Where it all began — Guru Guru’s raw, cosmic debut. UFO is the wild starting point of one of Krautrock’s most fearless bands. Released in 1970 on the underground Ohr label, it captures the newly formed classic trio — drummer and visionary Mani Neumeier, bassist Uli Trepte and Hendrix-inspired guitarist Ax Genrich — jamming in raw, free-form, largely instrumental fury. Rougher than the albums that followed, it is a landmark of cosmic free-rock and one of the essential Krautrock debuts.

The short version

Guru Guru’s debut studio album, released in 1970 on the underground Ohr label; five long, group-credited jams, around forty minutes. The band is the classic power trio in its first recorded form: Mani Neumeier on drums, percussion and electronic effects, Uli Trepte on bass and tape and amplifier sounds, and Ax Genrich on heavily treated guitar. Raw, mostly instrumental and free-form, it is the roughest and most chaotic of the band’s early albums, and the foundation for everything that followed. A cornerstone of cosmic, jam-based Krautrock, it announced one of the German scene’s wildest bands.

From free jazz to cosmic rock

Guru Guru began in 1968 as the Guru Guru Groove, formed in Heidelberg by drummer Mani Neumeier and bassist Uli Trepte, who had played together for years in the German free-jazz scene, Neumeier already a prize-winning jazz drummer. They wanted something louder and more adventurous, following the trail blazed by Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa, and after several guitarists passed through, the Hendrix-inspired Ax Genrich, fresh from an early version of Agitation Free, completed the classic line-up just in time to record. On the insistence of fans who followed them from gig to gig, the trio cut UFO for the young underground Ohr label. It was, for adventurous listeners, a revolution — and, no doubt, a noise that baffled the pop critics of the day. This is the sound of a band being born.

The sound

Raw, free-form cosmic rock — a whirlwind of rumbling bass, thundering drums and huge, fuzzed-out guitar, all swirling into a kind of structured, spacey chaos. Genrich’s massive fuzz-and-wah guitar is the driving force, aggressive and feedback-drenched in the wake of Hendrix, while Neumeier’s restless, jazz-schooled drumming and Trepte’s overdriven bass hold the storm together, thickened by electronic effects drawn from tapes, amplifiers and more. It is largely instrumental, with only occasional bursts of wild, unhinged vocals, and the pieces jam freely without ever quite tipping into total collapse. As much a heavy, Cream-like rock record as a Krautrock one, it marries the German experimental spirit to real, ferocious guitar playing. Rough around the edges, but thrillingly alive.

Reading up on Krautrock? The books go deeper →

The songs

The album’s five extended jams range from the frenzied to the strangely structured. Stone In opens things in a hail of fuzzed guitar and wild vocal outbursts, while Girl Call is a highlight for its deranged, heavy, wah-drenched guitar work. Next Time See You at the Dalai Lama begins more deliberately paced and structured than anything else here, giving the album a moment of relative focus, and the title track UFO drifts into the band’s most spacey, exploratory territory, before a closing march brings the record to an end. None of these are conventional songs so much as launching pads for the trio to improvise, and that is exactly the point.

Reception and legacy

UFO is celebrated as one of the essential Krautrock debuts and a landmark of free-form cosmic rock, name-checked on more than one list of the genre’s greatest albums. Reviewers acknowledge that it is raw and can seem directionless at first, but repeated listens reveal the method in its madness and the sheer force of the playing, above all Genrich’s guitar and Neumeier’s drumming. Its rougher sound would soon be refined on Hinten and Kanguru, yet many hold a special affection for this first, untamed statement. It stands as the beginning of one of German rock’s longest and most restless careers, and a document of a band arriving fully formed in spirit, if not yet in polish.

The verdict

Essential for lovers of raw, cosmic Krautrock and free-form jamming, and the place to hear Guru Guru at their most untamed — wild, heavy and thrillingly alive, if rough around the edges. Come to it for Genrich’s fuzz-and-wah guitar, Neumeier’s drumming and the free, spacey jams, rather than for songs or studio polish. Play Girl Call and Next Time See You at the Dalai Lama. Then Hinten and Kanguru for the more focused records that followed, and Dance of the Flames for the later jazz-rock turn. The raw beginning of a Krautrock legend — and a debut that still crackles with energy.

Browse the bookshelf in the footer →