Biography
In the early seventies, a wave of German ensembles fused jazz and rock within progressive frameworks, though few matched the singular twists Thirsty Moon applied to their material, particularly across the opening pair of albums now acknowledged as Krautrock touchstones. The Bremen-based septet took shape in northern Germany during summer 1971 through the consolidation of multiple prior outfits. The Drogies Rock Project, better recognized as DRP and led by drumming sibling Norbert Drogies together with guitarist Jurgen Drogies, supplied organist Hans Wener Ranwig. Harald Konietzko arrived from Tomorrow Too while Michael Kobs, Willi Pape, and Erwin Noack joined from the jazz-soul ensemble the Shakespeares. Drawing upon Chicago’s brass-driven rock, Emergency’s initial fusion experiments, and the early jazzy strain of Krautrock exemplified by Xhol Caravan, Kollektiv, and Organisation, the newcomers folded horns and congas into an amalgam of jazz, progressive, and psychedelic elements. Brain, then courting progressive acts with jazzy leanings, issued the self-titled debut in 1972, exposing the group’s unorthodox arrangements and strikingly personal sound. Ranwig exited soon afterward; Siegfried Pisalla, once Konietzko’s bandmate in Tomorrow Too, took the keyboard chair. The revised lineup recorded its second album in July 1973. Released later that year on Brain, You’ll Never Come Back proved equally inventive and forceful. By 1975 only the Drogies brothers remained. Their third Brain album, the all-instrumental Blitz of 1976, leaned lighter and more conventional than earlier work. The following year’s Real Good Time, assembled with additional players, delivered ordinary pop that failed to live up to its title. The group then disbanded. Early in the eighties Brain issued the Yellow Sunshine compilation drawn from the first four albums, prompting the Drogies brothers to reassemble the band with Ranwig and Junior Weerasingle, the latter a Real Good Time participant now on drums. The 1981 Sky release Starchaser emerged as a synthesizer-laden disco effort that left listeners and commentators alike dismayed. Thirsty Moon disbanded once more, this time permanently. Regrettably, subsequent releases never restored the vitality and extravagant imagination that had defined the first two records.
Albums
