The Cosmic Jokers - 1973 - The Cosmic Jokers

The Cosmic Jokers

1973

The Cosmic Jokers

01. Galactic joke (22:38)

02. Cosmic joy (19:24)

- Dieter Dierks / bass

- Jürgen Dollase / keyboards, vocals

- Manuel Göttsching / electric guitar

- Harlad Großkopf / drums

- Klaus Schulze / synthesizers

In 1972, Rolf Ulrich Kaiser founded "Die Kosmischen Kuriere" where will be signed all the Cosmic jokers albums. The COSMIC JOKERS is not really a band but a reunion of several German musicians and personalities from the 70s psychedelic and esoteric philosophies (the mystic Sergius Golowin in the Lord Krishna project or the gipsy folk artist Walter Wegmuller in Tarot). The interest of this side project was to create a cosmic music with a virtual musical tribe to develop the world consciousness thanks to LSD. The COSMIC musical team gathered around the same message a bunch of well known musicians from the Berlin scene (Klaus Schulze, Manuel Gottsching...). The COSMIC JOKERS is an extreme musical trip, a unique adventure throw time and space. The music is for a large part improvised with proto-electronic gadgets combined to bluesy & spacey musical sentences built around the talented Manuel Gottsching's electric guitar style (always spacey and bluesy). This is real German acid music, a 'music of paradise', transcending music, breaking of the materialistic world, a protest against the reality. The combination of acid, music and fun acted as a catalyst for Kaiser's visionary powers.

Here is essentially where it all started for The COSMIC JOKERS with their debut album from 1973 and giving us all a very spacey introduction and prelude of what would be to follow. For the uninitiated, The COSMIC JOKERS are the clash of space cadets Manuel Göttsching, Dieter Dierks, Jürgen Dollase, Harald Großkopf and Klaus Schulze. As you may have guessed by now I am a huge fan of these early pioneering space-psych-prog rock albums and none are finer that this 2 epic track album. This album is full of deep space effects, lots of free form jamming, analog 70's keyboards, guitars, amazing pulsating bass lines and trippy vocals and chanting. Musically this album is far out with some way too cool vibes and instrumental parts. This album is one of my late night space-festi-favs and without a question side 2's "Cosmic Joy" is one of my most treasured 70's space rock tracks.