Sundenfall II - Sundenfall II (Reissue) (1971/2010)

Sündenfall II from the Kevelaer area at the Lower Rhine played acoustic, electric and extended improvised progressive rock music with a strong mixture of folk and jazz. The band came together from the merging of remnants of beat group The Dragons and the predecessor band, Sündenfall, who exclusively dedicated themselves to jazz. This new group instead incorporated many more styles after being thrilled watching a Jethro Tull concert.

In 1972, employee Hubert Schmitz of ZDF Second German TV Channel invited the band into his Trepitia film and sound studio in Alpen-Drüpt for free recordings, as he wanted to test the newly installed equipment after a recent move into the new location. They recorded nine different songs, as well as three shorter solo pieces played on piano, flute and acoustic guitar. For the recordings, the band preferred to use acoustic instruments, while at their gigs they often presented long improvisations played on electric instruments, with few singing parts.

At the end of 1972, Sündenfall II was finally released, in a small run of 200 copies. The band sold the LP?s mainly to friends, at their gigs and in two shops in Kleve and Goch. Today it is sold at a price of about 500 to 1000 Euros in mint condition. The band split soon after in 1973, because most of them simply didn't have the time to play in a group any longer, and Karl-Heinz Staymann was drafted into the army. All six of the band members, however, remained friends and kept in touch with each other.

Karl Timmermann started a solo career with great success until today, he is now working as a teacher. In the eighties, Karl-Heinz Staymann played in a Gottingen reggae and ska group called Combo. Today he is living in Berlin where he works as a web designer and software engineer. Kurt Heicks works as a logopedist. Christoph Maubach played in several other groups and today works as a professor in Hamilton, New Zealand. Kerstin Fleischhammer ended up in the U.S.A. Georg Martens committed suicide in the nineties.

Christoph Maubach: "The group's creative expression and ideas were blessed with good fortune as all Sundenfall musicians and poets together basically approached the concept of the album as a stream-of-consciousness type of music. They invented and developed music emerging from their own musical experiences and their own poetic ideas: idealistic and playful, but also seeking the peripheral areas of art. The band integrated jazz elements into their rock arrangements at a time when this was still a rare thing to do. They did not just express idealistic visions, but also tried to put them into practice and live them as good as they could."

Their sole release, "Sündenfall II" is a charming and varied collection of fragile psychedelia, sprightly jazz improvisations, whimsical folk and haunting ballads.