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OUGENWEIDE Ungezwungen (CD)

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1-CD with 24-page booklet, 12 tracks, playing time 72:41 minutes.  Further CDs by... more

OUGENWEIDE: Ungezwungen (CD)

1-CD with 24-page booklet, 12 tracks, playing time 72:41 minutes. 

Further CDs by Ougenweide, with all lyrics and an accompanying word by Minnesang specialist Dr. Lothar Jahn 
After the great success of the first four LPs on 2 CDs, Bear Family Records presents four more studio albums from the 70s and 80s as well as the live recording Ungezwungen on CD for the first time.  
If a German band deserves the credit for combining medieval texts with modern pop music for the first time and making them accessible to a broad audience, then it is Ougenweide from Hamburg. 

Unfettered' is a live album that excellently documents the band's early creative phase and shows what Ougenweide was above all else: a rousing live band that united entire halls in a'Folks' festival with enthusiasm and joy of playing at their concerts. The recording contains very good versions of Wol mich der stunde, Der Rivale, Ouwe wie jaemmerliche and a twelve-minute version of Neidhart von Reuenthals Ougenweide with stirring drum and flute solos.

Simply different...
When I met Ougenweide, sometime in the mid-seventies, in the middle of pubertal turmoil and full of longing for love, music and togetherness, they were an exception. I had never experienced concerts of this kind before and actually not again afterwards! It was not only their originality: to hear Middle High German lyrics and these strange melodies, known at most from the awe-inspiring crackling early music recordings from the record cabinet of the German teacher, in connection with gripping rock music, was certainly surprising and unique, but not necessarily a guarantee for a rousing concert! 

It wasn't the playing technique either: it was sometimes really impressive - especially when the wonderful old instruments came into play. But back then, when rock was going'art', there was a lot more virtuoso to experience! It wasn't the singing either: The lovely fairy Minne and the cheeky minstrel Olaf, that sometimes gave wonderful contrasts, but sometimes sounded very unusual and took getting used to! It wasn't just the atmosphere in the audience - although you rarely met so many nice and enthusiastic people who were simply'different' and could give you hope for a better life in the Kleinstadtmuff! No, it was above all this contagious joy in playing, this wonderful pleasure in what they did that made Ougenweide really unique.

And they were a hard-working combo - quite astonishing that they also visited the nice, sleepy little towns in and around Northern Hessian-Siberia in beautiful regularity, into which otherwise only few high or middle Caratians got lost. Their diligence was also reflected in the length of their concerts: three to four hours of programming were normal. And even though they started immediately, they managed to increase the pressure and energy even more towards the end. At some point it went drumming and singing in the direction of the audience, once around the hall, after them all, until the audience was just a cheerfully singing, romping, dancing and sweating crowd. I am somewhere in between, although such emotional outbursts and mass experiences are still rather suspicious to me. Sometimes they even played when the roadies were already dismantling the instruments - then they continued to play without amplification on stage.

If there was a band that really deserved the term'live band', it was Ougenweide in their prime. In this respect it is wonderful that with all the old treasures, which are now finally taken from the archive and immortalized on CD, the live album'Ungezwungen' from 1977 (in the original a double LP) comes to light again.

The live situation offers more room for instrumental development than the strictly produced studio albums. This is where the quality of the musicians becomes apparent, but they don't always have to play to the fore with their skills. The joy of experimentation is also visible here: some classics sound completely different than on the studio album, as the seven-minute introduction with Bald shows - this time sung by Minne - in a different way. So what? Here, too, Ougenweide are heirs of medieval singers and Spielleyt, who were able to rearrange their repertoire very flexibly depending on the occasion and audience. 

 Most of the time the band dedicates to their original song, Neidharts Ougenweide, which is almost doubled in length with a stirring flute improvisation in the style of Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull ) and an extended drum solo. The minnelied Walthers von der Vogelweide Wol mich der stunde after the beautiful melody of the troubadour song Quan vei la flor by Bernart de Ventadorn gets a crooked horn intro in the live version, which immediately conjures up a medieval courtly mood until it really swings off in the middle part. Ingeniously the jazzy Krummhorn improvisation, completely unexpected in such a context...

Article properties: OUGENWEIDE: Ungezwungen (CD)

Ougenweide - Ungezwungen (CD) CD 1
01 Bald anders OUGENWEIDE
02 Wol mich der Stunde OUGENWEIDE
03 Ouwe wie jaemerliche OUGENWEIDE
04 Der Rivale OUGENWEIDE
05 Ougenweide OUGENWEIDE
06 Der Schlemihl OUGENWEIDE
07 Ihr Herren wollt Ihr schweigen still OUGENWEIDE
08 Swa gouter Hande wurzen sint OUGENWEIDE
09 Wintertanz OUGENWEIDE
10 Till und die Gelehrten OUGENWEIDE
11 Ronde OUGENWEIDE
12 Der Fuchs OUGENWEIDE
Ougenweide Medieval Music - Minne Rock From humble origins in 1969 as Hamburg-based... more
"OUGENWEIDE"

Ougenweide

Medieval Music - Minne Rock

OugenweideFrom humble origins in 1969 as Hamburg-based 'hobby musicians,' Ougenweide established themselves within less than a decade as an important creative force on the West German music scene. As a band, they were renowned for championing the impossible. Just like Britain's era-defining rock group Traffic had sung in 'Who Knows What Tomorrow May Bring,' it was plain that Ougenweide "were not like all the rest". Ougenweide's calling-card was setting old poetry to music, as befitted a group that took its name from a text by the Middle High German poet Neidhart von Reuenthal. Some lyrics they sang needed accompanying translations to render them comprehensible even for contemporary mother-tongue German audiences.

(If rock venues in the 1970s had had the technology to simulcast subtitles while Ougenweide sang, then sizeable sections of the audience would have been happier still.) Performing Old German texts was a leap of faith. (As was the occasional Latin.) In the process, they became West Germany's quintessential 'Mittelalter-Rock' or 'medieval rock' ensemble. With only a pinch of exaggeration, their name remains shorthand for – if not the dictionary definition of – 'Mittelalter-Rock'. Between the releases of Ougenweide's self-titled debut LP in 1973 and their second LP, 'All die Weil ich mag' in 1974.

Ougenweide had consolidated and refined their musical vision. According to one story, at the time of their debut album's sessions, their producer Achim Reichel. Who went on to produce 'Ohrenschmaus' and 'Eulenspiegel' – had prevailed on them to ditch their Fairport Convention and Pentangle repertoire in favour of German-language material. It was a decisive step. In rejecting the identikit Anglo-Irishisms and Anglo-Americanisms that plagued the West German folk scene, they were breaking new ground.

Mid-Medieval Music

OugenweideThe recruitment of Minne Graw as the band's female voice and keyboardist in September 1973 – following the departure of Brigitte Blunck and Renee Kollmorgen (both of whom had sung on 'Ougenweide') – stabilized the band's personnel. Her arrival was a milestone in the band's development. She directly contributed to Ougenweide's growing popularity. Between 'All die Weil ich mag' appearing in late 1974 and the release of 'Ohrenschmaus' the next year.  Ougenweide's profile in the West German music business rose considerably. In Minne Graw, Ougenweide found a transformative vocalist for the times.

The closest West Germany ever came to Fairport Convention's Sandy Denny. Pre-'Ohrenschmaus,' several things had held them back. For one, they had yet to break out of Hamburg. In October 1974 with their second LP imminent, the Hamburg-based 'Sounds'. Frontrunner for the day's most authoritative rock music monthly (with a sprinkling of Liedermacher, counter-culture cinema and cult literature) – pointed out the one big hurdle in front of Ougenweide was the type of venues they were playing. As relative unknowns and semi-pro musicians, they were pounding the Beatschuppen (beat club) and Bierkneipe (bar) beat.

This circuit hardly suited Ougenweide's music. Its subtleties were getting lost amid the hubbub of beer-swilling, chat-up lines and the clatter of singing, ringing Mark-and-Pfennig tills. Communicating the intricacies of Walther von der Vogelweide, Neidhart von Reuenthal (an intriguing name that suggests the translation Old Nick from the Valley of Sorrows) or Merseburger magic spells (Zaubersprüche decades before Kate Bush sang her spell of Hem of anorak, stem of wallflower, hair of doormat) were doubly difficult back then.

Ougenweide's Sound

The Hamburg music scene wasn't very large. Hence, its bush telegraph functioned pretty efficiently, even though the city was a land of print. Ougenweide's Frank Wulff trained as a typesetter, for example. By the mid 1970s, 'Sounds' had become pretty much required reading, having somewhat filled the vacuum left after 'twen's' Hamburg publishers scuttled it in 1971, scandalised by that May's issue with its just-a-little-too-far coverage including the artist Ernst Jandl (onomatopoeia raised to eroticism), Hamburg-St. Pauli's Loddel (pimp) and Nutte (whore) underbelly and, appropriate bedfellow, the Rolling Stones.

In the shocked aftermath of 'twen's' demise, picture 'Sounds' as a radical alternative to the Munich edition of 'Rolling Stone' nowadays. 'Sounds' would run several items on Ougenweide during its early heyday. The main point was that it was almost impossible not to have heard their name. In Hamburg, at very least. Word was spreading.

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Tracklist
Ougenweide - Ungezwungen (CD) CD 1
01 Bald anders
02 Wol mich der Stunde
03 Ouwe wie jaemerliche
04 Der Rivale
05 Ougenweide
06 Der Schlemihl
07 Ihr Herren wollt Ihr schweigen still
08 Swa gouter Hande wurzen sint
09 Wintertanz
10 Till und die Gelehrten
11 Ronde
12 Der Fuchs