V.A. Saturday

Bob Stanley (of Saint Etienne) is no stranger to the various artist compilation- sometimes it seems he's a one man compilation machine, firing out niche and obscure VA albums into the void to be picked up by the curious and adventurous. In 2020 along with Jason Wood he compiled a sixteen song album called Cafe Exil (New Adventures In European Music, 1972- 1980) that came out on Ace Records (themselves a deep and rich gold mine for compilation albums). Cafe Exil was the soundtrack for a new Mittel Europa, devoid of Anglo- American influence, the songs that could have been playing as David Bowie and Iggy Pop took their morning coffee in Cafe Exil in Kreuzberg, West Berlin (I love the fact that when Bowie and Iggy decided to leave the USA to kick cocaine they headed to one of the most extreme places in the world, half a city hemmed in by a wall and surrounded by a paranoid dictatorship). 

The motorik and the kosmische feature heavily as you'd expect- Cluster, Faust, Amon Duul, Popol Vuh- along with other sympathetic names- Soft Machine, Brian Eno, Toni Esposito, Annette Peacock- and some outliers- Jan Hammer Group. These two are among the stand outs. There's never a bad time to hear Michael Rother playing guitar is there?

Feuerland

Feuerland is originally from Rother's Flammende Herzen, a 1977 solo album that holds its own in the Rother back catalogue (and sounds as central to '77 as any of Bowie and Iggy's Berlin albums). Conny Plank produces, Jaki Liebezeit plays drums, Rother the synths and guitars. 

This one is by Steve Hillage, from his album Motivation Radio, also from '77, instrumental psychedelia/ prog. Iggy and Bowie would have been tapping their teaspoons along while this was playing in Cafe Exil, strong black coffee and pastries helping flush their systems clean. 

Octave Doctors