Novalis - what happened to them then?

[Tom Eiselberg]

I hope maybe some of our German members might be able to help me here:

In the late 1970s I visited Germany for the first time as part of a school penfriend exchange. I stayed in the Baden Baden area with a very wonderful family whose surname was Beutler. My penfriend Britta, and her elder brother Kersten played me all manner of wonderful Prog music - Tangerine Dream, Pink Floyd, PFM, Novalis and of course Genesis. I was blown away by all of it and hiked around the Black Forest mountains with Visions of Angels and Dancing Volcanoes on many a Sommerabend. I went back for several more holidays and on Sunday 26th July 1981 in Plittersdorf (I think) I saw Novalis in concert. As I recall it was in a large marquee set up with long beer tables. I recall really enjoying the concert, but I never bought any Novalis albums.

So my first request is can someone recommend the best Novalis albums to look for on CD? And what happened to the band? They don't seem to have released anything since the early 80s.

My second request concerns my German friends. After moving flat several times in the early 80s, I lost contact with them. I wonder if any German members know how I could go about finding my friends? It would be wonderful if I could find them again after all this time.

[Old Father Thames]

Tom,I love Novalis! I have their first three albums on CD. Banished Bridge,Novalis and Sommerabend. I can put some tracks on my page so you can download them if you want. It's awesome to see other people here who know of this great little gem of a band from the German prog scene!!! Awesome post!

[Tom Eiselberg]

Thanks Ian I'll have a look on Amazon for Sommerabend and the self titled then. I put the sleeve image of Sommerabend up because that's the one I remember seeing at the time, but I'm sure they played me two or three others as well.

[Ian]

errm, German lyrics, not Germany, of course...

[Ian]

Hello Tom,

no, there's nothing rude in your post! ;-)
Unfortunately I only have one Novalis record on CD, which is the self-titled second record (1975),
the first one with Germany lyrics. The first one (Banished Bridge) was in English. For a long time
Novalis records have been very difficult to find, so I only got hold of that one. Over the last two
years some have been reissued in very nice digipack form and probably more will follow.
I can definitely recommend this self-titled album and have read many positive reviews of the
albums "Sommerabend" and especially "Vielleicht bist Du ein Clown?". The latter is one of
those that have been re-released. I've just checked and they are available from amazon.de.
Unfortunately, like many other bands, Novalis moved towards less Prog-oriented music in the
early 80s and stopped recording and touring after 1985s "Nach uns die Flut".
Hope to have helped a bit. Have a nice weekend!

Ian

[Tom Eiselberg]

I'm sorry the post is English! After all this time mein Deutsche ist sehr schlecht! I hope that says my German is very bad. Apologies if it says something rude.