Klaus Bloch (A La Ping Pong) - Phase II 'Gogopongs' LP (Private) 1981

Another artist I discovered via The Crack in the Cosmic Egg is Klaus Bloch. He released two LPs featuring his tape-delay guitar work. This is the 2nd LP - Phase II - Gogopongs.

The first track, Go, starts up with a wonderful drone that builds up to what can best be described as Neu on nitrous. Track 2, Go Go Pongs, is slightly dark synth-wave with less of the guitar effects.

My favorite track is the third, Farbenspiel, a slower meditative piece with guitar, keyboards, strings and the 'Animabass' which doesn't do much other than distract from the rest of the music. Perhaps I like this one so much because it reminds me a lot of a track I made in the 90's, a few years before I finally heard this album.

Since this album isn't included in the on-line version of The Crack in the Cosmic Egg, I have transcribed the info on Bloch below:

"Actually, hiding behind the moniker of 'A La Ping Pong', Klaus Bloch was a talented amateur guitarist who broke on to the independent scene in a small way in the early-80's. Apart from being the project name, the 'A La Ping Pong' phrase was what he called his tape delay system, which was in essence his variation on the Frippertonic system. Klaus Bloch went on to make two very different albums. The first featured a highly inventive music featuring more recognisably 'Frippertonic' style guitar looping and delays, with multi-tracking and electronics, often comparable to Manuel Gottsching's echo and delay guitar work, early Heldon, or Camera Obscura. Then, in contrast, PHASE II took a diversion to Kraftwerk styled electro-pop blending with Frippian touches, and is vastly inferior, despite aid from synthesist Hardy Kukuk."

If the Freeman brothers truly find this LP 'vastly inferior', Bloch's first album must be a masterpiece!! This one isn't too bad itself....

Enjoy.