FREEDOM OF SPEECH by PHANTOM BAND

LP version, 180 gram vinyl. Originally released in 1981 on Sky Records, Bureau B reissues the second album by Phantom Band, a Cologne combo assembled by Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit.By this point in the band's history, ex-Can bass player Rosko Gee (earlier Steve Winwood's bassist in Traffic) had left the band. The surviving quartet managed without a bass for the most part (or substituted a keyboard) and invited spoken-word performer Sheldon Ancel to step up to the microphone. And while the debut album revealed many Caribbean or African influences and a generally positive frame of mind, Freedom Of Speech is a somewhat darker avant-garde rock manifesto, interspersed with individual dub or reggae pieces. Regular Phantom Band members alongside Jaki Liebezeit included keyboarder Helmut Zerlett, known to a wider television audience in Germany through the Harald Schmidt Show, percussionist Olek Gelba and guitarist Dominik von Senger, all drawn from the deep pool of Cologne musical talent which has given rise to so many projects over the past thirty years: Dunkelziffer, Damo Suzuki Band, Unknown Cases ("Masimba Bele"), Club Off Chaos, and Trance Groove, to name just a few. Printed inner sleeve features notes by Asmus Tietchens.