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How I discovered Shamall...

..Flashback to 1989:..
Actually everything has set off as some of my trainees heard about a music club in Bremen, which has reportedly an extraordinary light- and lasershow - as lush as on a Pink Floyd concert (!).

That alone was reason enough for me to pilgrimage from Hamburg to Bremen on the following week-end. I will never forget this night when I entered the Aladin Music Hall the first time of my life. My eyes popped out of my head. I saw a gigantic light- and lasershow, which emphasized perfectly a very impressive instrumental song (which was complete unknown to me yet). While standing in the middle of the crow - totally hypnotized (and agaped I suppose ;-)) - someone to my right asked me: "...hey, did you come here for the very first time??...".I tried to look cool instantly and replied: "...Yes, I am from Hamburg. Do you know this amazing title?...". "...yeah, this is "Journey to a nightmare" from Shamall, he's the resident DJ here..". Ohhhhh .....well!

I had to draw back to a more silent place to affect this unique atmospheric mixture of sound, light and space to my mind. I had never experienced anything like this before.
It was totally ineluctable, that I was addicted to the "Droehn" (the fans of Aladin gave it that nickname because of its voluminous sound) after that night. Henceforth not a single week-end passed by without driving at least two times, sometimes even three times from Hamburg to Bremen. Meanwhile I found out, that the Aladin music hall has really its own band - Shamall - which produces this very unique music I enjoyed at my first visit.

It was clear as daylight, that I knew every single note from the cd "Journey to a Nightmare" in a very little while.

When I'm looking back, I remember a very exciting time. I met so many people from cities all over the country (i.e. Cologne, Berlin), even from the netherlands, true music lovers, who drove hundreds of miles only to listen to unique rock and progressive music from a lot of unknown bands, who didn't get airplay on radio stations but were played only at the Droehn. Norbert tried hard to keep the Aladin mythos alive, by making some fantasy names for the bands. We often asked him for the name of a band, rushed into the next record store with our pocketbooks only to hear from the store manager: "....who? I have never heard this name before!....a band with this name doesn't exist..."

oh well...that was resulting in the fact, that I couldn't await the next week-end...

That wonderful time has last for five unforgettable years. But then something terrible has happened: I lost my job. That was bad enough. But it was worse, that I got no interesting job offer in the northern part of Germany. An affiliated group in Stuttgart provided a good job for me, but that means: I have to move to the southern part of Germany. Far away from my beloved Aladin! How should I survive this??

The only way out was the beloved music of Shamall, which I've listened to in the Droehn so many times. That music should ease my sorrow. Fortunately the source of Shamall's creativity didn't run dry at this time and so I could move - fairly consoled - to the south with 6 Shamall CD's in my baggage.

Okay, why do I'm writing all about this? I love remembering the past, but apart from my very special memories of the great time I've spent @ the Droehn, the music of Shamall is as inimitable as it definitely deserves a fanpage @ myspace.com. Because every single release of Shamall is a whole treasure! Shamall's music has accompanied myself through numerous melancholic hours and saved my day in the end. Furthermore Shamall's music style is not comparable to any other artist (in my humble opinion :-). I have been looking for comparable bands all over the years - Pink Floyd is akin in any way, but I haven't discovered any other band with a similar style yet. (I really hope, that fans of Tangerine Dream, who introduced TD to me with good intent, would forgive me...but I can't detect any resemblance of Shamall to Tangerine Dream).
The current double cd "Ambiguous points of view" is the masterpiece of Shamall in my opinion, I love the musical change from their former electronic music to indigenous rock with psychedelic elements. Norbert is singing on this album and his singing and the art of mixing his voice and the floydian guitar parts with the instrumental backdrop is a fantastic enrichment of the musical style! It's a really inspiring album with outstanding sound-quality and beautiful artwork.

okayokay...now I'll come definitely back to my actual story. From this point I will be more chronologic concerning Shamall. Most of the content of this page derives from the official page of Shamall, where I downloaded most of the pictures you see here. But I hopefully could provide some informations from my own sources - I'm currently checking all my self-recorded videotapes. But the layout of this page I created on myself, btw. ;-))

If anyone of you has some pictures from the Aladin music hall or from Shamall, please give it to me :-))!!

..Shamall in the eighties:..
Long time ago before the first longplayer "journey to a nightmare" was released, numerous musical experiments exist, which were played in the Aladin music hall exclusively. Annoyingly all that happens before my first visit in their place of worship, but if I could believe the hearsay of the Aladin guests, the tracks were "simply incredible", but they were never published anywhere or only in a very shortened version ;-((.

So we look back to the year 1986, when Norbert Krueler, Detlef Reder and Michael Jaspers recorded their first single "my dream" incl. the titles "karin" and "Caligula 2009":

The single "my dream" is - relating to that time - a fantastic eurodance-track with an incredible hookline. Once listened, you're hooked! The song also was a smash hit in the dj top40 charts in 1987 (pos. 09). Actually this track is 07:42 min long, but you can see a short version in daily news broadcast on TV (please see video below):



In the year 1987 the 12" single "feeling like stranger" was released. This one also contains the titles "Love don't exist" and "Running against the time". It was available as 12" vinyl and - at that time very rarely - as CD in limited edition. To grab one copy, I had to pay about 30 US $ only for a extended single-cd:

Two years later the first longplayer of Shamall "Journey to a Nightmare" was published, which is intrinsically tied to countless unforgettable hours I've spent at the Aladin music hall, totally hypnotized by this music in combination with Norbert's unrivaled light- and lasershow. "Journey to a nightmare" was released as Vinyl (FOC), CD and even as tape (I saw one on a fleamarket). In addition to Norbert, Detlef Reder played a part on this album (some guitar):

On this album, Christian Mildner did some musical contribution.
My personal favorite it first track on this album "physical visions".

In the year 1993 there were even two releases of Shamall: first, the ingenious cd "mirror to eternity":

On the official release date, Shamall fans met Norbert Krueler and his record company at an autograph session at "Saturn Megastore" in Bremen.

I was very sad, that I missed this event ....;-((

At the end of the year 1993 the first double cd "collectors items (86-93)" came out. The first cd of the double set contains only new songs, so this was a complete new cd for me. The second one contains Shamall's first single "my dream", "caligula 2009" and "karin" and some demo tracks of the very first incipiencies of Shamall.

Only 12 months later the next CD "in search of precision" was released, just before X-Mas.

The original release has a different cover graphic (by this way, almost all Shamall releases have different cover graphics (except "Influences" and "Journey to a nightmare", but I prefer the graphics of the later releases and that's why I'm showing them instead of the original cover:

After that, nothing happened for a very long two and a half year, where I feared the worst, that Shamall could have stopped making music. But finally in June 1997 the album "this island earth" saw the light of day and found instantly the way to my cd-player:

I didn't have to wait too long for the next Shamall release and I was sooooo happy, that this time it was another double cd in full length: "Influences"!!

As anyone could guess because of its name, the musical style has been slightly changed on this album. The first cd was as experimental as usual (especially the 4-part-track "the long way from hell to heaven" is simply amazing!). As I listened to the second one, I got that uneasy feeling, that Norbert recently had dealed with some techno or trance events...? The multi-part track "the voyager" is truly a very cool trance title, but I was afraid after that musical excursion to the genre trance / house, that the next release maybe won't fit my musical taste anymore...

But far from it! From the turn of the millenium Shamall's music style changes once again, but in a very different way - now, there were many essential influences of rock in "the book: Genesis". This double release from the year 2001 was much more rock-orientated than any other release before, but it was also much versatile, because it is infused with so many several styles (from ambient to jazz to blues to techno (but not too much :-))

The audience was obviously very pleased of this change of style, because Shamall received an award for the best title from "WDR-Schwingungen-Election" (this is the german "oscar" for electronic music). The winning title was the multipart-track "new age krautrock symphony".

Then two years later, as the critical citizens between us asked themselves: "...Can it really be true, that the president of the united stated is legitimated to start a war of aggression against Iraq, although almost all members of the UNO disapprove?...". Shamall apparently made his own thoughts about this important theme and has thrown his almost finished release in the trash, as he saw an interview of president Bush live on TV. Inspired directly by George W. Bush, he produced a complete new album within a very short time: "who do they think they are", which was published as double album at the end of the year 2003.

On this album you can hear Pink Floyd's influences, but they were seemlessly merged with the typical Shamall-style. And this album recovers another novelty: Norbert was horrified about the economic war in that way, that he sang the first time after years of making pure electronic music. This gives the anyway significant release a very special note.

Finally I want to say something about the musical height of Shamall's era, which is my personal favorite: "Ambiguous points of view". This double release eclipsed any music release I've heard before. That shouldn't mean, that other bands wouldn't make good music anymore. But I notice, that many experimental bands become more and more commercial over the years, which diminishes the quality of music. But that's the difference to Shamall: Shamall has grown with every release. Maybe this could be different, if Shamall would have a deal with a major company and would be more renowned than he presently is...

Back to "Ambiguous...": Due to the fact, that the whole double album consists of only two themes, it's not easy for a myspace-visitor to perceive the very special atmosphere of this album, because here at myspace (and even on www.shamall.com) you could only listen to some (single) tracks. I mean to say to know the true promise of "ambiguous", you have to listen to this album with high-end earphones or on a good hi-fi system....then you will be able to relate to what I try to say here...

Look at this wonderful video (11 min) to "Equation of three moments" from the second disc of "ambiguous points of view".

Shamall - Equation of three moments

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