Missing Link

Missing Link was a German jazz-rock sextet from Munich that released the 1972 album Nevergreen! on United Artists.

Members: Markus Sing (guitar), Günther Latuschik (saxophone), Gabriel Dominik Mueller (vocals), Dieter Miekautsch (keyboards), Dave Schratzenstaller (bass), Holger Brandt (drums)

Background

Missing Link formed around the rock core of guitarist Markus Sing, bassist Dave Schratzenstaller, and drummer Holger Brandt; enhanced by keyboardist Dieter Miekautsch, saxophonist Günther Latuschik, and singer Gabriel Dominik Mueller.

They signed with the German branch of United Artists and cut an album with Krautrock producer Dieter Dirks.

Nevergreen!

Missing Link released their singular album, Nevergreen!, in December 1972 on UA.*

The album contains five group-written songs, including the jazz-rock twisters “Time Will Change” and “Kids Hunting.” Dieter Miekautsch submitted “Song for Ann,” an instrumental piano etude. Side B opens with “Sorcery,” a Charles Lloyd chestnut.

Markus Sing plays electric, acoustic, and 12-string guitar on Nevergreen!, which features Günther Latuschik on multiple saxophone (alto, tenor, soprano) and Miekautschon on organ and mellotron.

A1. “Spoiled Love” (5:20) enters with ensemble thunder that parts for balladic verses, soon overtaken by eager soloists. Sing’s fretboard leads succumb to Dieter’s Fender Rhodes spotlite, which yields to a martial passage with mellotron-laced acoustic plucks (in Am).
A2. “Song for Ann” (2:50) is a double-tracked solo etude of pearly keys and watery glissando’s in the root of E minor.
A3. “Time Will Change” (5:27) starts with interlocked guitar/sax on a descending scale (in Dm) against a hopping rhythmic pattern. Counterpoint ensues in major/minor modalities as piano enters the fray. The track slows to accommodate Gabriel, who wails against constant sonic assaults.
A4. “Only Me” (5:07) takes hold with dual sax on a drum-pummeled bassline (in Dm). Gabriel makes a declaration (“I am the guy that I love”) before Günther wrests back the track. Brandt lays dense tribal patterns under guitar/sax thematic tradeoffs.

B1. “Sorcery” (5:23) is a Keith Jarrett composition that first appeared on the 1967 Atlantic release Forest Flower by American Afro-jazz tenor saxist Charles Lloyd. Missing Link’s version enters with organ-based rhythmic jolts (in Cm), then streamlines with uptempo bass (in Em) for the track’s duration. Sing plays wailing/oozing leads while Dieter fights for the spotlight with creamy fills of Fender Rhodes.
B2. “Filled Up” (6:23)
B3. “Kids Hunting” (6:12) opens with a windmill strum (in Dm) that triggers a choppy 9/8 sax chart. Brandt pile-drives each count with double-up snare and kick-drum while an organ/sax riff takes hold (in Gm). When Gabriel soars, a bassline drops (from F#) as Sing scale-shreds. The prior two sections each repeat between vocal/organ interludes. 

Sessions occurred in October 1972 at Dierks Studio, where Missing Link co-produced the album with Gammarock Musik GmbH owner Gerhard Augustin, a recent soudman for Popol Vuh and Ike & Tina Turner. Dieter Dierks engineered Nevergreen! in sequence with titles by Ash Ra Tempel, Emtidi, Hölderlin, Message, Mythos, Wallenstein, Wind, and Witthüser & Westrupp.

Nevergreen! appeared in a gatefold sleeve with a comic illustration of a purplish critter slumped on green grass under orange skies with a burning acoustic guitar nearby (backside). 

“Song for Ann” appears on Cosmic Kraut Hits, a 1974 Germany UA two-record comp with cuts by Amon Düül II (“Telephonecomplex”), Can (“One More Night”), Embryo (“Marimbaroos”), and Niagara (“S.U.B”).

In 1973, Missing Link released a standalone a-side: “Friday On My Mind,” an Easybeats cover (b/w “Kids Hunting”).

*Neither Missing Link nor their 1972 album Nevergreen! should be confused with Inside: Missing Link, the 1972 MPS album by German jazz-rock guitarist and bandleader Volker Kriegel.

Post-Missing Link

Dieter Miekautsch played on the 1973 Embryo album We Keep On, then joined the reformed Missus Beastly for their 1974 self-titled second album. He rejoined Embryo for their 1975 album Bad Heads and Bad Cats, then surfaced in the Real Ax Band for their 1977 album, Nicht Stehen Bleiben.

Holger Brandt and Dave Schratzenstaller played on Lampenfieber, the 1974 album by German schlager singer Su Kramer. Brandt appeared on the 1974 Between album (Hesse Between Music) and joined Sahara for their 1976 second album, For All the Clowns.

Markus Sing joined the backing band of German guitarist/xylophonist Konstantin Wecker.

Discography:

Sources:

Artist/Album Pages:

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1 thought on “Missing Link”

  1. 2018 draft:
    “Missing Link were a German jazz-rock sextet from Munich that released the album Nevergreen! on United Artists in 1972.

    The comic, colorful cover art of the band’s sole release animates the virtuosic energy of the music contained on the album.

    “Kid’s Hunting” opens with a windmill strum in Dmin that gives rise to the woodwind of Latuschik, who takes over with a choppy 9/8 chart. Brandt pile-drives each count with double-up snare and kick-drum as an organ/sax riff in Gmin takes hold. Almost as suddenly, Mueller’s soaring vocals herald a walloping, diatonic bassline that plunges from F# to four and back as Sing scale-shreds. The prior two sections each repeat between vocal/organ interludes.

    At the outset of “Time Will Change,” Sing and Latuschik interlock on a descending scale in Dmin as Brandt lays out a swinging rhythm with four snare/bass wallops per bar. Counterpoint ensues between the aforementioned sololists as the track switches between major and minor tonalities, during which Miekautsch infuses the piece with crisp ivory. Midway, the track slows to accommodate Mueller, whose stanzas are constantly overrun by the brimming, scaly musicianship.

    Though starting life as an organ-based herky jerk in Cmin, “Sorcery” switches to a brisk, bassline-driven Emin and remains that way for the bulk of its five-plus minutes. Amidst the flurry, Sing’s leads alternately ooze and wail as Miekautsch fights for the spotlight with creamy fills of Fender Rhodes.

    After a thundering ensemble entrance, Mueller takes command of “Spoiled Love”, but even in this ballady framework the energies of the soloists cannot be contained. Lyrical fretboard leads give way to an electric piano spotlite, which is overtaken by a martially ensnared structure of Mellotron-laced acoustic plucking in Amin. The following “Song for Ann” is a solo, double-tracked Miekautsch etude of pearly keys and watery glissando’s in the root of E.

    Dual sax over a drum-pummeled, darting-third, Dmin bassline propels “Only Me” into existence. Though the party breaks for Mueller to declare “I am the guy that I love,” the marquee-woodwind riff wrests back the number. Later, the drumming turns densely tribalistic as Sing and Latuschik take turns accenting the theme.

    Miekautsch and Sing remained the most active after Missing Link split. The keyboardist went on to play with Embryo, Missus Beastly, and the Real Ax Band, while the guitarist became a sideman to local star Konstantin Wecker.”

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