JUTTA NIENHAUS vocals
H.-J."MOPS" NIENHAUS Drums
WOLFGANG SCHOENE Bass
MARTIN THURN electric guitar, 12 String Acoustic Guitar, Flute, Bongos
NICOLA PANKOFF Keyboards
Special thanks to MAURO RATTAGGI Ex Bass
Analogy [Switzerland]
Analogy (72)
Though the band is listed as an Italian band, they are really Swiss folks who transplanted themselves to Italy, I assume, to cash in on the more fertile progressive scene. Even though they are German, the music is much closer in style to the symphonic Nederlander band, Earth and Fire. The are lovely tenor (occasionally soprano) female vocals, with plenty of bluesy Hammond organ (no synth) and searing guitar. Some flute here and there is added to round it out. Songs range between four and nine minutes, the title track being the longest. The music is a somewhat darkish, symphonic sound. If you're into Earth and Fire, this band is similar in style and one you would probably like, as well. Well worth a listen. -- Mike Taylor
Analogy: Analogy
Artist: Analogy
Album: Analogy
Label: Akarma (reissue)
Year: 2000
Genre: prog rock
Prog rock, a complicated mess that I almost have no right getting involved in talking about; but where my lack of knowledge about the distinctions between Sandrose and Van der Graaf Generator and King Crimson for example, are problematic, suffice to say it doesn't get in my way of enjoying complicated guitar rock with mysterious, eerie overtones, and dark brooding female vocals. Analogy's self-titled album (originally from 1972) is a test of both emotional and musical stability by this Italian and German group of magicians disguised as hippies. Led with grim words about deception, doom, and spiritual longing, by the husky, multi-octave voice of Jutta Nienhaus, her lyrics are executed in a sometimes vaguely operatic, sometimes orgasmic, and often seriously bewitching form. Soaring melodies are squeezed out with precision by Martin Thurn on guitar, Wolfgang Schoene on bass, Nicola Pankoff on organ, switching with regularity between backing Nienhaus' words and taking off on long tangents of complicated independent instrumental reprieves. Often Nienhaus joins in with almost animalistic mating call cries ("Indian meditation" for example -- which is meditative in a drug-induced-sweat way, and the barking chorus of "The year's at the spring"). With elements in common with Coven or Sand for example, the dark spell woven by Analogy is serious and complicated, though the depth of their music has more to do with their delivery than with complicated occult poetry or tape delay effects. For a band of Italians and Germans, the similarities with popular British and American hard rock bands is hard not to mention: Pink Floyd, Heart, Syd Barrett, The Velvet Underground and Nico. But clearly Analogy were on a level all their own. Analogy is highly arresting. It's a good thing that the urge to reissue albums these days is like a virus.
Standouts: "Indian meditation", "The year's at the spring", "Pan-Am Flight 249"
Links: Akarma Records
Buy: Forced Exposure
Notes: If you buy the vinyl version, you get a free reissued single by Voice, the pre-Analogy band.
By: Forestter Cobalt
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Analogy - "Analogy" (1972) Posing nude on the cover is not very usual for a progressive rock band (not any other band either for that matter!) but this German group made an exception with their first and unfortunately only album. Musically they remind me of a rougher and more Hammond-drenched version of bands like Earth and Fire and Sandrose. A female singer with a very varied and enjoyable voice fronted them. She could take her voice up in a high soprano on the beautiful "Weeping My Endure" and then in a "lower" tone in the rocking "The Years at the Spring". The other most dominating part in their sound is a really delightful and thick Hammond organ-sound the way we like it. All the songs here are good. The title-track is with its nine minutes the longest and most complex one, going from energetic riffs to quiet parts where the organ and guitar creates some really mystical and haunting atmospheres. The opening track "Dark Reflections" is with its dramatic vocals, excellent melodic chorus and swirling organ-passages one of the very best tracks on the album. "Indian Meditation" features wordless vocals and some flute that fits well to the title of the track. "Analogy" is yet another lost classic of 70's progressive rock.
Analogy - Analogy (1972)
Often mistaken for an Italian band, thanks to their only album having been recording and released exclusively in that country, Analogy were in fact an almost fully German group, simply based in Milan. The style of music here is a kind of organ-heavy psychedelic rock, well stocked in stoned out atmosphere and blistering guitar. Thanks to the prominent female vocals, the band often evokes the later group Carol of Harvest, but a more accurate description would be a middle ground between other organ dominated German groups like Satin Whale and Murphy Blend and vicious Italian psych like Circus 2000.
Musically, however, Analogy is probably less successful than any of the above, but nonetheless competent. Indeed, the album is one of those where, every once in a while, the bands hits on something really brilliant, but manages to pad these moments out with enough jammy filler so as to severely hamper the consistency of the album as a whole. The opening cut, "Dark Reflections" is a perfect example in and of itself. Whereas the verses are stunted by a dirge-y and frankly boring melody, all of a sudden, out of nowhere, vocalist Jutta Nienhaus belts out a simple, yet spellbinding chorus. This kind of frustration is typical throughout the album. To be frank, the lauded vocals of Nienhaus are more of an incomprehensible warble, generally fraught with some rather questionable intonation. The best song is easily the band's namesake, "Analogy", a predominately instrumental psych-prog masterpiece rife with fantastic organ solos and surging guitar licks. On the whole, whereas Analogy is undoubtedly inconsistent, the great moments and the overall atmosphere do make this one worth having at some point for collectors of early progressive rock. - Greg Northrup [November 2002]
1. Dark Reflections - 7:00
2. Weeping May Endure - 4:50
3. Indian Meditation - 4:10
4. Tin's Song - 1:40
5. Analogy - 9:45
6. The Year's At the Spring - 4:35
7. Pan-Am Flight - 5:15
Jutta Nienhaus - Vocals
H.J. "Mops" Nienhaus - Drums
Wolfgang Schoene - Bass
Martin Thurn - Guitar, Flute, Bongos
Nicola Pankoff - Keyboards
Analogy - Analogy
Released: 1972/2002
Label: Garden Of Delights
Cat. No.: CD 059
Total Time: 44:01
Reviewed by: Stephanie Sollow, June 2003
Analogy were a German group living in Italy in the late 60s that featured Jutta Nienhaus on vocals, Hermann-Jurgen "Mops" Nienhaus on drums, Wolfgang Schoene on bass, Martin Thurn on guitars, flute and bongos, and Nikola Pankoff on keyboards (mainly Hammond organ). Under this moniker, they really released only one album, the self-titled Analogy (1972), though in 1980 The Suite was released featuring Thurn and Jutta Nienhaus along with members of their subsequent band Earthbound - it was released on CD in 1993 by Germany's Ohrwaschi label (and later in a bootlegged 10" vinyl format by Akarma in 2000). Nienhaus and Thurn and original bassist Mauro Rattaggi gathered others together to record old and previously unreleased Analogy pieces as well as re-record pieces that had appeared on their first 7" singles for a CD called 25 Years Later that was released by Ohrwashi in 1996. The booklet of this 2002 reissue of Analogy from the Garden Of Delight's label details the band's history both before becoming Analogy, when they were known as The Joice (and later, due to a misprint Yoice), through to their post Analogy days. As usual, there are photographs, discography, as well as sleeve and label covers reproduced in the booklet. This is, according to GoD, the first legitimate CD release, as the history includes details on unauthorized and bootleg editions (e.g., Akarma), and was made from the master tapes.
Analogy's sound is thick and heavy in a psychedelic way rather than a hard rock way, with Schoene's bass tone very deep, matching the sometimes sultry vocals of Neinhaus. The instruments of focus, other than Nienhaus' voice, are the guitar of Thurn and Schoene's bass. Except when they are in a solo setting, Pankoff's organ is back in the mix, and yet very much present. Lyrically, the album is fairly sparse, and without a lot of reading between the lines, or, in the case of "Pan-Am Flight 249," some context, they don't seem to make a lot of sense. But they don't have to, as the ear is drawn to how Neinhaus sang, not what she sang.
The centerpiece of the album is the nearly 10 minute "Analogy" - the track from which the band took their name. It begins as a subtle atmospheric piece with just Pankoff's organ, but gradually fades in to become a full on rocker, bringing to mind The Who a bit. Of the core album's 7 tracks, this is the one that is, perhaps, the most proggy in nature, though it gets there by way of psychedelia. The watery organ work recalls Ray Manzarek's in tone a bit, as on The Doors' "Riders On The Storm." The Doors played extended, arty, pieces like this. In another passage, Thurn's initially delicate guitar lines recall Pink Floyd ("Us And Them" came to mind), before a sweet, but high-toned guitar takes the lead voice, playing in sad, melancholy notes.
They follow this up with the upbeat, energetic "The Year's At The Spring," which made think of something from the early days of Jefferson Airplane, though Neinhaus doesn't sound like Grace Slick exactly, I could easily see Slick singing this way stylistically. Again, it is a showcase for Thurn, Schoene and Pankoff, but mostly Thurn, as he plays a brassy toned solo, leaned into a distinctively Hammond organ solo from Pankoff. Haven't mentioned drummer Nienhaus much, but his performance is solid throughout, keeping everything moving along. Nienhaus's story has a tragic ending, as he committed suicide in 1984 while he was in the end stages of his fight against AIDS.
The other thought that came to me as I was listening to Analogy was anachronistic as I thought of The Red Masque during the dark, gloomy, and some times funereal, "Dark Reflections" as well during the equally dark and gloomy "Pan-Am Flight 249" -- whether this song is in response to some specific incident around the time, I don't know. I did "Google" it, but found only references to the track in the tracklisting of various reviews of this album. This comparison was not just in the vocals of Jutta Neinhaus, which are richly ethereal and lilting, but rather in the whole vibe of each piece.
Another of the album's highlights is "Weeping May Endure" which, aside from some brief lilting vocals from Nienhaus, is an instrumental with Thurn's guitars leading the way. Here, too, Pankoff's organ gets a moment in the spotlight.
The bonus track is "Milan On A Sunday Morning," which was, according to the booklet "recorded the morning after a 'heavy' party, at a time when the band was in the process of dissolving." It has been previously unreleased and is unique to this edition. This is a somber piece, thoughtful. Atmospheric strings (keys) float in and out behind the ethereal vocalizations of Nienhaus, and the light, steely guitar arpreggios of Thurn. It is melancholy: the kind of stuff we hear nowadays from so-called darkwave artists like Autumn Tears or Brave.
Once you "get past" finding some of vocals "flower child" like -- but pleasant to the ear -- and so very much of the 70s, you realize that the band combined all their respective talents to create a solidly good album. Produced by Aldo Pagani, who permitted the band only two recording days (all he was willing to invest), the album seems far from hurried or rushed. It's easy to see why this gem in it's original vinyl version is a sought-after item, potentially fetching US$1500.
Rating: 4.5/5
More about Analogy:
Track Listing: Dark Reflections (7:00) / Weeping May Endure (4:50) / Indian Mediation (4:10) / Tin's Song (1:40) / Analogy (9:45) / The Year's At The Spring (4:35) / Pan-Am Flight 249 (5:15) / Bonus track: Milan On A Sunday Morning (6:04)
Musicians:
Jutta Nienhaus - vocals
Hermann-Jurgen "Mops" Nienhaus - drums
Wolfgang Schoene - bass
Martin Thurn - guitars, flute and bongos
Nikola Pankoff - keyboards (mainly Hammond organ)
Discography
Analogy
The Suite (Rec. 1980, Rel 1993 (Ohrwaschi) /2000 (Akarma)
25 Years Later (1996, Ohrwashi)
