hammond organ, resulted in a remarkable progression for the band. As represented by tracks 3 to 7, Zoppo Trump sound more like their Krautrock contemporaries who adopted jazz characteristics as additives to their psychedelic Krautrock stew. Comparisons to bands such as Out of Focus, Thirsty Moon and Eiliff would not be an exaggeration here. This gets us to the two previously released tracks from 1976, that were initially on the "Scena Westphalica" compilation. Eberth rebuilt the band from the ground up, himself switching back to guitar, while adding three new members on keyboards/sax, bass, and drums. Here the band trades in their psychedelic Krautrock chips for a sound entrenched in more standard forms of jazz rock. Overall, an extraordinary musical document, which clearly demonstrates that Zoppo Trump could very well have released one of the all-time great Krautrock albums had they the proper chance. Only drawback is the less than stellar sound quality throughout (though still very listenable and miles better than bootleg standard).