After the Beatles conquered the world, America responded with the Monkees, a friendlier version playing Brill Building hits. Inversely, in Germany, a pair of avant-garde geniuses (Walther Niemann and Karl-H. Remy) conceptualized the monks, a group of bizarre anti-Beatles who would write their own dark minimalist rock. The gifted band, a group of five Americans who had recently finished their U.S. military service at a German base, had honed its skills by playing up to 40 hours a week in the same beat clubs that provided the Beatles’ training. The musicians’ new managers dressed them in black, shaved their heads like monks, provided them with a series of manifestos, and coached them to reconfigure their band to feature tribal drumming, feedback and electric banjo. Somehow, this resulted in one of the greatest albums in rock history. Despite experimenting with minimalism, tension and antipop sensibilities (backup vocals are sung in creepy unison instead of sweet harmony), the record is danceable and joyous.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the film is seeing the five contemporary monks discussing the history they had all buried upon returning to America in 1967, after the band’s dissolution. Larry Clark, the Chicago-bred R&B keyboardist, won’t allow himself to attach any significance to his work with the monks. Absurdly, of the five articulate interviewees, only guitarist and lead singer Gary Burger is willing to attribute political significance to the Vietnam lyrics in their theme song. With this lack of singular vision, it’s not surprising that the filmmakers framed their story by focusing on the conceptualists’ vision. (Jake Austen, Time Out Magazine, 2006)