Hey Du

Album Review

Heydu is Guru Guru's ninth studio album, released in 1979 under the moniker Guru Guru Sun Band. The name change reflected the important personnel change with the addition of Ingo Bischof (Kraan) on keyboards and second drummer Butze Fischer. The influence of Bischof's keyboards cannot be overstated in that they utterly changed the Guru Guru sound. Euro-funk and disco entered the band's sonic sphere, but his compositional influence was also key. The band's aesthetic underwent a permanent change. Check "Starway," the opening cut, with its disco keyboard fills over a sterile hypnotic "motorik" funk beat. It's just plain weird. "Dös War I" sounds like Giorgio Moroder had his way with the chart. The Horny Horns-styled funk of "Was fur 'Ne Welt," with a backing female chorus sounds, like an entirely different band. And so it goes. Freaky attempts at white soul, groove, and disco sound forced, especially when wedded to cosmic hippy overtones. It's like these cats were listening to Larry Levan and Kraftwerk as well as Nektar when they sat down to get the tunes ready for this utterly braver but failed attempt at creating a "new" German sound. The only place the true Guru Guru madness comes through is on the nine-and-a-half-minute "Attomloch," where all the spaced-out, freaky jam band insanity enters the picture and remains throughout as Mani Neumeier goes off on the German nuclear power industry. All of this said, however, the record sold well in Germany and prompted a 35 city U.S. tour. [The Revisited Records reissue features dramatically remastered sound and the inclusion of the bonus cut "I Am Rolling Through the City."]