(Review from progarchives.com)

Amon Düül II was born of an artistic and political community called Amon Düül (which recorded during the late sixties a long live session made around collective and free musical improvisations).

Unlike their later, more refined efforts, this embryonic recording showcases the more urgent sound of a band with strong ties to the European counterculture barricades of 1968. The music is almost raw in spots, but not without a certain primitive beauty, moving from the dreamy psychedelia of “She Came Through the Chimney” (complete with bongo drums and more than a whiff of cannabis) to the feedback-soaked power of “Archangel Thunderbird”, on which the strident upper-octave singing anticipates Johnny Rotten’s angry vulpine growl by more than half a decade.

Elsewhere the album is very much a product of its time: spaced-out one-chord guitar jams with pounding drums and thrashing cymbals, ghostly violins in Middle Eastern echo chambers, and the amps all cranked to maximum distortion. For lack of a better comparison (always the cheapest form of criticism, to be sure) think of a shotgun marriage between “Space Ritual” Hawkwind and the more cosmic digressions of early Pink Floyd, circa “Ummagumma”.

It’s worth noting that the original 1970 release was a double-LP, with the entire second disc (the last three tracks on the CD) improvised in the studio. But good luck trying to find any significant difference between the songs and the jams. There’s a sometimes astonishing uniformity of style throughout the album, to a point where the composed portions sound no less spontaneous than the unrehearsed playing.

That sort of creative balance was of course not uncommon in the early ‘70s (especially in Germany). But its absence from too much of what passes for popular music these days is what makes a band like Amon Düül, and an album like “Yeti”, even more valuable a generation later.

Line-up:
- Renate Knaup / vocals, tambourine
- Chris Karrer / violin, guitars, vocals
- John Weinzierl / guitars, vocals
- Falk Rogner / organ
- Peter Leopold / drums
- Dave Anderson / bass
- Shrat / bongos, vocals

Track List:
01. Soap Shop Rock:
a) Burning Sister (3:41)
b) Halluzination Guillotine (3:05)
c) Gulp A Sonata (0:45)
d) Flesh-Coloured Anti-Aircraft Alarm (5:53)
02. She Came through the Chimney (3:56)
03. Archangels Thunderbird (3:30)
04. Cerberus (4:18)
05. The Return of Ruebezahl (1:35)
06. Eye-Shaking King (6:37)
07. Pale Gallery (2:11)
08. Yeti (Improvisation) (18:00)
09. Yeti Talks to Yogi (Improvisation) (6:06)
10. Sandoz in the Rain (Improvisation) (8:55)

Links in comments.