Eckart Rahn is an untainted music lover in the purest sense. The original Kuckuck label founder came from a non-musical background in the small university town of Marburg in Germany with no money, few career prospects and little outlet for his creative energy. TIC TOC TIC TOC…
Sharing a common psyche with most young Germans after the Second World War, Rahn was literally starting from scratch, inventing his future with a blank canvas and taking risks with nothing to lose. The humble beginnings of the founder of one of the longest running European independents were simple –when he eventually heard music he fell in love with it and dedicated his life to it. A man in charge of his own destiny from this point on, Eckart Rahn was only ever going to be his own boss.
The ideologies of rebellion, rule breaking and risk taking, which would provide the foundation for the German rock explosion affectionately known as krautrock, were sewn into Rahn’s DNA from the outset. It helped that Marburg had a studio theatre where Beckett, Ionesco and Genet were performed and a jazz club busy with featuring local musicians and importing vinyl from the United States.
Christened with the German word for the cuckoo bird, the label was titled in reference to the way that Rahn would lay musical eggs under an unassuming parent company like the feathered brood parasite.
Most of the music you will hear on this compilation is from the pre-1974 period, which is in no way intended to paint the full Kuckuck picture. This compilation intends to focus on Kuckuck’s prog rock years that would be filed under the kosmische or krautrock banner. You might spot that some early artists that might be filed under blues rock, pop or SSW are not included here but should be explored on their own merit or as a piece of the full Kuckuck puzzle – a jigsaw that won’t be complete until Mr. Rahn decides to stop the pendulum of the cuckoo clock for good.
