MUSIC

The Alien Dub Orchestra is ragtag collective of Bavarian musicians, featuring members of The Notwist and G.Rag y los hermanos Patchekos. The cohort formed around the idea of performing the standards of the fabled Breadminster Songbook, aka the back-catalogue of lone dubman Elijah Minnelli. Minnelli is known for constructing wheezy, forlorn odes to his hometown, both as highly sought-after self-released 7" singles, and a critically-acclaimed debut album, ‘Perpetual Musket’ for FatCat Records, lauded by the likes of The Guardian, The Wire, and The Quietus. ‘The Alien Dub Orchestra: Plays the Breadminster Songbook’ finds group covering Minnelli’s cumbia-infused dub reggae with full band, playing an eclectic array of instruments including: guiro, accordion, melodica, sousaphone, trumpet and assorted percussion.

The tale begins in 2022, when Minnelli was invited to lend his unique dubbing style to a pair of remixes for The Notwist, and what followed was an ever-flourishing relationship between the Breadminster native and the wider Munich scene. The seeds of the Alien Dub Orchestra were sown during a support gig for The Notwist, where assorted musicians joined Minnelli for a encore, reinterpreting one of his dub remixes across woodwind, brass and assorted percussion.

“The idea of real, competent professionals playing something you’ve muddled together on a computer in a damp basement is quite overwhelming,” reflects Minnelli on the process, “hearing them interpret and improve these melodies is a real joy and privilege.”

Despite the non-traditional origins of the source material, the inherent musicality of Minnelli’s songwriting shines through across his releases, and this creative kinship is what attracted the Orchestra to reimagining his work. The first live collaboration led to recording sessions and further gigs, with the Orchestra building a full set of Minnelli’s music.

The resulting album puts forward the strongest case yet of the shared musical throughline between the acts, where cumbia, dub and folk sensibilities coalesce to something all together unique. The tracks are wrought new, with melodies fleshed out and broader instrumentation expanding the sonic possibilities of the compositions. The tactility of the tracks is perhaps best demonstrated on the gorgeous ‘Vine and Fig Tree’, with it’s layed vocals and expressive bassline returning as a cavorting sousaphone line. Elsewhere, fan favourite ‘SLATS’ sounds as if it was simply written to be performed this way.

To further instill the cylindrical nature of these collaborations, the entire second half of the album is made up of dub versions of the Orchestra’s renditions. For these dubs, Minnelli is joined by Raimund Wong, who had caught his ear with his ambitious live sets, a daisy chain of tape machines and FX pedals. Again, despite their differing creative processes, the two bonded over a shared love of dub music. Each dub was a one-take, with Minnelli riding the faders and Wong’s filters and FX supplying a sound that doesn’t seek to imitate dub, so much as it tries to be it’s own chaotic self. The droning, psychedelic hypnosis of ‘Pundit Dub’ stretches the material to a whole new realm that feels outside of anything else Minnelli has produced before, an ode to the benefits of recycling sound if ever there was one. The whole second half is a perfect closing note to an album that is undoubtedly a love letter to folk tradition, dub ideology and, most importantly, the joy of uninhibited collaboration.

Originally released in 1974, Dzyan’s third and final album is a Krautrock masterpiece, blending daring world beat, jazz-prog, and mysticism. Multi-instrumentalists experiment with exotic sounds and inventive instruments, creating a psychedelic, otherworldly work—an enduring highlight of German rock. Originally released in 1974 on famous German label Bacillus, Dzyan's third and final album,it is recognized for its daring world beat elements, and totally acidic album cover art. Dzyan refined their sound even further into improvisation and exotic sounds, mixed with weird experimentations and mysticism. It offers other-worldly music of incredible beauty and strangeness, influenced by the music of Asia but taking it into far more original realms. Multi-instrumentalists Marron and Karwatky experimented with sitar, saz, tambura, mellotron, synthesizers, bass-violin, and a mysterious invented instrument called 'super-string', all merged in an extreme melting pot of styles, ideas and fertile imagination, interacting into a 'psychedelic worldgroove'; while Giger, bursting with creative power and virtuosity, holds it together with his fantastic drumming. From the weird opium-den trancesoundtrack of 'Khali' to the more funky 'For Earthly Thinking', to the even wilder tracks like 'The Road Not Taken', Dzyan crafted one of the finest and most unique works of the Krautrock era. An amazing work on its own, rhythmically adventurous and unique jazzprog, is indeed one of the landmarks in experimental rock, a masterpiece. A highlight in German rock history.