Consuming the Tangible

Let’s get a little weird and obscure. Mammut were a German krautrock band who only put out one self-titled album in 1971 and promptly imploded. But that sole album, Mammut, became a holy grail among collectors due to a number of rights issues that left it in limbo forever. It was reissued in CD form by the German specialty label Longhair Music and when my local hookup LaserCD grabbed a bunch of stock from the label I dug in, with this being one of the blind buys. This is precisely the kind of music I’ve been searching for these last few days, and one of the reasons I tend to blind buy things: I love the sense of discovery, and that sense is dulled when you simply look it up online. Listening now, with the CD booklet next to me, is how I love to listen to music.

Formed by a pair of guitarists, Klaus and Peter Schnur found a bunch of willing musicians. With a cooperative studio and about 14 days of free recording time, the band got together and jammed in the studio, with the resulting track sequence being made up of all the working titles—hence descriptive titles like “Classical Mammut” and “Short Mammut.” It very much feels like something stirred everyone in the studio, and rather than mess with fine-tuning, they just released the album into the world. Even the label is a joy: I’d never heard of Mouse Trick Track Music before now, but the incredible logo that runs the length of the bottom of the album art is great, and helps to give a sense of identity to Mammut and their music.

“Bird Mammut” might be named for the extended flute solo it contains, but for me it’s all about the monster drum intro from Günther Saier. His percussion drives the song forward with Rainer Hofmann’s organ. After the short excursion of “Classical Mammut” we move to “Mammut Ecstasy,” which might be the most accessible track on Mammut, with its vocals and heavy rock guitars. For a band that really only existed for the two weeks it took to assemble the album, there’s a strong sense of intent across its tracks, mostly due to the Schnur brothers’ composition and playing. “Footmachine Mammut” has a lazy swing that momentarily sets aside the more out-there and progressive tendencies found on something like the appropriately named “Schizoid Mammut” which nonetheless has a soft sense of early Jethro Tull in its rhythm and blues foundation. The soloing is superb, and I like hearing how the Schnur brothers inject a healthy sense of old fashioned rock and roll into their krautrock.

The two epics are saved for last. “Nähgarn Mammut” is a killer seven-minute rocker, made even better when you discover that the German translates to “Sewing Machine Mammoth.” I have no idea what that means, but I adore the track. And then there’s the near 14-minute “Mammut Opera” with its many movements and more theatrical vocal delivery. You can’t miss those guitars, though, and it’s little things like that which draw me back to Mammut as an exciting, fun distraction. There’s a vitality here that more modern bands trying their hand at this kind of thing often lack.