Release of the Day: Walter Wegmüller - Tarot

This is as cosmic (kosmische) as music gets. I found out about this record from reading Julian Cope's opus Krautrocksampler. I've read the book twice in the last couple of days and I'm still learning a lot from the book. Though I had a working knowledge of important bands like Can, Kraftwerk, Neu!, Amon Duul II, and Popol Vuh, I didn't really understand how all the bands were interwoven, how members changed and affected other bands and how much acid people were doing to make krautrock.

In addition to the brief history of krautrock, which begins in the book with stirrings from the American GI band the Monks and ends with the Cosmic Jokers, the book features a top 50 krautrock albums list, which is helpful to any beginning head, as I am. It's an easy to find list even if you just google "Julian Cope Top 50 Krautrock."

The story behind the Walter Wegmüller record Tarot is that each song was inspired and written about one of the major arcana of a tarot deck, and made with the assistance of Klaus Schultze. As there are 22 major arcana, there are 22 songs. But that's not all, ladies and germs. Walter also hand-painted a custom semi-deck of the 22 major arcana that came with OG pressings of the record.

This music is in a zone of its own with all sorts of heady, psychedelic influence. OG copies go for up to nearly $1000 and the reissues from the 90s with copies of the original Walter Wegmüller tarot deck were originally sold at 50 British Pounds! So it's an expensive album, but the good news is that you can listen to the album for free! Just follow the links below!

CD 1
CD 2