Karat - Ich Lauf Durch Die Stadt [1975 Hard Progressive Rock GDR Germany ]

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track comes storming in like prime Deep Purple, a band that heavy German prog in general seemed to love, and rightly so! Karat was founded in 1975 by Henning Protzmann and Ulrich Pexa. Officially it is said that they emerged from the band Panta Rhei (coming up soon) but it might be more accurate to say Henning left the jazz rock formation consciously in order to be able to break new ground. Herbert Dreilich and Ed Swillms were the last to join later. Protzmann's goal was to make music that appealed to the public more than with Panta Rhei, while still being progressive and technical. The original line-up, which first rehearsed together in the autumn of 1974, included Henning Protzmann and Ulrich Pexa, as well as Hans-Joachim Neumann, Konrad Burkert and Christian Steyer (known to many as the narrator of "Elefant, Tiger & Co", a reality TV show about a working Leipzig Zoo). Ulrich Pexa had the idea of naming the band "Karat".

Steyer left after just a few weeks, because he wanted to focus on acting. To replace Steyer, the group inducted Ulrich "Ed" Swillms, who joined the band together with Herbert Dreilich. Shortly after its formation, in January 1975 Karat had the opportunity to produce four songs for the radio station of the GDR. The songs "Du und ich", "Ich Lauf Durch Die Stadt" (included here), "Leute, welch ein Tag" and "Schwester" were recorded. A month later the band gave their first concert (on February 21, 1975) at the Otto Buchwitz cultural center in Heidenau.

In the first year of its existence, Karat produced more than 10 radio recordings. In 1976 Pexa and Burkert left and were replaced by Bernd Römer and Michael Schwandt. Another year later Hans-Joachim Neumann left the group. From now on, Herbert Dreilich was the sole singer.

With this line-up things continued to improve. Karat won the gold medal at a performance show in 1977 and received the FDJ's art prize for the student concerts it organized. The success continued by winning the Grand Prix at the International Schlager Festival in 1978, where they presented the songs "König der Welt" and "Über Sieben Brücken". Both songs led the GDR annual charts, which meant that Amiga could no longer avoid Karat. The label released the first Karat LP in 1978, which contained a selection of the radio recordings that had been made up to that point. Just one year later, the second LP "Über Sieben Brücken" was released.

Karat has continued as one of Germany's prominent hard rock bands until the present day, with a lot more documented than I can possibly fit in here, you can read it all at deutsche-mugge.de (https://www.deutsche-mugge.de/portraits/925-karat.html). Karat also have a current website: https://karat-band.com/