Amon Duul - Airs On A Shoe String (Best Of...) (Reissue) (2008)

Even with only five tracks, Airs on a Shoestring is one of the best avenues to investigate Amon Düül's sometimes irritable, sometimes unlistenable brand of fragmented rock and jazz fusion. Two of the tracks, "Hymn for the Hardcore" and the humorous "Olaf (Where's My $20,000?)" represent the band's musical sloppiness the best, but, at the same time, offer a foreshadowing into Amon Düül II's Krautrock prominence. The jams are unraveled and fountain-like, while the guitar rhythms are half-built, melding into the thrashing of the drums and cymbals. The lyrics, often indecipherable, are drowned out by clashes of percussion and the splattering of guitar improvisation anyway, but there is still some positive energy felt within the rawness of the music. Airs on a Shoestring may be brief, but this, in itself, is welcoming, and it's much easier to find than most of their albums.