Last month, amid the merciful waning of humid summer on the northeastern seaboard, German heavy psychedelic rock institution Colour Haze traveled to play their first American shows in 17 years at Desertfest New York. They would perform two sets in Brooklyn as part of the festival, an initially-booked headlining slot at the pre-show at Saint Vitus Bar (review here) leading to the addition of a second set for the first night of the fest-proper at the Knockdown Center (review here).
Perhaps for the band’s fans in Europe it might be difficult to appreciate how much of an event this was. Sure, last weekend in their hometown of Munich they played an annual set at the Keep it Low Festival put on by Sound of Liberation, and they’ve got more tour dates lined up for next month that you can see below. Meanwhile, the last time they were in the US was 2006’s Emissions From the Monolith Festival in Youngstown, Ohio, and while I don’t mind telling you that evening changed my life for the better, The Nyabinghi where it happened, was more of an outpost than a scene for a grand entrance for a generational band on new geographic ground. They were brilliant, either way.
Is an American underground ready for Colour Haze? Desertfest sure was. I spoke to several heads in the crowd on both nights who’d been waiting a decade or longer for the chance to see them, and I get it. While their sound is as immersive onstage as it is on record, seeing them actually making that happen is a bit believing it. In the video interview that follows here, Koglek makes some comparison to a jazz band, and there is definitely that element of the crowd watching Colour Haze — Koglek, bassist Mario Oberpucher, keyboardist Jan Faszbender and drummer Mani Merwald — to try to understand how it’s done. To learn. You hear about that a lot with the bop era of jazz acts and players. When you’re on the presence of masters, it’s worth paying attention.
The conversation covers a pretty broad range of topics, from NY, to remixing old albums before the tapes decay to the potential of their return to the US for more touring — yes, touring — in 2024, and so on. It was not at all the first time we’ve spoken over the years, but a new format for it to happen. It’s not a short chat, and I treat posting unedited interviews as a moral position, so if you’re gonna dig in, take your time. You also get to see the Colour Haze Studio where at least part of their recording process (as well as the mix/mastering, generally) happens, so that’s a bonus as well. Yes, the tape machine is apparently as heavy as it looks.
I could go on here about the importance of the band, their influence, the possibility of their touring in North America in addition to their already-confirmed South American dates and whatever, but you’ve got enough on your plate. If you dig in, please enjoy, and either way, thanks for reading:
Colour Haze Interview with Stefan Koglek, Oct. 10, 2023
Colour Haze‘s Sacred is out now through Elektrohasch Schallplatten. Following their performance at Keep it Low, the remaining dates for their Fall tour are as follows:
21.10. – (DE) Ludwigsburg – Scala Ludwigsburg 04.11. – (DE) Weiden – Burn the Streets Festival Vol. 1 10.11. – (DE) Dortmund – JunkYard • Dortmund 11.11. – (NL) Maastricht – Muziekgieterij 12.11.- (NL) Deventer – Burgerweeshuis 14.11. – (DE) Bielefeld – Forum Bielefeld 15.11. – (BE) Brussels – Le Botanique 16.11. – (FR) Paris – Backstage By The Mill Garmonbozia Inc. 17.11. – (FR) Vallet – WESTILL VIIème édition 18.11. – (DE) Neunkirchen – Gloomaar Festival 2023
Posted in Whathaveyou on July 12th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
Colour Haze will be at Stoned From the Underground and Woodstockenboi Musik und Kulturfestival this weekend and have more fest appearances before they come to the US to play twice at Desertfest New York in September, after which they’ll return to Germany to make their regular appearance at Keep it Low in their hometown of Munich. There’s more beyond that as well leading up to this newly-announced November tour, which puts them out for nine shows in nine days across four-so-far countries (one date still TBA). All well and good. I’m just happy I’ll get to watch them play again when they come to New York.
Their late 2022 album, Sacred (review here), continues to resonate, and having seen them in their current incarnation for the first time this past December (review here), it’s all the more encouraging that they’re getting out like this. I don’t know that they’ll ever want to do six weeks of shows or something on that scale, but the more the merrier. Note that there have not been more US dates announced. I don’t think any others are coming. If you’ve been on the fence about Desertfest, I would offer the friendly suggestion to decide in the positive. Seeing Colour Haze will only improve your life.
From socials:
Some new shows added for 2023 – France, Belgium, Germany and Netherlands!
14.07. – (DE) Erfurt – Stoned From The Underground 2023 15.07. – (AT) Stockenboi – Woodstockenboi Musik und Kulturfestival 05.08. – (GR) Los Almiros Rockradio – Festival 18.08. – (FR) Volcano Sessions – Black Owl 08.09. – (DE) Regensburg – Kulturzentrum Alte Mälzerei 09.09. – (AT) Vöcklabruck – OKH Vöcklabruck 14.09. – (USA) New York – Desert Fest PreParty 15.09. – (USA) New York – Desertfest NYC 06.10. – (DE) München, Backstage – Keep It Low 2023 21.10. – (DE) Ludwigsburg – Scala Ludwigsburg 04.11. – (DE) Weiden – Burn the Streets Festival Vol. 1
November Tour: 10.11. – (DE) Dortmund, Junkyard 11.11. – (NL) Maastricht, Muziekgieterij 12.11.- (NL) Deventer, Burgerweeshuis 13.11. – tba 14.11. – (DE) Bielefeld, Forum 15.11. – (BE) Brussels, Botanique 16.11. – (FR) Paris, Backstage By The Mill 17.11. – (FR) Vallet, Westill Fest 18.11. – (DE) Neunkirchen, Gloomaar Festival
Posted in Features on February 15th, 2023 by JJ Koczan
My thinking here was that these are things Colour Haze would never say about themselves, but that should be said at this point about who they are, what they’ve done over a near-30-year span, and their consistent will to move forward. If you read this site on anything remotely resembling a regular basis, you probably already know they’re an act whose work I treasure on a personal level, and right up to late-2022’s Sacred (review here) — and as it says below — they are singular in my mind. A once-in-a-generation kind of band.
With a long-awaited return to the US slated for later this year at Desertfest New York (info here), I was asked to write a kind of general bio, which of course was a big yes. It’s less a comment on the substance of their whole body of work than a look at where they’re at after a few changes over the last several years, but hopefully it gets some of the point across of how special they are.
I’m honestly putting it here more for my own posterity than anything else, but here’s the bio I wrote, put in PR wire blue basically for form’s sake:
Over more than the last 25 years, Munich, Germany’s Colour Haze have made themselves an institution in underground music. They are progenitors of a style of heavy psychedelia that has influenced two generations of players and counting, marked by warm tonality, flowing rhythms, and immersive melody, embodying a jam spirit while remaining rooted in classic progressive rock.
Led by founding guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek and longtime drummer Manfred Merwald, the band has revamped its lineup in the last few years to emerge as a four-piece, with Jan Faszbender on organ/synth and the newest addition, Mario Oberpucher on bass. In late 2022, Colour Haze released their 14th album, Sacred, through Koglek’s own Elektrohasch Schallplatten label.
The follow-up to 2019’s We Are, the latest offering not only introduced Oberpucher as a part of the studio process, but furthered the dynamic exchange between guitar and keys that has made Colour Haze’s latest works feel so adventurous. With a lyrical awareness of the world around them and a mindset critical but loving, the songs are fluid in their jammy foundations and convey the on-stage chemistry of Colour Haze as they continue, always, to grow.
Sacred is a salve for troubled years, but consistently finds ways to put the song first, encouraging the audience’s imagination with evocative and expressive instrumentalism and a serenity that holds firm even at the most raucous moments. Full of righteous twists and unexpected divergences, it nonetheless boasts an overarching groove and the depth of approach that fans know the band will always deliver.
Colour Haze are singular. There is only one. And they are one of the most crucial bands Europe’s heavy underground has ever produced. The ultimate impact of their work is unknowable, since their influence has yet to dwindle, but heavy psychedelic rock would not exist as it does today without them. Their discography is a path traced through landmarks, telling a gorgeous story of growth and commitment to ongoing progression that brings the band to the present day and, hopefully, beyond into a future that is inherently better for their being part of it. – JJ Koczan
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 3rd, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Munich-based heavy psych legends and I mean that Colour Haze will head out on a short run of dates next month tying together appearances at Festsaal Kreuzberg and Truckfighters Fuzz Fest #3 with booking headlining shows that have support from Swan Valley Heights.
ColourHaze go forth in herald of their new album, Sacred (review here) — which is enough of a joy that I’m gonna go ahead and put it on now having just typed the title, ah there we go — and follows other similar stints this Fall. I’m set to travel to Sweden for the Truckfighters Fuzz Fest with the dudes from Kings Destroy, and I am very much looking forward to seeing Colour Haze again (it’ll be my first time since they brought in Mario Oberpucher on bass), even if I’ll have knee surgery between now and then. Oh yeah. Hadn’t really thought of that. Well fuck it. If I have to have a cane I’ll have a cane. Maybe people will get out of my way when I’m taking pictures. Ha.
The four-piece haven’t announced any plans for 2023 tour-wise yet (I don’t think), but I wouldn’t be surprised to see their name show up in the Spring fest season either. That’s a good record. Worth pushing it if they can.
Sound of Liberation put it like this:
COLOUR HAZE DECEMBER TOUR
Hey Friends,
Colour Haze is hitting the road again this December for another run!
Support for this tour are the mighty Swan Valley Heights from Munich.
If you have the chance to see this awesome package don’t miss it!
The big runner-up final will be the Fuzz Festival in Stockholm on the 9th of December – hosted by our beloved friends Truckfighters!
Check out their tour dates below and grab your tickets!
[Click play above to stream Colour Haze’s premiere of ‘Goldmine.’ Sacred is out soon digitally on Elektrohasch Schallplatten with vinyl to follow.]
Even before listening to Colour Haze‘s Sacred, let us assume that there are more than a few things a band has figured out by the time they get around to issuing their 14th full-length. And as regards their sound, what makes Colour Haze who they are as a band, they have. But they’ve also never stopped exploring. Since 1995, each of the Munich-based troupe’s albums has offered a personality of its own, and over time, there has grown to be consistency within that. One expects a certain amount of tonal warmth from founding guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek and a low-key clinic put on by not-quite-founding-but-it’s-been-almost-25-years-so-close-enough drummer Manfred Merwald, an edge held over in the songwriting from the jams that bore the songs, and so on.
Since 2017’s In Her Garden (review here), longtime collaborator Jan Faszbender has played more of a role on keys and synth — he ‘officially joined’ in 2018 — and that continues in the seven songs and 41 minutes of Sacred, but for the first time since 1998, the band have a new bassist. Mario Oberpucher, who’s also done front-of-house sound and recording for Colour Haze in the past, makes his first studio appearance here in place of Philipp Rasthofer, who left in 2020. That invariably has an effect on the dynamic of the group as a whole, but as noted, every Colour Haze record offers something different. Sacred — basic tracks recorded live by Willi Dammeier at Clouds Hill in Hamburg; overdubbing, mixing, and mastering by Koglek at his Colour HazeStudio — is more of the same in that particular regard.
In some ways, Sacred might be defined by the directness of some of its songs. Following up on 2019’s We Are (review here), the only single track here that tops seven minutes is “Ideologigi” at 8:59, where on the last album, four of seven did. That doesn’t necessarily make the rest of what surrounds that extended side A stretch more straightforward, just relatively concise. Structures vary throughout as the instrumental “Turquoise” (6:09) leads off with a sunrise unfurling over its first two minutes graceful enough to remind you who Colour Haze are, and a smooth, for-a-walk progression that might just have gotten its name in reference to the title-track of 2006’s Tempel (discussed here), the cover art for which was blue. Faszbender‘s keys add a melody to flesh out around the guitar, and shifts into a spacier synth in the second half of the song even as Oberpucher‘s bass comes forward in the two understated payoffs.
“Goldmine” — which follows and actually is more straightforward — works into its verse quickly and leaves the jam for after, surprising almost with a twist back to the verse later on as the bouncing and careening riff works its way toward the end; Colour Haze are no strangers to songwriting, of course, it’s just a balance adjusted in “Goldmine” toward structure carved around the riffs. The aforementioned “Ideologigi” offers ready contrast of purpose, beginning with a dreamy ambient intro in apparent answer to “Turquoise” just a short time ago and the triumph of a lead that emerges in the song’s first half , and moving into the lyrics that answer the heavy-hippie, anti-materialist viewpoint of “Goldmine,” Koglek dipping perhaps into “Lord of This World”-style Sabbathism as he delivers the lines, “Whatever tale you may call your bible/Even enforce by rifles/Life ignores your rules.”
The entire second half of “Ideologigi” is instrumental and wraps side A, but is not to be discounted as Merwald plays it like low-key Buddy Rich, Koglek tears into an improv-sounding solo, Faszbender casts the awe in organ lines and Oberpucher is tasked and succeeds in holding it all together; take that, new guy. They circle around a build at about two minutes in, cut to another, cut to another, then twist and crash and tease falling apart until swapping out realities at four minutes in and locking around a final cycle through the verse riff to let you know they’ve been in control all the while.
Side B leadoff “Avatar,” with its once-again headphone-ready subdued beginning, finds Koglek entering early with quiet and melodic vocal layers before the signature-style shuffling riff — if a guitar lick could also be a whistle, “Avatar” might be one — casually saunters toward a break and return to the not-quite-standalone vocals before its rousing finish. At 3:38, the instrumental “1.5 Degrees” — a climate change policy target/environmental tipping point — is the shortest inclusion, starting out with acoustic guitar, backwards whatnot surrounding, some noise, but gets its point across with what sounds like a metronome in place of an existentialist ticking clock, and the surge of low fuzz that’s maybe the heaviest-sounding tonality Colour Haze have put to tape assures the message of threat isn’t lost.
That part doesn’t last, but it’s clearly meant to grab attention and it does. Where “Avatar” commented on social media lyrically — and that kind of opining on an issue isn’t new for Colour Haze, but the lyrics do seem to be especially pointed this time out — “See the Fools” picks up from “1.5 Degrees” and speaks to divisions between ideologies more generally: “Turn all upside down by lies and made up truths doesn’t cure no pain,” each word almost in a race with the others to be heard first. “See the Fools” (6:54) and “In All You Are” (6:58) are the two longest pieces on Sacred, and both offer fluidity to match the seemingly intended listener immersion. Faszbender weaves synth or mellotron into the crescendo of “See the Fools” around the wistful but somehow hopeful warmth of Koglek‘s guitar, and “In All You Are” brings a joy of a chorus also bolstered by the organ — bolstered by everyone, really; just generally bolstered — and guest vocals by Julia Rutigliano, who brings emphasis to the delivery of the album’s title-line, directed at the listener.
And if that last message, “My dear/You are beloved/You are the love/You are sacred,” is to be the final impression left by the record, it is an in-character sentiment for Colour Haze, but again, distinct in its expression. It has been an eventful few years, and Sacred was obviously not written in a vacuum. It is, however, invariably put through the filter of the group’s and Koglek‘s craft, organically recorded, and presented with love as the believable foundation.
Even as they partially remake their dynamic — I won’t downplay either the change in having Oberpucher on bass or his performance on these tracks — there is much about Sacred that finds Colour Haze playing to their strengths as a rock band, but whether it’s the moments of minimalist ambience leading into or out of songs, the fluidity of their jams, or the apparently willful defiance of where one expects a given song to go, they continue to delight in finding new ways and new ideas to expand the definition of what they do as a unit.
I’m a fan, and I’ve no doubt said as much before, but Colour Haze are a once-in-a-generation band. There is not another out there who does what they do at their level, who has had their influence, or can claim the same kind of commitment to the creativity as an act of searching. It is right that “In All You Are” caps with a sentiment so beautiful since beauty is a thing wholly embraced throughout. As an entirety, is not coincidentally titled.
Posted in Whathaveyou on August 25th, 2022 by JJ Koczan
Let’s take a minute and talk about a new Colour Haze record. I feel as certain as ever that this can be acknowledged as a universal good, by which I mean that Colour Haze‘s music — in a way that is very much their own, despite their influence — makes the world a better place in which to live. So ‘the more the merrier’ is the logic I’m following.
Some interesting things to note, though. Sacred, which follows behind the long-running German heavy psych rock forebears’ 2019 long-player, We Are (review here), will be the band’s first with Mario Oberpucher on bass. Oberpucher was confirmed last year as Colour Haze‘s full-time replacement for Philip Rasthofer, who had joined in 1998, and on Sacred, he joins drummer Manfred Merwald, organist/synthesist Jan Faszbender and guitarist/vocalist Stefan Koglek.
I emailed the latter to see if there were details on the release — let alone hearing it for review — to put out, but haven’t heard back yet. Fair enough. The prospect of a new Colour Haze is enticing as there are few if any other acts in the world able to be both so consistent and so forward-reaching. I would imagine that someone unfamiliar might look at their long stretch of years and be intimidated by the question of where to start.
In the past, I’ve suggested 2006’s Tempel (discussed here) before for that role, but the beautiful truth is that from about the turn of the century onward, there’s no wrong way to go. The best suggestion I can make, maybe ever, is for you to listen to Colour Haze. Whether that’s the more stoner rocking stuff circa 1999-2001 or the groundbreaking heavy progressive psychedelic rock they’ve developed since, jammy here, proggier there, still plenty rocking all the while, I’m content to leave those details in your capable hands.
No new music yet, but if we’re lucky that too will be soon along with the Sacred album release, which looks like digital first before vinyl. Fair.
This came from social media instead of an email newsletter, which is a notable change:
The new album “Sacred” is coming out very soon…!
Here is a preview of the wonderful cover art.
(by Sara Koncilja / Yagasara on Instagram)
Some news about the upcoming album:
Stefan is finished with mixing, mastering is happening right now and the songs will be send to the pressing plant next week!
The vinyl release is scheduled for October, CDs are planned as well.
You can preorder in about two to three weeks on Elektrohasch.
HQ digital download will be released sooner (very soon!) and will also be available there – we will keep you posted!
