Description
Erwartung is the debut album by the German progressive rock band Eden, released on Lord Records in 1978. The album was recorded July/August 1978 in Dierks-Studios, Stommeln and Hermes-Musik Studios, Kamen, Germany, and features everything from lush keyboards and strings to electronically treated vocals and prepared piano.
The German outfit Eden was founded in 1977, when three members of the “Freie christliche Jugendgemeinschaft” decided to form a band; one of the first Christian progressive rock bands in Germany. The band – which comprised eleven people and sounds like a full orchestra plus a choir – was the brainchild of composer and multi-instrumentalist Dirk Schmalenbach, who excels on guitar, keyboards, percussion, violin and sitar.
Symphonic progressive rock bands are few and far between in Christian music, but in 1978 the German group Eden emerged with an art-rock sound that had creativity, musicianship and production values that mirrored many of their secular counterparts. Admittedly the style had peaked a few years earlier, but Eden stayed true to the original vision with lengthy songs, variations in tempo and mood, classical and jazz influences, dreamy melodic textures and extended instrumental passages. Defining the Eden sound are dynamic male/female harmonies, spacey dramatic spoken sections, layers of multifaceted synthesizers, graceful flute work, Kansas-like violin, hard-rock guitars, saxophone and other varied instrumentation. Even a touch of sitar on the moody title track. Fleeting impressions of artists like Nektar, Camel and King Crimson, but they ultimately emerge with a unique style all their own. Only five songs, but they’ll extend pieces like «Ein Anderes Land» out to sixteen minutes (love those distorted sci-fi vocals). Erwartung (German for “expectation”) is not their best album, but it nevertheless stands as a very impressive debut, as well as a fitting introduction to their follow-up masterpiece Perelandra. Spectacular cover art to match. All lyrics in German, which is the case with their other albums as well. [Ken Scott, The Archivist, 4th edition]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/erwartung/1702374388)
LP tracklist:
Side One
A1. “Spätregen” – 7:09
A2. “Erwartung” – 6:41
A3. “Eden, 1. Teil” – 4:35
Side Two
B1. “Eden, 2. Teil” – 6:08
B2. “Ein Anderes Land” – 16:31
Produced by Dirk Schmalenbach. Remastered 2021 by Dirk Schmalenbach.
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