Between Heaven and Hell (Jane)
| Between Heaven and Hell | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Jane | ||||
|
Publication |
1977 |
|||
| Label (s) | Brain (1977), Repertoire Records (1997) | |||
|
Format (s) |
LP (1977); CD (1997) |
|||
|
Title (number) |
4th |
|||
|
running time |
37:01 |
|||
| occupation |
|
|||
|
Jane |
||||
|
Studio (s) |
Delta Acoustic Studio, Wilster |
|||
|
||||
Between Heaven and Hell is the sixth studio album by the Krautrock band Jane from Hanover . It is the first with Manfred Wieczorke instead of the founding member Werner Nadolny on the keyboards. In this occupation, but the live album was Live at Home was recorded. The guitar riffs reflect what was popular in hard rock back then, the keyboard runs and the vocal passages are - as usual - based on Pink Floyd .
History of origin
The large-scale tour from March 1976 was denied with the new keyboardist Manfred Wieczorke, who had come from the neighboring band Eloy . The recording of the “Heimspiel” in Hanover on August 13th, which was released as a double LP in November, was a bestseller that was rarely seen in the Krautrock field. In February 1977 Jane spent a few weeks in the Delta Acoustic Studio (misspelling on the record cover) in the Schleswig-Holstein community of Wilster to record Between Heaven and Hell . The pieces still had to be worked out, because the date actually only came about at the urging of Metronome / Brain . The efforts to achieve the desired standard resulted in four compositions of different lengths.
After the artificial head method had already been used with the predecessor Fire, Water, Earth & Air , they now trusted the further development of the studio operator Manfred Schunke called 3-D stereo technology . This 3-D system was supposed to produce a more spatial sound than quadrophonic could. However, none of the three procedures could be established. The process used is not even mentioned in the reviews of the Between Heaven and Hell -LP; the playback quality is more likely to be criticized. For the musicians too, there was a gap between the promise and the end result. The album was released at the end of March / beginning of April and found 40,000 buyers in the first three months. The uninterrupted flourishing sales of the last two releases played a key role in the fact that Jane cracked the 300,000 unit mark related to Germany in September 1977, which prompted the parent label Metronome to issue an in-house gold award ("Golden Brain Label") to provide publicity - in the hope of even greater future sales. Another measure of the campaign was the tour through Germany and Switzerland, which started at the same time on March 21.
Repertoire released the CD on October 10, 1997, bonus material is not included. A newly mixed version was released on June 26, 2009 by revisitedrec / SPV , namely "in the sound quality [...] it [the album] deserves", as Stephan Schelle found.
Track list
All compositions: Jane.
Page 1:
- Between Heaven and Hell - 19:43
Page 2:
- Twilight - 8:15
- Voice in the Wind - 5:12
- Your Circle - 3:51
Song info
Klaus Hess and Martin Hesse each sing one vocal part in Between Heaven and Hell . The inserted church choir comes from Czesław Niemen's sacral rock experiment Bema Pamieci Zalobny - Rapsod . The Latin line “iusiurandum patri datum usque ad hanc diem ita servavi” is a shortened quote from the Roman historian Cornelius Nepos .
The organ that Twilight decides was recorded in the church near the studio, the Bartholomäus Church in Wilster. A. Zchenker contributed to a few harps - arpeggios in which then again briefly at the end of the ballad Voice in the wind sounded. Twilight is sung by Hesse, Voice in the Wind by Peter Panka. The final Your Circle again from Hesse.
Stephan Schelle, already mentioned, characterized the individual pieces: “The opener Between Heaven & Hell sounds, according to the title, quite dark and melancholy. Even the long intro, it lasts for a good four minutes, sounds like something from an in-between world, then the guitars and keyboards typical of Jane come in, which stylistically contain a good portion of Pink Floyd in places. Jane combine this style with a very nice rhythm work, which makes the song really rock in the further course. During the entire length, the Hanoverians change the style again, so that the song is very varied. The following Twilight is straight and rocky. The song shines with driving beats and long guitar solos. The following ballad, Voice In The Wind , offers a respite with its wonderful surfaces and harmony lines. The straight rocker Your Circle ends the album quite powerfully. As an aside, it should be noted that Jane later rearranged this track and re-released it on her 1982 album Germania under the title Southern Line . "
Artwork
The gatefold cover was designed by the “Peter Peter Team”, who only worked for Jane, using a painting by Robert Titze.
For the front, a slide of the picture “London” by the artist Robert Titze, who has been based in Hanover since 1972, was projected onto the background and the group members were placed in front of it with a boy with a raised scarf. The original image, which was taken a year earlier, is slightly dim due to the enlargement due to the projection, the new photograph and the shady surroundings. The posture of the musicians, who - using the child as a yardstick - are obviously crouching, is less clear because they are in the semi-darkness. The child is on the left at the edge, a little behind the band. His cloth can be a robber mask , a gag or the dust cover of a cowboy . The attached brim hat speaks for the latter . The image of the artist, who is the same age as the musicians but not friends, was selected through an agency . The dark, melodramatic charisma went well with the musical mood of the LP.
The representation can be seen better on the back, since the projection was recorded without people and from a shorter distance. It is a coastal scene at sunset that has surreal features. Boats and chapels , for example, are depicted realistically, while animals and people look like fantasy figures. In particular, two pillars are symbolic: One is an oversized, upright pencil, the other a huge brush, which is also upright, which indicates the mixed technique used .
The song sequence, an excerpt from the lyrics and the credits are printed on the inside around the photo of an orchid bundle . The small Ikarus drawing floating above the list of titles should have served - considerably enlarged - in 2011 as the cover motif for the compilation The Best of Jane , which was not allowed to appear due to a legal dispute. A winged figure also climbs onto the top of the pencil tower of the Titze picture, and a fairy adorns the record cover of the follow-up album Age of Madness .
reception
Günter Ehnert gives an insight into the recent reviews in his German rock lexicon, written in 1978: "In February 1977 Jane was back in the studio to, as it turned out later," a threatening, mystical sound with guitar riffs in the Black Sabbath - Style 'to produce', but I like '(MUSIK EXPRESS), while SOUNDS flatly rejected the' monotonous and slightly megalomaniac fuss'. The different feedback was certainly also due to the image of the band, because 'Jane is like her music: Between Heaven and Hell' (self-portrayal) ”.
In a reader's review shortly after it was published it says: “Not only are the pieces different, but [...] stereo fans will perceive this LP as an experience. […] Bassist Martin Hesse sings a little too callous for me, especially when Klaus Hess and Manfred Wieczorke […] put down an excess of feeling and drive. Conclusion: Jane's best LP. "
Schelle summed up in 2009: “ Between Heaven and Hell is without a doubt one of the best albums of the band.” In his exuberant review on the same occasion, the release of the remastered new edition, Markus Kerren wrote on rocktimes.de that the album was “a true classic of the German rock music ”.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c d Günter Ehnert: Rock in Germany. Lexicon of German rock groups and interpreters , Taurus Press, Hamburg 1976, ISBN 3-9800079-6-0 , p. 121.
- ^ Hermann Haring: Rock from Germany West. From the Rattles to Nena: Two decades of Heimatklang , Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1984, ISBN 3-499-17697-1 , p. 62.
- ↑ a b c Klaus Hess quote from musikommunikus-magazin.de , accessed on May 14, 2013.
- ↑ Brain -Werbeseite in music Joker , Issue 7/77 (from March 21-April 3), p. 24
- ^ Günter Ehnert: Rock in Germany. Lexicon of German rock groups and interpreters , Taurus Press, Hamburg 1976, ISBN 3-9800079-6-0 , p. 122.
- ↑ MS: Jane way ahead of Whittaker . In: Musik Joker , issue 16/77 (from July 25th to August 7th), p. 4.
- ↑ Full-page advertisement in Musik Joker, issue 7/77 (from March 21st to April 3rd), p. 24.
- ↑ Online music database
- ↑ a b c review on musik Zirkus-magazin.de , accessed on May 14, 2013
- ↑ Rolf Albert Kleene: Reader's comments. Jane: Between Heaven and Hell . In: Musik Joker , issue 10/77 (from May 2nd to 15th), p. 11.
- ↑ Review on rocktimes.de , accessed on May 14, 2013