Nosferatu -

Nosferatu was a German hard-rock/psych band that released a 1970 self-titled album on Vogue Schallplatten.

Members: Michael “Mick” Thierfelder (vocals), Christian Felke (saxophone, flute), Michael “Mike” Kessler (bass), Reinhard “Tammy” Grohè (organ), Michael “Xner” Meixner (guitar), Byally Braumann (drums), Michael Winzkowski (guitar, 1968-70)

Background

Nosferatu emerged under the wing of Peter Hauke, a German rock mogul who produced mid-Sixties beat singles by The Rollicks and The Shouters. The initial formation included guitarist Michael Winzkowski (aka Wynn), who played on the 1970 Orange Peel single (but not their album) and recorded three subsequent albums in Epsilon. Of the recorded six-man Nosferatu lineup, the only documented veteran was organist Reinhard “Tammy” Grohè, whose prior stints included beatsters The Details and the Papa Zoot Band.

They took their name from F.W. Murnau’s 1922 silent horror film Nosferatu, a landmark of German Expressionist cinema, adapted from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula.

Nosferatu

Nosferatu released their self-titled singular album in 1970 on Vogue Schallplatten.

Guitarist Michael “Xner” Meixner and organist Reinhard “Tammy” Grohé trade sharp-toned leads across extended instrumental passages shaped by flute runs and sax bursts from Christian Felke. Their phrases rise in tight succession or split apart into layered contrasts. Drummer Byally Braumann and bassist Michael “Mike” Kessler form a centered rhythmic anchor that underpins the band’s structural shifts, pacing the longer tracks with stable low-end phrasing and steady cymbal patterns. Singer Mick Thierfelder wrote all their lyrics to their six group-composed originals.

Nosferatu shifts between high-impact riff-driven forms and diffuse, multi-part structures with fluid instrumental exchanges. “Highway” opens with rapid organ phrases from Reinhard Grohé under sharp guitar patterns by Michael Meixner, supported by staggered breaks from the rhythm section. “Willie the Fox” extends into a full-length suite, layering Christian Felke’s flute lines against a pulsing foundation before collapsing into a wide psychedelic sequence of echoing sax, sparse organ swells, and suspended rhythmic motion.

“Found My Home” centers on flute and organ over a shifting bassline and transitions into a long open section with clustered guitar phrasing and electric piano overlap. “No. 4” builds from ambient textures into ceremonial percussion and dissonant chord cycles, then swings into a jazz-forward segment shaped by darting sax over electric piano. “Work Day” alternates short vocal sections with rhythmic disruptions, solo drum fills, and distorted guitar textures that drift into a quieter central space before snapping back to its clustered rhythmic drive. “Vanity Fair” closes with layered percussion, abrupt vocal phrasing, and sax figures that stretch and push against the frame until the track cuts.

A1. “Highway” (4:16)
A2. “Willie the Fox” (10:49)
A3. “Found My Home” (8:40)

B1. “No. 4” (8:52)
B2. “Work Day” (6:55)
B3. “Vanity Fair” (6:48)

Nosferatu recorded the album at Rhenus Studio with engineer Conny Plank under the supervision of producer Tony Hendrik, who also wrote the liner notes, declaring “This is the big aggressive sound of today, performed by NOSFERATU!” Deutsche Vogue handled manufacturing and release through its Schallplatten GmbH imprint. The front cover design is credited to J. Kipp, with photography by G. Bockemühl, Horst-D. Barkow, and K.-H. Hoffmann.

Image-wise, Nosferatu presents a distorted, green-hued simian-like face rendered in thick, expressionist brushstrokes. The back cover shows a monochrome photo of a grimacing man’s face, enlarged and posterized with a surreal, cyclopean effect—his right eye grotesquely replaced by a staring orb. The inner-fold shows an amphibian-like figure melting down the center of a black backdrop with limbs of green, pink, orange, and blue.

Postlude

Christian Felke reemerged mid-decade as a sideman for Austrian musician Christian Kolonovits, playing on the latter’s solo albums and later band project, Einstein (not to be confused with Einstein in Eden). Felke also played on albums by Anna Dobiey, Nervos, Tony Carey, Topas, and Chilly, a dance-vocal group engineered by Tammy Grohè, who also worked with Arabesque, Boney M, Eruption, Michael Cretu, and Supersempfft.

In 1992, Grohè recorded a CD titled Nosferatu as part of Decade V, a techno duo with Lars Janzik.

Michael Thierfelder resurfaced as a percussionist in Frey–Tiepold–Thierfelder, an Eighties jazz-rock combo with ex-PSI pianist Matthias Frey.

Discography: