El Condor Pasa (Paul Nero In South-America) (1970) by Paul Nero Sounds.
It’s the groovy look again. Since compiling a list of artists and designers working in this post-psychedelic style I keep finding practictioners I hadn’t noticed before. German designer and art director Ulrich Eichberger is someone I might have spotted earlier if I’d examined his discography, especially when several of the albums he worked on are ones I’ve owned for many years. The covers of those albums aren’t very psychedelic, however, and don’t even look like the work of the same designer until you scrutinise the credits. The examples here are those where he was working as a cover artist as well as designer, favouring the ones where the pop-psych hallmarks are in evidence: vivid colours, bold outlines, and faces or figures treated to various degrees of stylisation. Elsewhere, the influence of Heinz “Yellow Submarine” Edelmann may be seen in the watercolour blooms that fill the backgrounds. Most of these designs are for the German wing of United Artists Records (or its Liberty affiliate) which means that Eichberger got to work for two of the major German groups of the early 70s, Can and Amon Düül II.
Partyrausch – Das Ideale Tanzalbum 70/71 (1970) by Various Artists.
Tago-Mago (1971) by Can.
I’ve never thought this was a very good cover but it’s the most popular album of those listed here.
Partyrausch 71/72 (Das Ideale Tanzalbum) (1971) by Various Artists.
In The Groove (1972) by Charly Antolini.
Included mainly because of the title.
Portrait (1972) by Jean-Luc Ponty.
The Black Voice (1972) by Don Adams.
The birds and the watercolour backgrounds are very Edelmann. The same goes for the album below.
Wide Open (1973) by Rhythm Combination & Brass, Peter Herbolzheimer.
Progressive German Pop Experience 2 (1973) by Various Artists.
Vibrations (1973) by Love Generation.
Das Hohelied Salomos (1975) by Popol Vuh.
A hippy Garden of Eden in a Rousseau style.
Lemmingmania (1975) by Amon Düül II.
An excellent compilation album which collects all the exclusive numbers from the group’s early singles. The first vinyl releases had the black graphics printed on silver foil. Eichberger used a similar foil treatment for the cover of Soon Over Babaluma by Can.
Cosmic Kraut Hits (Rock Aleman) (1976) by Various Artists.
“Krautrock” was a snarky term invented in the early 70s by the snarkiest writers in the world—Anglophone music journalists—but it persisted long enough for the German groups stuck with the label to start using it themselves. There’s no way of knowing whether its use here is ironic or not, as it often was with the groups themselves. The same goes for the Starfighter aircraft flying on the front and back cover, a notoriously unstable US plane whose adoption by the German air force resulted in so many crashes it inspired a Robert Calvert solo album (also on United Artists), Captain Lockheed And The Starfighters.
Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive
Looks like some Richard Lindner influence in a couple of these. The “Love Generation” album art is either a late appearance of a ‘sixties Peter Max look, or an ironic bit of early ‘sixties nostalgia, I can’t determine which. Especially entitled “Vibrations”, it would have looked fairly old-fashioned, at least here in the States in 1973.
I think Peter Max rather than Lindner, the popular over the arty. Germany was playing catch-up with the UK and US at this time so the dated feel is inevitable. There wasn’t much use for hip graphics in pre-68 Germany where schlager was the dominant form of pop music.