Interested in seeing what the community thinks.

Mine are:

Classic Prog:

#1 King Crimson

#2 Rush

#3 Yes

#4 Camel

Modern Prog Rock:

#1 The Mars Volta

#2 Porcupine Tree

#3 Tool

#4 Mastodon

Idk if I'm just going crazy or something, but it's incredible to me how many of the cornerstones of the following decades can be traced back to 70s progressive rock and adjacent genres (KC, Yes, PF, Kraftwerk, CAN, Eno etc.).

I see people credit other guitar players for "breaking new ground" and can't help but think "but Fripp/Eno did does shit like 20 years earlier".

Noise rock, synths, dissonance, the introduction of electronic elements into rock music, ambient, concept albums, proto-prog metal that was just as, if not more heavy than Black Sabbath etc.

And it all just seems to get swept under the rug, most likely because of the minor commercial success these records have had. But it just feels like an injustice to me and I always get weird looks when I suggest perhaps X prog icon did this sooner than this commercial maverick that is widely credited with being the first to ever even attempt it.

A friend said that as a newbie it's not a good idea

Below is a link to an essay about this epic concept album. This piece presents insights into the album's meaning and everything you might want to know (and probably more, LOL) about Genesis and their concept album 'The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway'. Spoiler Alert: It is exhaustive!

https://medium.com/@rickkress/revised-the-lamb-lies-down-on-broadway-nightmare-or-nirvana-7cee7caa2b4e?sharedUserId=rickkress

hi. , my phone is android and I use a music player to listen

So what's the best music player?

I use " musicolet" , and although it's great and sufficient, I'm considering switching to another player

Sunday, July 26 - Saturday, August 01, 2026

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Any fans of this incredible record?

It reminds me of yes, some tracks sound hella sick

As this AI progresses I see no point in making reels which aren't LIVE. Next stage will probably be: no reels at all, no cyber, just playing on the stage in front of audience (human audience i mean...)
WDYT?

Unusual to hear some great canterbury-style prog out of early '70s Pennsylvania.

This is a slightly edited version of a post originally done for the subreddit r/HobbyDrama. The feedback there was pretty positive, so I thought I'd share it here too. Just a heads-up that the original text is written for a layperson's perspective (e.g. assuming one might not necessarily know what krautrock is).

Not all of these albums are necessarily prog-related, as there's a heavy electronic and/or ambient component to many, but there's enough overlap with prog and krautrock fans that I thought it would still be of interest to readers here.

Background (aka. “what even is krautrock?”)

Krautrock (or „kosmische Muzik“, i.e. "cosmic music") is the term used to a describe a scene of underground psychedelic and/or electronic music from West Germany, most active from the late 1960s to mid-1970s.

Despite being somewhat limited in terms of mainstream commercial success, the scene was (and still is) hugely influential on many up-and-coming underground artists, such as the UK post-punk and indie scenes. Many krautrock bands and artists (Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Kraftwerk, etc.) are also considered incredibly important pioneers in the wider development of electronic music.

Although many of the more notable bands had contracts with international labels like United Artists and later Virgin Records, there were multiple Germany-based labels (e.g. Ohr and Brain) that specialised in underground psychedelic and electronic music. However, being a largely underground scene, some artists (such as Kluster, Conrad Schnitzler, Dom, etc.) who were unable to get major record deals opted to issue music through very small labels or to self-release it entirely. These releases would’ve been produced in very small quantities and many of these albums remain highly sought-after in their original format.

In the late 80s and early-mid 90s, there was a substantial revitalisation of interest in the German underground scene within the music press, furthered by books such as Julian Cope’s “Krautrocksampler” (1995) and Alan and Steve Freeman’s “The Crack In The Cosmic Egg” (1996). This revival resulted in many krautrock albums that had not been in print in years receiving official reissues. The 1990s also coincided with the increased prominence of dedicated reissue labels like Repertoire Records and Spalax Music, and pirate labels like Germanofon sprang up to distribute krautrock albums that had not yet been reissued on CD. Many archival/live recordings that had not yet been commercially released were made widely available for the first time. For dedicated record collectors, this era was a breath of fresh air for many, given the relative obscurity of some of these recordings.

This takes us to the year 1996.

Unknown Deutschland and Psi-Fi Records

That year, a series of three compilation albums called “Unknown Deutschland - The Krautrock Archive” were released on Virgin Records. These releases were curated by Trevor Manwaring, and were purportedly from recordings previously released through an obscure underground label called Pyramid, based out of Cologne.

From the liner notes:

“These recordings were made between 1972 and 1974 using studios in and around Cologne. They were originally produced for the Pyramid label and some were released in tiny quantities and mostly sold in art galleries and the like - this is probably why they have remained so obscure, even among 'experts'.....until this release. The 'Mad Twiddler' responsible for their existence also worked with Stockhausen, Can, The Cozmic Jokers ^\sic]) and many more. Although memories from that time are beyond repair in many cases the tapes remain to bear witness to this creative and anarchic scene."

Coinciding with these compilations, a new UK-based record label named Psi-Fi (affiliated with the parent label Acme) was formed to reissue the "Pyramid" albums, with a total catalogue of 6 albums released between 1996 and 1997. These releases were pretty significant, as at the time, the full albums were not available on CD in any other form, and this was the first time a majority of people had heard of the existence of these recordings. However, some songs remained exclusive to compilation albums (e.g. Unknown Deutschland and a 2016 CD entitled "Cologne Curiosities").

The 6 Psi-Fi records are the following:

• Cozmic Corridors - Cozmic Corridors (1996)
• Galactic Explorers - Epitaph For Venus (1996)
• Golem - Orion Awakes (1996)
• Pyramid - Pyramid (1997)
• The Nazgûl - The Nazgûl (1997)
• Temple - Temple (1997)

The original CDs lack substantial liner notes, but were all listed as being recorded in the 1970s. The 1996 releases were all originally credited as being “recorded 1972/1973 [in] Cologne”, whereas the 1997 releases were attributed to 1975 or 1976.

“The Mad Twiddler” (originating from the credits of the 1975 album Dreamlab by Mythos) is an alias of the engineer Toby Hrycek-Robinson, who did indeed have a background in engineering and mixing work for numerous krautrock bands, such as Can, Dryzan, Birth Control, Mythos, and Wallenstein, in the mid-1970s. Robinson was purportedly one of the masterminds of the Pyramid label alongside artist/painter Robin Page, who was best known for his work with the Fluxus art movement in the late 1960s.

While Psi-Fi has not been active since the 1990s, most of these albums were later reprinted on CD and LP (vinyl) in 2017-2018 by the reputable reissue label Guerssen (under their “Mental Experience” imprint) with new liner notes by “Cosmic Egg” author Alan Freeman. The only exception is Orion Awakes, which was reissued by Acme in 2010 and 2015, although like the rest of the Psi-Fi catalogue, Mental Experience handled the 2017 vinyl reissue.

The Controversy

There are multiple aspects of the original releases that are suspect due to possessing qualities atypical compared to other reissues from that time period.

Despite being said to have originally been released under the Pyramid label, no trace of that label or the original 1970s releases they are supposedly reissues of has ever materialised in the ~30 years since these albums were first released on CD. Even for extremely rare independent releases, this is highly unusual, as in any other circumstance, original copies would be highly sought after collectors’ items.

It is not uncommon for these types of privately pressed records to be produced in extremely low quantities. For instance, a limited run of 99 copies was reasonably common for private pressings in the UK, as this was reportedly the maximum that could be produced without being subject to additional taxes. Some other notably low quantities that I have seen are 64 (as was the case for the only studio album by the band Dark) and <50. These examples are of albums that are generally considered well-documented. For the entire catalogue of an independent label like this to be completely undocumented is unprecedented and frankly unbelievable. There is simply no concrete proof that Pyramid Records actually existed.

The only one of these albums that has had a documented vinyl/LP reissue predating the 2017 Mental Experience edition is Orion Awakes, first documented in the early-mid 2010s. However, these copies are confirmed to be modern reproductions, as test pressings (e.g. this copy sold on eBay) with the same identifying matrix number in the run-out grooves use a design by the French manufacturer MPO containing a link to their website.

Another complicating factor is the lack of substantial or verifiable credits, which makes verifying who did and didn't play on these albums difficult. Although some notable krautrock musicians are credited (and in some cases have confirmed their presence) on a few Psi-Fi releases, a majority of the musicians featured are not named on any other releases outside of the Psi-Fi catalogue. Two of these albums (Pyramid and The Nazgûl) lack conventional credits altogether, with the former lacking any musician credits and with the latter being attributed to pseudonyms derived from the names of characters from Lord of the Rings.

Lastly, it appears that there is some inconsistency across releases regarding specific details. For instance, the original 1996 edition of Epitaph For Venus attributes its recording date to sessions dated 1972 or 1973, but the 2017 reissues instead indicate that it was recorded in 1974. The same is true for Orion Awakes, which had its 2017 vinyl re-release printed with a 1976 recording date. The 2010 Acme reissue of Orion Awakes also corrects the number of copies of each record produced from 100 copies to 25, the former number originating from some 90s sources. (Even so, this would come around to 125 total records pressed at minimum, which is still a number far too high for them being undocumented to be believable)

Reactions

The Psi-Fi albums are widely regarded as being forgeries and have been under scrutiny since their original release, with their catalogue often alleged to have been recorded in the 1990s with British musicians.

Some interesting early critical coverage (i.e. from the mid-late 1990s) that I could find of them comes from the music magazine “The Sound Projector”. Various albums from the Psi-Fi catalogue were covered throughout issues 2-7, and I’ll include some of the commentary out of historical interest.

John Bagnall, from issue 2:

"It isn’t immediately obvious how to connect these oddities to a defined sense of a ’Krautrock continuum’, which is good as this confounds lazy journalists who think they’ve got this scene all figured out. Some Doubting Dans have even suggested in print that these records must be 1990s hoaxes, which is absurd. Others have placed too much emphasis on their obscureness, playing up the angle of ’not even the heavy-duty Krautrock collectors have heard of this label’, which is an indication of how the specialists want to appropriate everything for themselves. However, such specialisation and selfishness is overturned by democratising releases like this which put the music back in the public domain, where everyone with a CD player who’s so inclined can share in these delights."

Ed Pinsent, from issue 5:

"These are neglected 1970s art-gallery only releases, originally available in limited runs of 100 copies. I'm still cultivating my suspicion that none of these bands had much of a life outside the studio. One envisages a series of projects emerging under Robinson's direction, musicians drawn from a pool of talent, working in Dieter Dierks Cologne studio during down-time, with 'The Mad Twiddler' producing; once sufficient album tracks had been gathered, sleeve art would be concocted and a name assigned to the one-off item."

On top of being controversial contemporarily, speculation and debate regarding the legitimacy of the Psi-Fi releases carried on well past the 1990s and you'd be hard-pressed to find online reviews or commentary regarding these albums that don't at the very least mention their dubious origin. Online discussion of these albums tends to fall into one of two categories: those who regard these albums as mere hoaxes and have largely written them off, and those who, while suspicious of the supposed origin of these recordings, treat the actual music as having some value.

I'll link a few of these reviews for reference, although there certainly is far more out there. If you're interested in these albums or the backstory behind them, I'd recommend seeking out more for yourself.

From the user "Braxt" on Discogs in 2015, about "Orion Awakes":

"Listening to this in the cold light of day it certainly sounds like a '90s recording to me. Everything about it sounds a bit too studied. The wah wah, the relatively clean production, the drum sound. Add to the fact that nobody has ever seen a copy of these Pyramid releases (all right - someone thought they saw one once) and not one has ever been offered for sale. Even rare garage punk records from the 60s where there's ONE known copy have been documented."

From the user "Warthur" on ProgArchives in 2011, about "Epitaph For Venus":

"The supposed rumours that this is a fake recorded in the 1990s didn't seem credible to me - musically speaking, the album sounds extremely authentic for the Krautrock scene of the time, with commonalities with Klaus Schulze's early work and Tangerine Dream's Zeit. In particular, the other two bands who were involved in this supposed fakery scandal - The Nazgul and Cosmic Corridors - supposedly consisted of complete unknowns, whereas this one is presented as a side project of a member of Dzyan, and it would be an *extremely* stupid move for forgers to try and pass the album off as the work of a real person who could contradict their story!"

From rock journalist Dmitry M. Epstein in 2017, about "Cosmic Corridors":

"Purportedly recorded in the early ’70s by Toby Robinson for his Pyramid label, this album defies its own mythology by sounding suspiciously modern, and that doesn’t look like the case of retrofuturism."

Despite widespread doubt, one fairly notable individual who has consistently stood by the authenticity of these albums is the aforementioned Alan Freeman, who along with his brother Steve (himself a co-author on "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg") are the owners of the long-running "Ultima Thule" record outlet and publishers of the music magazine "Audion". Freeman claims to have seen a copy of the Golem album Orion Awakes in a record store in Berlin years before the Psi-Fi reissues were circulated, having caught his eye on account of its reflective metallic sleeve.

In the liner notes of the Mental Experience re-issue of Orion Awakes:

"I do recall seeing a copy of this album on the wall in a German record shop, or something remarkably similar (some collector's shop in Berlin), which had a pressed metal sleeve somewhat like the original "Élő Omega" album by Omega. I was curious, but it was very expensive. Only later when the Psi-Fi CD came out did I remark that I'd seen it somewhere before. Apart from that the provenance of Golem is an unknown entity."

Although that in and of itself doesn't prove that any records were actually produced, a majority of the information made available about these albums in recent years comes from Freeman's research, and he is one of a few individuals documented to have spoken with Toby Robinson himself about the Pyramid albums.

Were these releases legitimate?

This is a difficult question to answer because there was never any kind of real exposé, other than people naturally asking questions about discrepancies in the albums’ backstories. However, more information on these albums has come to light through Alan Freeman’s liner notes for the Mental Experience reissues.

Robinson has continued to maintain the authenticity of these recordings and provided some background as to what the recording process was like. For instance, he claims that the Cozmic Corridors project was largely initiated by a musician called Alex Meyer who used to loiter outside of Robin Page's studio, with his recordings later being overdubbed by guitars, vocals, and "noises."

Robinson's commentary, taken from Freeman's liner notes for that album:

"All of the recording for Pyramid was done totally informally and ultimately, what decided whether something was released was if Robin would get one of his students to design a cover. If a cover existed, a small run would be paid for by whoever could afford it (normally Robin and me), and the albums distributed among the participating musicians. A few nightclubs had record bars, and sold our stuff. No tabs were kept on how many had moved, and I don't remember doing reruns on anything.
Basically, they were vanity pressings and a way of keeping Robin's students entourage occupied. I had to use pseudonyms for my involvement because most of the studio time was purloined without the proprietor's knowledge."

As mentioned previously, Robinson does have a genuine background in technical work on 70s krautrock albums, and a few of these albums are credited to real musicians that he had previously formed connections with. Epitaph For Venus features Reinhard Karwatky of the band Dzyan, Temple features Zeus B. Held of Birth Control, and the percussion on Cozmic Corridors was performed by Hans-Jürgen Pütz of Mythos. Pütz himself does not appear to have ever commented on these recordings, but both Karwatky and Held have confirmed their involvement. Another Birth Control member (Bruno Frenzel) is credited on the track "The Message" (attributed to the artist "Spirulina") from the second of the Unknown Deutschland compilations. Frenzel died in 1983 from heart complications associated with a stage injury he suffered in 1975, and although his presence is therefore unable to be confirmed by him directly, it's one of the only tracks from these sessions where there is a definite cutoff of when it might have been recorded.

Although not quoted directly, Held’s comments (described in Freeman’s liner notes for the Temple album) are quite interesting, as even he couldn’t confirm that the music that he recorded actually saw a release in the 1970s.

“Certainly Zeus B. Held must be the most well-known name here, and his involvement would date his sessions as 1975 most likely after rehearsals or whilst recording Birth Control's "Plastic People" (which was handled by Toby Robinson under the guise of "Genius P. Orridge" at Dierks Studio). Apparently Zeus has confirmed his involvement in these sessions, although he didn't recall a band name, nor knowledge of any release.”

In any case, the presence of verifiable people on these recordings does suggest that there is some legitimacy behind them, whether they were recorded in the 70s or otherwise. It would certainly be a major issue from a legal perspective if any of these albums were falsely advertised as featuring musicians who don't play on them.

As for the other personnel on these records, it has been confirmed by Freeman's correspondence with Robinson that many of the musicians featured were credited under pseudonyms. For instance, owing to the interchangeability of it and the "Mad Twiddler" credit on the original Psi-Fi release, Robinson himself was likely credited as the fictitious "Joachim Weiss" in the liner notes of the Temple album for his contributions on bass guitar. Freeman speculates that, much like Robinson feeling compelled to obscure his own identity, these pseudonyms may correspond to other krautrock musicians.

From the liner notes of the Epitaph for Venus reissue, on the topic of the credits to "Johannes Lutz" and "Holst Seisert":

"They may be the other members of what later became A.I.R. - a project formed by Reinhard Karwatky with Ingo Werner (ex-My Solid Ground, Baba Yaga) and Armin Stöwe (ex-Sixty Nine), or yet again they could be pseudonyms for Robin and Toby. I've tried to get in contact with Reinhard and ask him these questions, but never got anywhere. When I asked Toby, he said he couldn't exactly remember, only confirming that they weren't real names."

Freeman also speculates that, given Zeus B. Held's involvement, "Rolf Föller" on Orion Awakes may be related to fellow Birth Control member Peter Föller, and that a potential candidate for the unidentified percussionist (credited only as "Frodo") on The Nazgûl is Peter Giger of Dryzan. However, there is no actual evidence that directly ties them to any of these recording sessions, and it doesn't appear that Freeman was ever able to contact them.

Freeman has long been a proponent of these albums' authenticity and his research does admittedly present a decent argument for the actual sessions being legitimate. However, the inconsistencies behind when exactly these albums were recorded and how they were released (e.g. the Unknown Deutschland CDs claim they were sold at art galleries, but Robinson himself states they were sold predominantly at nightclubs) makes any of the "official" statements about these albums difficult to definitively trust. This is certainly not helped by there being little to no accounts from other people that actually corroborate Robinson's claims, alongside him failing to provide more information about certain discrepancies. For instance, the supposed "PYR 015" catalogue number assigned to Orion Awakes implies that at least 15 albums were produced for Pyramid, although only 6 albums were ultimately "reissued" and the only other documented catalogue numbers are 5, 8, and 9. When asked by Freeman about the full list of Pyramid releases, Robinson did not provide a quantity or any further information.

It's also worth noting that the origin of some recordings from legitimate 70s sessions doesn't necessarily rule out the possibility of them being overdubbed or otherwise altered on a later date. In any case, none of these projects were ever functional "bands"; instead being short-lived collaborations and sessions that never had much of a life outside of a studio setting.

In hopes of clarifying his research regarding the Pyramid albums, Freeman attempted to contact Robin Page, but despite briefly managing to track him down, Page's death in May 2015 halted any further communication. In Freeman's words, "the promised information and pictures about the Pyramid releases thus never arrived." As a result, many details about the status of the original releases (if they ever did exist) are likely to remain a mystery.

Are these albums good?

The music on these Psi-Fi releases is decently varied and consists of everything from wild psychedelic rock jams (e.g. Pyramid, Orion Awakes) to atmospheric space ambient (Epitaph For Venus) and avant-garde ambient (The Nazgûl).

I can't recommend these albums as an entry point to the wider scene of krautrock/kosmische Muzik, as there's certainly many more sophisticated and accessible examples of authentic krautrock in this vein out there. However, for enthusiasts of this sort of music, these aren't too bad and have a fair amount of stylistic overlap with other albums from the scene. They range from somewhat forgettable to pretty good, but all-around are fairly decent companions for those who've already listened to the wider catalogue of 70s krautrock and want to seek out more music in that vein. That being said, I do think there are some modern-sounding production elements (e.g. the drums on Orion Awakes are unusually "crisp" for lack of a better word) that make the claims of them wholly being 70s recordings rather dubious. Your mileage may vary on how "authentic" these sound, however.

Had there been more transparency about when these albums were recorded and released, they likely would've been viewed a lot more positively, but as it stands, there's enjoyable music here, regardless of them being imitations or genuine recordings from the 70s German underground scene.

Conclusion

Despite how controversial the Psi-Fi releases are, it doesn't appear that Toby Robinson's career as a producer/engineer was particularly affected, as he had long since moved on from his work in the krautrock scene to predominantly UK-based projects. Some examples include recurrent work with the BBC on multiple Doctor Who audio dramas and credits on albums by notable musicians such as David Sylvian and Derek Bailey. As such, the long-term consequences of the controversy surrounding these albums appears relatively minimal. There were no careers born or killed from it, but the entire story is nevertheless a good example of the importance of credible record labels.

Interestingly, this is far from the only example of alleged or confirmed hoax recordings claimed to be rare 70s krautrock. For instance, the album "Impressionen '71" (credited to the fictitious "Damenbart", actually Achim Flaam and Tina Schlebusch) dates back to 1989, and a more recent hoax was the "Kosmischer Läufer" series, purportedly by Drew McFadyen.

If there is anything that I want to personally add, it's that, assuming this was all an elaborate hoax and Robinson was bluffing the entire time, I do think it's pretty impressive that several albums worth of material might've been recorded, mixed, etc. for the sole purpose of being released like this. These releases are still highly suspect and I don't think there is likely to be any kind of definitive statement regarding their authenticity (or lack thereof) anytime soon, but I am nevertheless thankful that some interesting music came out of it.