Novalis Banished Bridge (LP)

(MIG Music) 4 tracks

In 1971, singer Jürgen Wenzel and bassist Heino Schünzel placed an ad in the Hamburger Abendblatt looking for like-minded people to form a band. Organist Lutz Rahn and drummer Hartwig Biereichel came forward. They called themselves Mosaik, started rehearsing and played small gigs. At the suggestion of a friend, guitarist Carlo Karges (later with Nena), the name was changed to Novalis. The band signed a contract with Brain in 1973 and Jochen Petersen (later keyboarder with Randy Pie, among others) produced the first album “Banished Bridge” in Hamburg's Chameleon Studios.

The album was recorded entirely without electric guitars, the centerpiece being the 17-minute-long title track “Banished Bridge”. The music is slightly fragile, flowing, almost lyrical. The floating synthesizer and keyboard passages are reminiscent of the early works of Pink Floyd and Genesis. A debut album that already showed where the band's path would later lead. “Banished Bridge” remained Novalis' only English-language album and is still considered by many to be a classic of German progressive rock. After the debut album in 1973, guitarist Detlef Job joined Novalis and frontman Jürgen Wenzel left the band. Schünzel and Job took over the vocal parts, and from then on they sang very lyrical lyrics in German. Carlo Karges also took part in the work on the second album as guitarist, keyboardist and composer, but left the band again in 1975. In 1976, the Austrian singer Fred Mühlböck joined the band. Novalis bid farewell in 1985 with the album “Nach uns die Flut”.