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Eiliff – Eiliff (1971): Fuse into a little jazz fusion
Formed in the late 60’s by Rainer Brüninghaus, Houschäng Nejadepour, Detlev Landmann, Herbert J. Kalveram and Bill Brown, EILIFF were a German instrumental band who turned fusion on its head with a pair of studio albums featuring classy Canterbury-style jamming with bass, guitar and keyboards plus some ethnic instruments thrown in (mostly the sitar). Two live albums were also released, one of which only came out 30 years later. Being somewhat out of step with the then dominant Kosmiche tradition, the band never really made a name for themselves despite displaying some phenomenal musicianship. References include SOFT MACHINE, early KING CRIMSON, COLOSSEUM, NUCLEUS, VDGG as well as Miles Davis and Frank Zappa.
Byrd-Night starts the album off in an incredibly off-hand whimsical fashion and this generally will reflect the theme throughout the album. Lovely lush soundscapes are created by various instruments and effects, however they’re build up only to be torn down again in a nearly frustrating circle that eventually hightens the enjoyment of the clean pieces. Psychedelic synth solos built on very repetitive short riffs seem to set the tune for a nice trip into the prog underworld. If you lose focus for just a few seconds you may forget that it’s actually music you’re listening to, that can be a good or a bad thing depending on how you feel about it.
Here’s a lovely little kick-ass review from the Albums of the years Music website. Gammeloni is a lovely energetic piece that is quite reminiscent of a lot of Frank Zappa’s pre-70’s instrumental work. With a continuing shifting focus on one or two instruments with a lot of different solos the music entices you without managing to build to a true climax. This being said most passages are incredibly satisying nevertheless and I can only see them getting more enjoyable with every listen. The production on the drums is very good however I would like to hear the bass a bit clearer because there’s some lovely work there. The sax solo on Gammeloni can also draw some paralells to King Crimson’s Lizard which in mybook is certainly a huge bonus to any fusion album. Now after being teased for a good 5 minutes (10 if you count Byrd-Night) you get a proper climax as the guitar solo kicks in, it’s short but oh so sweet.
Starting with a very In The Court style riff oozing with all sorts of influences Suite is instantly satisfying, more upbeat than the rest of the album it’s attack after attack of brilliant solos and passages. Despite all these brilliant pieces, surpisingly the whole is still more than the sum of its parts and that’s another great attribute. For progheads this album will be a true gem as you can play “spot the influence” on a lot of the riffs and solos however it never ever comes across as ripping off anything. The album does sound very much like you would expect from a prog/fusion album however it’s still incredibly fresh and original for anyone who hasn’t heard it and it never comes off as stale. Having aged a lot better than a lot of the fusion work of the time will certainly count very postively towards it’s score. The epic Suite has some delightful passages leading towards the middle, with a lot of more eastern melodies becoming apparant and even moreso with the introduction of the sitar towards the middle of the song.
You can buy this very very cool album here.
Lisa Thatcher 
Lisa, what a very talented group that I had never come across before in all of my years of music listening! I see from additional YouTube videos that are posted by several fans that none of the videos have a huge number of plays. That is unfortunate because it would indicate that very few are aware of the band. Thanks for this fascinating post about the band and for bringing them to our attention here!
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Oh I’m so glad you enjoyed this post. My music tastes are what I like to think of as very very fussy – and yet I listen to a lot of genres and time periods. But I value music (any art really) where the artist is reaching out – pushing their own boundaries. This is why I have so much passion for music that has been largely in the background. Its not that I seek it out particularly, its just that as a species, I think our music appreciation is more stunted than our appreciation of other art forms. Think – for example – of the way we have allowed Beckett and Joyce to change literature and Pollock and the cubists to change art. And yet we will not allow anything similar to occur in music. Anything “main stream” must conform – we colonize music and don’t allow it to transform us. We use it to masturbate memory over, instead of allowing it to forge into our inner unknown forests, our psyche in tow.
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Here is another obscure gem from an interesting, zappa-ish group. I think that many non-british/american groups have never got the spot they deserved, back in the days. Thanks for posting, I didn’t know them, even if I’m in music since I was teen (now I write some stuff & play drums in this band http://parafulmini.wordpress.com).
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I’m so glad you are enjoying the music. Wasn’t Zappa an incredibly important influence?
I checked out your site and took a listen – hey you guys are great. Thank you so much for the link.
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Zappa is one of my all times favorites – he was a COMPOSER, a real genius in music (from stupid songs to orchestral avant-garde). His influence cannot yet be completely evaluated, maybe. By the way, thanks for your appreciation of our music (I’ll keep in touch if some more videos will be released).
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Great – thanks – and I agree re Zappa!
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