Namu - "Opening" + "Sora Datte Toberusa (Fly Even the Sky)" {Japan} [1974]

NAMU was mid 70's organ hard rock band, played mainly Yokohama city around, no recordings except for only this medley (2 music 10min. aprx) was available

1974 "One Step Festival" held at Kohriyama City, Fukushima, Japan - NAMU played there and only recorded this track. 1978 disbanded

01 Opening (3'14)

02 Sora datte Toberusa (6'46) [meaning ; Fly even the sky]

Band:

1972

- Jun-ichi Murakami (vocal)

- Hiro Fukushima (guitar) --> Far East Family Band

- Shigemi Komiyama (drums) --> Hot Tuna

- Kitaro (Keyboard) --> Far East Family Band

1973

- Jun-ichi Murakami (vocal/organ)

- Nishibayashi "Boku-chin" (guitar) = Acid Seven Band

- Soul Tohru (drums) --> Otoboke Cats

- Tammy (bass)

Thanks to Kohsaku :o)

Link in comments...

Xarhanga - Discography {Portugal} [70s]

1971 - Xarhanga - "Acid Nightmare + Wish Me Luck" (single)

Banda onde se destacava Júlio Pereira e Carlos Cavalheiro nas vozes, que participaria também no excelente Lp de Júlio Pereira "Bota Fora" e mais tarde pertenceria á banda Alarme.

Pode ouvir alguns registos no MySpace criado em homenagem á banda aqui fonte

Acid Nightmare...

1972 - Xarhanga - "Great Goat + Smashing Life" (single)

Ambas as canções têm letra de Carlos Cavalheiro (voz) e música de Júlio Pereira, ex-Petrus Castrus e ex-Play Boys (piano, órgão e viola).
Os restantes membros da banda, nesta gravação, são Carlos Patrício (baixo e pedaleira) e Zé da Cadela (bateria).
O produtor foi Victor Mamede.
Os Xarhanga tiveram uma vida muito efémera, em 1973. Banda de heavy metal, deixou apenas dois singles.
O primeiro baterista foi Rui Venâncio que só gravou o primeiro single, também em 1973, "Acid Nightmare/Wish Me Luck" (ZIP ZIP - ZIP 30.043/S)
fonte: http://guedelhudos.blogspot.com/2008/11/xarhanga.html
Da esquerda para a direita: Júlio Pereira (guitarra, teclas), Carlos Patrício (baixo), Carlos Cavalheiro (voz) e Zé da Cadela (bateria). Grande grupo, grandes discos (este e o anterior)!

fonte: bissaide

Smashing Life...

1975 - Júlio Pereira & Carlos Cavalheiro - "Bota Fora"

O excelente álbum “Bota Fora” (Orpheu), editado em 1975 por Júlio Pereira e Carlos Cavalheiro, elementos dos Xarhanga, foi reeditado no final de Março, trazendo consigo os singles lançados em 1973 pelos Xarhanga (“Acid Nightmare” e “Great Goat”).
Uma peça fantástica do rock progressivo nacional, debruçado sobre as temáticas da guerra colonial, da independência das colónias e da liberdade; nesta edição, completada com os discos editados pelos Xarhanga, nome importante no lançamento do hard-rock em Portugal. fonte

Bota-Fora...

Link in comments...

Fujara - "Fujara" {Denmark} [1973] prog/psych

There are many mysterous bands that i think most of us looking for, and this is the one that i had big passion to listen, A few days ago our friend mtumba bring this album to our attention at forum. Since then i am listening some songs on the album over and over again, Some information that i found for the album;
"The band from Køge founded in 1970 playing mostly rock affected by hippie subculture with social and political lyrics. This 6-member group was said to have humorous live performances. It had brass section as strong as Dr. Dopo Jam but didn't use it in so efficient and dynamic way. Anyway, Fujara does not sound like one more political group where lyrics dominated the music. Most compositions remain under influence of West Coast rock but especially two of them are in Dr. Dopo Jam vein, and those are IMO the best ones on the whole album: Styvtoget and excellent Majara. All lyrics are in Danish.." read more here

thanks to mtumba :)

Otger Dice - Garden of Pleasure (Net 1977)

Sometimes we love an album for no reason other than that we love it, it's the idiosyncrasy of music that makes it so unique. I really really love this one, though I know some out there will consider it banal, some will find it annoying, some will think the singer has too rough a voice, but maybe someone else will agree that it's just impossible to live without and they're willing to listen to it a hundred times from now on, like I did when I encountered it. In style I think it's similar to the Kaz Lux solo album or later Brainbox with basic rock and folk sounds cooked up with a bit of progressive spice to give it some heat for those who want more mental stimulation. Some tracks actually remind me of Jackson Browne from the Late from the Sky period with that cool californial singer songwriter groove off ventura highway. As with earlier posted Memo a lot of my emotional connexion probably has to do with temporal nostalgia, lost childhood.

Let's get to the music first. Actually let's get to the talking about the music first. The first track hits us with a D minor groove and some nice space synth before the hard rock sound of Otger singing all kinds of craziness on "Trashcan:"
"Goin round in circles
waitin for a miracle
instead of the truth
lightning struck me
shattered in my eye
There is a butterfly session in the neighbourhood" (what the--?)
Well, in my opinion it sure beat Mick's lyrics from Goats Head Soup.
The second song uses an ingenious progression (in key of G) involving G maj7, D maj7, F maj7, Eflat maj7. This is the kind of unusual thinking that takes this above average rock. I like how he then puts the melody on top of this odd progression using the out-of-place D maj7 as transitional ('correct' chord should be D7).
"Flim Flam Lover" is a standout track, starts with a lovely electric piano sound (Otger playing I presume), very very reminiscent of Kaz singing on the Akkerman albums. The song could fit in well as more biography of Eli. The smooth quarter note slow rock sound never sounds as good as here with some acoustic and rhodes piano background, very subtle use of nonfuzzy electric guitar and hammond duetting with the singer. There is a beautiful drama to the whole song with guitar instrumental leading into passionate singing halfway through. I like the lyrics on this one too. "He moves out like a flash... hits the road before they do" Oh those free days of the seventies, how long ago they seem now, free love, free sex, could it really have been true and not a dream? (I wouldn't know personally of course having been a child then.)
"Dreammare" reminds me of Jackson Browne's song After the Deluge, not just because it's also in the key of G. The style is in keeping with the piano singer-songwriter stuff from the west coast. Again, it's tragic that music as well written as the perennial 'classic rock' staples is lost to any kind of sizable audience, because it's at least as good as the average Jackson Browne. Maybe what's missing is the simplicity that makes songs like "I want candy" or "I will remember you" such monster hits, people need something really repetitive and childish to enjoy music. Again, same comments I made earlier about the musical artistic 'test of time', which children's music passes but not our beloved progressive which involves real sweat labour and a lot of education.
I grant there are some throwaway blues style songs in here but this is no different from the average rock album with a few filler tracks. Several songs have the unfortunate tendency of relying too much on an I - IV chord progression.

I have trouble finding info on the man, just like with the earlier Memo.
Ratings are terrible on rateyourmusic, surprisingly to me but probably no one else. I really love the country cover with the seventies font. Boy would I love to go fishing in that creek but the way it was in the seventies, not now.

Tracklist:

A1 Trashcan 3:00
A2 Bands And Dice 3:38
A3 Flim Flam Lover 4:38
A4 You've Got The Tools 3:31
A5 Dreammare 2:49
B1 Ridin' A Tiger 3:40
B2 See The People 5:43
B3 I Synthesize My Song 3:38
B4 Garden Of Pleasure


Bass - Paul Happener
Drums - David Kemper , Jan Pijnenberg
Guitar - Dean Parks , Eef Albers , Fred Berger
Keyboards, Vocals - Otger Cooymans*
Percussion - Victor Feldman
Producer - Bert Ruiter
Vocals - Anton Verhagen


Flim Flam Lover...
Dreammare...

Siamo, Il volo di Icaro

Here we have two light-prog italian albums, late 70s. The first, Il Volo di Icaro, features quite good songwriting. It's worth briefly repeating the ancient Greek story of Icarus although I have a feeling everyone knows it well. Daedalus was an artisan who had been imprisoned on Crete by Minos, with his son, in order to escape he created wings made of feathers and glued with wax. He warned his son repeatedly not to attempt to fly too high but the son became intoxicated with the feeling and the sun melted his wings and he fell into the sea (a specific sea near Samos). Daedalus must have cried hard, it's difficult to lose a son, even in this way. It would've been heartbreaking to have known he could have avoided it with more care, and that it was a fully preventable accident. It generally takes months to years to get over a death like that. Constantly he would have been afraid to fly again, to even look at a bird would have been painful. He surely would have been able to commiserate with prometheus bound.

How close did Icarus have to get? Well since the temperature will drop inversely proportionally to the square of the radius from the sun, starting from a surface t for the sun of 6000 C, to the earth's minus 15 without greenhouse effect 93 million miles away, in order to reach a temperature of 40 degrees or so to melt wax while still being compatible with life would have meant getting about halfway to the sun.

This record doesn't get into the astronomical details, but has some beautiful tracks outlining the tale, some straight pop songwriting, some sweet folk guitar (Giorno di Marzo) some ingenious passages. The last song unfortunately is a throwaway song of street sounds. The second last Meditation is a very atmospheric piano piece in D minor. Check out the beautiful synths that then play out a spacey melody over a nice bass groove.

Meditation...

Arild Andersen Lifelines 1981

I return today, already too soon, and I apologize in advance for returning. My wife's work in her master's degree (studying gross anatomy of extraterrestrials) has kept me away from our shared computer almost as much as her yelling at me to get away. Luckily her thesis is almost done and will be sent out into space anon on one of those chinese tourist rockets, we have been allotted a small plastic box that costs only a few dollars, because it was made in indonesia. Also my import-export business has been booming (we import desert sand and export gorilla suits). After a few more albums we'll be going on holidays to the US east coast to check out the nice big oil slick, already having packed the detergent, until end July.

Here we have a very typical ecm-style low-key jazz album from Norway, it lulls you into complacency only to suddenly launch you into a coma. It is of course very good, as good as the american style of jazz, and somewhat more interesting in my opinion. Utterly absent is the 'swing' that is the hallmark and aficionado's definition of good US jazz, but I can live without swing.


From Wikipedia:
Arild Andersen (born 27 October 1945) is a Norwegian bass player.

Born in Lillestrøm, Norway, he started out as a member of the Jan Garbarek Quartet (1967-1973), with Terje Rypdal and Jon Christensen. In the same period he also worked with the Norwegian singer Karin Krog and played in the rhythm section for visiting American musicians including Phil Woods, Dexter Gordon, Bill Frisell, Hampton Hawes, Johnny Griffin, Sonny Rollins, and Chick Corea. During this time, he also worked with Don Cherry, George Russell and Tomasz Stańko.

Andersen has recorded over a dozen albums for ECM Records as band leader and with Masqualero, and appeared on many others as side man.

In January 2009 Andersen was named Musicien Europeen 2008 by the French Academie du Jazz.[1]

[edit] Solo discography
"Clouds in my head" (1975)
"Shimri" (1977)
"Green Shading into Blue" (1978)
"Lifelines" (1981)
"A Molde Concert" (1981)
"Sagn" (1990)
"Arv" (1993)
"If You Look Far Enough" (1994)
"Hyperborean" (1997)
"Sommerbrisen" (1998)
"Achirana" (2000)
"The Triangle" (2004)
"Elektra" (2005)
"Live at Belleville" (2008)

TRACKLIST:
01 Cameron 6:23
02 Prelude 5:53
03 Landloper 0:48
04 Predawn 6:02
05 Dear Kenny 6:20
06 A Song I Used To Play 2:42
07 Lifelines 6:28
08 Anew

Double Bass - Arild Andersen
Drums - Paul Motian
Engineer - Jan Erik Kongshaug
Flugelhorn, Cornet - Kenny Wheeler
Piano - Steve Dobrogosz
Producer - Manfred Eicher
Written-By - Arild Andersen (tracks: 01, 03 to 08) , Radka Toneff (tracks: 08) , Steve Dobrogosz (tracks: 02)

The piano solos are really dreamy.


Anew...

BBL - "One" {Germany} [1982]

I could not find a review in English... infos are welcome :)

Die Formation BBL aus Kassel bestand zwischen 1978 und 1984. Volker Billhardt (g), Kalle Binder (dr) und Helmut Lenk (b) entwickelten einen Stil, der sowohl Elemente aus Jazz, Blues, Rock, Funk und experimentelle Aspekte enthielt.
Ein besonderer Schwerpunkt des Trios war die Gewichtung der Improvisation. Natürlich wurden teilweise feste Arrangements und Kompositionen zur Grundlage herangezogen, der überwiegende musikalische Prozess vollzog sich aber im improvisatorischen Bereich.
Als logische Schlussfolgerung daraus wurden auch Konzerte ohne festen Rahmen durchgeführt, die musikalische Struktur ergab sich dann aus der jeweiligen Atmosphäre, den räumlichen Gegebenheiten, der Interaktion mit dem Publikum oder anderen inneren und äußeren Umständen.
BBL arbeitete häufig mit befreundeten Musikern zusammen, die vorrangig aus dem Bereich des Jazz kamen. Auch interdisziplinär fand eine stellenweise intensive Auseinandersetzung mit den Künstlern Albrecht Genin und Nik Barlo Jr.
statt. So wurden gemeinsame Performances im Rahmen von Ausstellungseröffnungen durchgeführt.
BBL nahm in 1982 am kulturellen Beiprogramm der d7 teil. http://www.lenk-music.de/800/FR_BBL1.html

Seite 1
A1 - Bat
A2 - Play into the day
A3 - Skypictures
A4 - Blisters
Seite 2
B1 - Mar-a-ton

- Volker Billhardt (guitar)

- Kalle Binder (drums)

- Helmut Lenk (bass)

Side A...

Thanks to KC! ;)

Link in comments...

Imants Kalninš - "4. Simfonija" ("Rock" Symphony) {Latvia} [1972]

Imants Kalninš (born May 26, 1941 in Riga, Latvia) is one of the most important composers in the history of Latvian music. Having studied classical, as well as choral music, he has written six symphonies, several operas (including the first rock opera in the USSR - Ei, jus tur!/ "Hey, you there!"), oratorios, cantatas, choir songs, a lot of movie and theater music. However, he is generally best known for his rock songs and is to be considered the first composer of intellectual rock music. http://soundmaven.com


"Travelling the Baltic States the influence of the Russification that was applied by the Soviet regime for more then forty years is notable everywhere. Also in the music scene. During the Soviet period, artists and writers were kept under surveillance and their work was heavily censored. This was done largely through state sponsorship. Artists who were approved by the state were given superior accommodation and the state purchased their work. There were also artists that tried to find mazes in the Soviet regulation and were able to keep local culture alive.

In musical terms the Latvian traditional music originates in the Daina. A mix of music and poetry telling stories about local mythology and legendary Latvian heroes. No wonder the Soviet rule wasn’t to keen on these nationalistic songs. With this in mind the work of composer Imants Kalniņš is undeniable of great importance. Born in 1941 he was brought up under Soviet rule. Still he was interested in the old Latvian daina’s and mixed them in his classical work. This did not go down to well. To make things even worse he became interested in rock ‘n roll in sixties and founded the first Latvian pop-band 2xBBM. After a short-lived succesfull start the local officials banned the band just a year after their first appearance.

Probably pretty pissed off Kalniņš started to work on a project that would be released as ‘symfony 4’ in 1972. The project was no classical work but is in fact the first progressive rock album in Latvia history. Inspired by illegal music like Led Zeppelin’s ‘Kashmir’ and Mike Oldfield’s ‘Tubular Bells’ Kalniņš mixed rock and Latvia folklore with classical music. To make things even worse he incorporated poetry from American beat poet Kelly Cherry (who was his lover at the time) for the final movement. Still with all these obvious attempts to irritate the Soviet officials the symphony was allowed to be released if Cherry’s poem would be left off. Although it looks like a minor step for some the relevance of this work for Latvian people must have been huge. Note that a copy of the album is even on display at the Riga Occupation Museum as a symbol of the Latvian culture being cherished in the seventies. (review first published on europopmusic.eu)"

by europopmusic

http://www.europopmusic.eu/Eastern_Europe_Pages/Kalnins.html

more info... http://inkpot.com/classical/ssogarbage.html

01 Allegreto (14:14)
02 Andante trnquillo (8:46)
03 Grave molto (8:37)
04 Moderato rubato (17:49)

Allegreto...

link in comments...

Continental Uptight Band

Not a lot of info on the web on this netherlandish folk-pop band. Their albums Beautiful Friendship (70) and Roots (72) are from the same period as the earlier Bojoura album, basically from 40 years ago. A little bit more pop oriented than folk in my opinion, some tracks remind me of Neil Young, some of the Beatles' acoustic stuff.

Beautiful friendship...
Northers islands...

back to folk...

Wow, that is one beautiful woman! ! !
I figure today it will be harder to navigate away from the page with a bit of eye candy coming up first...
It's inexplicable to me why some amazing folk albums are still unknown. This one in particular has a great pedigree, I see from brief research online that Bojoura Cleuver was a hugely popular singer in Holland back in the day-- 40 years ago that is. It's arranged and composed to a large extent by Thijs van Leer, whose solo albums are quite available. His presence explains why these songs are so much above the usual folksy material.
I really love this album and that's why I've brought it back from the brink here. Particularly impressive are the van Leer ones, The swallow and the calf which is I gather a trad. song, tells the parable of those who are fated for freedom (the swallow) and those who are fated for chains (the calf). I have to admit it's hard for me to listen without at least one tear appearing indiscretely. The "Time it goes by" reminds me a lot of Nick Drake's early stuff. Please note that Bojoura has written the lyrics for a few tracks. What a tragedy that this well-written music is so rare today, it really doesn't deserve to be, several tracks here are as good as any AM radio standards like simon and garfunkel or peter paul and mary that are so overplayed day in day out. I don't understand why people are so willing to put up with the same repertoire in their lives. So strange too to think that those who recall this album, would be by now mostly senior citizens, retirees with grey hair. The beautiful Raina (Bojoura) herself is now a lovely 63 year old grandmother, untouched I'm sure from mr botox and ms. restylane, with several beautiful grandchildren probably some with great musical talent. Time is still a great mystery in physics with physicists evenly divided between those who view it as a perceptual illusion in reality a block as in einsteinian gravitation (general relativity) (there is only one bojoura in the present past and future) and those who feel it is related to entropy and the birth of the universe and possibly involves unknown physics (further increases in her entropy will lead to dust).
Please enjoy this lost gem as much as I have and let's hope its worldline continues far into the high entropy space of states.

More info, from websites:
"Bojoura, of Bulgarian descent, was the most popular Dutch singer for a long period of time. She was born in 1947 in The Hague as Raina Cleuver van Melzen and discovered by George Kooymans (Golden Earring) in 1967. She recorded a lot of folk songs, although she also did some songs penned by Kooymans. She was frequently accompanied by the Thijs van Leer Trio (1967-1969)."

"Asked to think up the title for this new Bojoura album, I couldn't but suggest to entitle it "The Beauty of Bojoura", impressed as I am by her inward as well as her outward beauty. In addition to a talent for singing she also possesses a fine feeling for languages. This not only manifests itself in her fluency when speaking such languages as French, German, English, Bulgarian or Dutch, but also in the remarkable richness of metaphor in the lyrics she writes. This figurative language has been a great inspiration to me when setting a handful of her poems to music. On the other hand, Bo and I have equally enjoyed doing our versions of songs from the repertoire of such groups and singers as Peter, Paul & Mary, the Doors, the Rolling Stones, Tim Hardin and Tom Paxton." - Thijs van Leer.
Tracklist:

Side A
Black sheep child (Tim Hardin)
Last thing on my mind (T. Paxton)
The wizard and the girl (T. van Leer/ B. Cleuver)
Flora (Stookey - Travers - Mezzetti)
The swallow and the calf (Trad. - T. van Leer/ B. Cleuver)
Side B
Comes a time (T. van Leer/ B. Cleuver)
Time it goes by (E. Nobel/ T. van Leer/ B. Cleuver)
The days of love (T. van Leer/ B. Cleuver)
Wintertime love (The Doors)
Backstreet Girl (M. Jagger/ K. Richards)
Why do they go back home (T. van Leer/ B. Cleuver/ J.Akkerman)

The Swallow and the calf...

link is in progress.

ehm, all folks welcome!!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=123731724323726

Rena Rama 1973

I believe I am once again victim of a case of mistaken identity, this is now the third time this has happened with this new identity I have, for the record, I am Tristan Stefan, I live in east Westphalia and I have two boys, named Hans und Franz. I was an installation artist in Berlin Kunstcraftsgesammenwerkschaftung discussing through my work paradigms of being and becoming in a meaningless existential universe, one of my most famous pieces was pile of dog poop on head of a Botticelli nude. One artwork about holocaust, a skull of Hitler made out of reese's pieces, I sold for 3 million Euro to a rich collector. He was also a mental defective. In another famous work I did with my brother I covered the Reichstag in Berlin with a giant lederhosen in protest against capitalism and the high cost of knackwurst. Then I had a midlife crisis, decided to give up art and go into the corporate world, so I became quality assurance control officer in BMW, we looked for design flaws in middle managers. We also made sure all labcoats were correct shade of white. This led to job in Bayer pharmaceuticals, I worked on developing vaccines for the HIV virus, the H1N1 viral pandemic and for athlete's foot. Currently I work fulltime in ISO 9001 Europa office we are designing implementation manuals for guidelines in standard operating procedures universal protocols involving light machinery, mostly phillips screwdrivers. These will be implemented ahead of schedule in ALL of EU by 2025 (the manuals, not the screwdrivers). What about the music? Well, I inherited the record collection of a hugely wealthy benefactor who made a fortune devising the nozzles for pouring beer from barrels for Oktoberfest (now used throughout the world) he was known in westphalia as 'Baron Bier'. He willed the vinyls to me after his horrible accidental death when he drowned in a brewery beer vat. I remember the tragic day well, I said to the brewmaster, "I hope it was quick at least" and his answer to me, "bitte, nein, Herr Tristan, it was not so quick. He climbed out of the vat three times to go take a pee."
Batiali...

Sundance 1976

Our planet coalesced from the gravitational attraction of rocky objects orbiting the sun around 4.5 billion years ago. Heavy impacts in the first millions of years vaporized oceans and the planetary surface multiple times. Possibly life evolved several times and was extinguished from these impacts. Early on a very large object (one third mass?) smashed into the earth and produced the moon, which is truly a piece of the earth. Almost as soon as cooling was sufficient and conditions stable, prokaryotic cellular life evolved, perhaps 3.5 billion years ago. For billions of years this was the only life on the planet. At that time there was no land, oceans covered everything 2 km deep, the continents formed later. All surface water is thought to be derived from comets. Several extinctions probably occurred without leaving any evidence. When the ability to photosynthesize was evolved and carbon dioxide was absorbed to produce oxygen, levels of the highly reactive gas began to rise in the atmosphere. It must have taken hundreds of millions of years for the first bacterial plants to raise levels of oxygen, particularly since all the dissolved iron first had to be oxidized. But eventually levels did start to rise where there had been no oxygen before, creating the first mass extinction caused by life, since many cells could not tolerate the conditions. This is thought to have occurred around 2-2.5 billion years ago. Oxygen is important because it seems to be a necessary condition for "animal" life. It is not known how or why multicellular life evolved, or why complex cells (eukaryotic) did, but it took a long long time, measured in the billions of years. The earth went through a horrific phase called snowball earth about 700 million years ago in which it essentially froze over. At that time the sun was cooler than it is now, allowing positive feedback glaciation effects to take place-- possibly due to the effects of early plants drawing down too much CO2 in the atmosphere. It is surprising that it didn't remain in that condition. The only way it could have warmed itself back up was through volcanism which slowly but surely brought the levels of greenhouse gases back up again. Without doubt this period was another mass extinction, lost to fossil history. Some time after rewarming came the cambrian explosion which resulted in a huge increase in diversity of body plans. Nonetheless another extinction, the biggest so far, occurred some 251 million years ago-- this one thought to be due to excess greenhouse gases creating an anoxic ocean and oxygen-depleted atmosphere. We learn there is no consistency in geological time-- gases go up and down, temperatures go up and down. Reptiles and proto-mammals subsequently evolved and competed head to head but in the early earth which was quite a lot hotter than today, average 15-20 degrees C hotter, the dinosaurs prevailed and ruled for 200 million years, until a freak accident: a 12 km wide rock hit the earth. This rock was like mount everest smashing into the Yucatan, when it struck the ocean its top was still sticking out the atmosphere. Every organism larger than about 10 kg died, for some reason all the dinosaurs preferentially excepting birds. The mammals took over, probably mostly by accident. Placental birth, caring for the young, warm-bloodedness, are likely preconditions for high intelligence mandating a mammalian evolution. The earth slowly cooled in the post-dinosaur period due to continental drift effects and drawing down of CO2 by plants. The last ice age of 2 millions years allowing cooler temperatures in Africa probably pushed intelligence a little higher (overheating the brain was always a problem for upright hominids on the savannah) to allow the evolution of homo sapiens. Currently a 6th large extinction is underway, having started about 70,000 years ago when the species left Africa for other continents. It will irreversibly lead to the extinction of most mammals, most birds, most reptiles, almost all amphibians, and probably most plants and insects. Temperatures in the next thousands of years are expected to rise at least 10 degrees, possibly more, leading us back to the hothouse earth of the dinosaur era. The next ice age will be easily averted due to human intervention and the melting of all ice on the poles. This will be the second big extinction known to have been caused by a form of life, this time by only one species though. Eventually after millions of years the earth will recover, and life will go on. What will happen next? We don't know, we will not be witnesses to this. Other forms of life will appear and thrive. Then, some 700 million years from now, the earth will be probably too hot (the sun heats as it ages), and that will be the end of the history of life here. So we can see from this that we are already in the old age of the biosphere, 80-90 percent of the history of life is in the past. It is hard to escape the metaphor of humanity being a metastatic cancer that is sickening an elderly patient (the planet).

Yea Yea...

Various Artists - "Fantasio Daze" {Netherlands} [1968-1971] (Psychedelic Singles)

In navolging van ontwikkelingen in Engeland en vooral Amerika ontstaat begin jaren zestig ook in Nederland een scene, waarin de beoefening van allerhande vormen van kunst gestimuleerd wordt door het gebruik van hallucinerende middelen. In de jazzwereld is druggebruik dan al geen onbekend verschijnse meer. In de jaren "67/68" als de beat als muzikale stroming duidelijk over zijn hoogtepunt heen is, laten de invloed van drugs en de kombinatie van muziek met lichteffecten zich in de pop-muziek gelden. De kloof met de liefhebbers van soulmuziek wordt nóg eens zo breed: op de middelbare school hoor je bij de 'soulkikkers' of ben je 'underground'. Een onderscheid dat zich niet beperkt toto de muzikale voorkeur, maar ook tot uiting komt in haardracht, kleding en zelfs taalgebruik. Het tijdschrift Hitweek, later Aloha, speelt goed op deze ontwikkelingen in eh fungeert jaren als informatiebron voor eenieder die op de hoogte wil blijven. In de psychedelische scene staat de muziek centraal. Bestaande beatgroepen zien er een nieuwe markt met nieuwe kansen in. Veel groepen schakelen dan ook over op psychedelica (bijvoorbeeld Fullhouse) of proberen met een psychedelich getinte grammofoonplaat een graantje mee te pikken (bijvoorbeeld the Motions en the Outsiders). ... (from cover back)

A1 Bag - Tripdream
A2 Crown's Clan - No Place for Our Minds
A3 Sense of Humor - Sunset Show
A4 Human Orchestra - The Silly One
A5 The Dream - Swedish Tears
A6 Sound of Imker - Train of Doomsday
B1 Cinderella - From Town to Town
B2 Phoenix - Ode to Jimi Hendrix
B3 The Tykes - Hey Girl
B4 Turquoise - The Daughter of Johnny Ray
B5 The Dream - The Doting King
C1 Bag - Nothing Will Remain
C2 Crying Wood - Blue Eyed Witch
C3 The Eddysons - Cousin Pretty
C4 O.P.M.C. - Firechild
C5 Adjéèf the Poet & Friends - Ieek, I'm a Freak
D1 Names and Faces - The Killer
D2 Opus - Master of My Fate
D3 Bobby Green Selection - I Never Saw the Love So Clear
D4 Group 1850 - Don't Let It Be
D5 Jeep - The Rain

Cinderella - From Town to Town...
Phoenix - Ode to Jimi Hendrix...
O.P.M.C. - Firechild...

link in comments...

Behind the balkan curtain...

Like so many others I suppose I listened to jazz and fusion in university to drown out the simplistic pop all around me. I had no idea there was any good jazz outside of the US or north america until the advent of napster. What a shock then to find out the europeans had mastered fusion in the seventies, and in some cases had taken it further than originators in the US, melding it with classical and rock to a much more cohesive extent. Of course they did the same with rock itself, both were american inventions that europeans really built on formidably. What was even more surprising was to see how many countries had taken up fusion. Back then in eastern Europe it must have been very popular because they made so much great music, new albums just keep popping up. This one, Lyubomir Denev Jazz Trio & Petko Tomanov, is from Bulgaria, from 1979. They have incorporated some folk or ethnic melodies into the fusion in a really marvellous way as in "Ritual Dance" some parts of "Scherzo" are almost reminiscent of Bartok. The classical education always shines through with european jazz e.g. "Pastoral." I think these lost albums deserve to be heard by more people than the few who for some reason or another own a copy of the record. I'm willing to bet though the vast majority of the records are sitting in used stores in Eastern Europe, which is really a shame and waste.
I remember during the nato war of the nineties in the balkans the comment was frequently made that the region had a long history of wars and conflicts, as if certain geographies had a 'natural' propensity for violence, or certain cultures were born more sadistic. Not until recently when curiosity over the issue of genocide led me to read the history of Yugoslavia (which hearing about during the clinton era news so much, had made me bored of the issue like so many other people) did I realize that the true antecedents of the balkan wars were the horrific genocide experienced by the people in the nazi and later tito eras. According to sources, one tenth of the population was exterminated in only the years 41-45, making an annual death rate of 2.64 percent by proportion one of the most lethal regimes ever in the twentieth century, on a par with Cambodia, Stalin. Bloody 20th century indeed-- everywhere one looks one can find a new example of violence. We know that a child that grows up with violence and unstable dread will inevitably become violent, how much more obvious when a population is surrounded by this, as in the vietnam war, the soviet war in afghanistan, etc. These are all examples of societies that were subjected to enormous stress and that as a result could not escape a fate of war until enough blood had been spilled on the ground to satiate the demons. And of course as with the other mentioned places, it had nothing to do with Yugoslavia's bloodthirstiness and everything to do with the fact the poor country was a 'pawn' for greater forces: nazi fascism, communism and the cold war. In the same way there is nothing innately sadistic about cambodians, everyone who has traveled there can see they are a very warm gentle (buddhist in fact) people. A case could be made that a great deal of Yugoslavian suffering in fact was based on Hitler's hatred for them (just as he hated jews, gypsies, and poles). People overlook the fact Hitler hated a lot of different people. Or that the US and USSR didn't much care what happened there, just like in Angola, where they armed every man many times over because they just didn't care how much civil war went on. I don't remember much being said on CNN about these causes of the balkan wars of the nineties. Instead I remember the cheering when Clinton decided to bomb key cities.
The reason I'm curious about genocide is because I think our relatively peaceful early 21st century times are a lull, when times get tough later this century we will be back into the world wars again and genocides, it's too much a part of human nature to make war. For example many people don't realize there has been almost no REAL progress on disarmament of nuclear weapons in the US and USSR (as opposed to treaties and political promises), each of which has thousands and thousands of bombs ready to exterminate.

Hobo biography:
'The band HOBO was formed by keyboardist Mato Dosen in Zagreb 1972. The line-up also included Sasa Cavric-bass, Josip Belamaric-el. violin, Boris Trubic-percussion, vocal and Mladen Garasic-drums. They appeared at Ljubljana BOOM Festival 1974 and played as a support group at DEEP PURPLE concert in Zagreb 1975. The same year they recorded their only one, eponymous album. Due to lack of commercial success, Dosen soon disbanded the group, and went on to become a successful pop producer and composer.' The band is basic rock with some progressive touches in the typical yugo style.

Regarding Lala Kovacev, there are actually two albums with the name Balkan Impressions these were collected together into volumes 1 and 2, this one is the second. A serbian drummer, his discography is pretty extensive, cf.:

1964 JAZZ ORKESTAR RTB-"Pozdrav Count Basieu" (RTB)
1972 BOBBY GUTESHA - "Rockin Bach Dimensions" (BASF/MPS)
1973 WOLFGANG DAUNER - "Et Cetera Live"" (BASF/MPS)
1975 15. INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL LJUBLJANA '74" (Jugoton)
1975 MICHAL URBANIAK GROUP - "Inactin" (Intercord)
1975 MICHAL URBANIAK GROUP - "Parathypus B" (Intercord)
1976 HORST JANKOWSKI QUARTETT - "Jankowskinetik" (BASF/MPS)
1976 BENNY BEILEY - "Islands" (Enja)
1976 NDR WORKSHOP 1976 (NDR)
1977 BOSKO PETROVIC - In Pain I Was B orn (Jugoton)
1977 ALAN SKIDMORE - "Morning Rise" (EGO)
1977 MILAN PILAR - "Catch Up II : The Birth Of The Second Life" (Calig)
1978 CHRIS HINZE, SIGI SCHWAB, EBERHARD WEBER, LALA KOVACEV "Wide And Blue" (EMI Electrola)
1978 JAZZ ORKESTAR RADIO-TELEVIZIJE BEOGRAD (1948-1978) - "Jazz Orkestar RTB Sa Gostima" (RTB)
1979 JAZZ NA KONCERTNOM PODIJU vol.4 (Jugoton)
1979 GOJKOVIC-KOVACEV - "Trumpets & Rhythm Unit" (RTB)
1978 INTERNATIONAL JAZZ CONSENSUS - "Four For Slavia" (Electrola)
1981 INTERNATIONAL JAZZ CONSENSUS - "Beak" (Nimbus)
1982 CHARLIE MARIANO - "Some Kind Of Changes" (Calig)
1985 LALA KOVACEV - "Balkan Impressions" (RTB)
1985 LALA KOVACEV - "Balkan Impressions vol. 2" (RTB)

Dijete...
Trite Puti...
Altana...

Bon Voyage

I know many of you love folk and traditional music, especially with a bit of prog thrown in. Oddly enough this band is not in Progquebec's roster, though hailing from Montreal. First two albums are pretty widely available online now, the third from 1983 called "Voyage" inevitably is more pop oriented and smooth. However it still sounds like it should have been released in the seventies.
Check out the really imaginative cover. An engineer appears to be driving a mixing board on the dark road.

quote from http://waytoyoursoul.blogspot.com/2008/04/barde-images-barde-1977-78-quebec.html
"This sextet from Montreal was formed in 1973 and found their brand of Acadian & Celtic reels and jigs popular around the Maritimes, Quebec and overseas in Europe. The group was known for its utilization of a twin Celtic fiddle sound courtesy of Crilly and Selick. They signed to Polygram then to Direction Records, then to Flying Fish, and finally to Porte Parole. Their eponymous debut, Barde, was released in 1977. By their the second album, Images, in 1978 Chris Crilly had introduced keyboards in the form of synths and pianos. By 1983's Voyage Selick had also left and the remaining members changed musical direction by incorporating keyboards bass and violin courtesy of studio musicians Jacques Joubert, Richard Paquette, and Jocelyn Therrien. Pierre Guerin led a revamped Barde at the 10th Annual Winnipeg Folk Festival. The band finally disbanded for good shortly thereafter with Guerin marrying and settling in the St. Boniface region of Winnipeg. He became a disc jockey before becoming Artistic Director of The Winnipeg Folk Festival.
with notes from Pierre Guerin, Chris MacRaghallaigh and Richard Chapman."

Richard Chapman (vocals, mandolin, banjo, dulcimer, guitar)
Toby Cinnsealac (aka Kinsella) (tin flute, tin whistle, recorders, clarinet, tambourine)
Pierre Guerin (vocals, acoustic guitar, accordion, concertina, flute, recorder)
Chris (aka Crilly) MacRaghallaigh (vocals, violin, keyboards, bodhran, tambourine)
Elliot Selick (violin, tin flute, tin whistle, banjo)
Ed Moore (bodhran, tambourine, concertina, tin flute, tin whistle, glockenspiel)

La boite a lunch...

Unobstructed Universe 1976

In the May 10th New Scientist 2759 we can read an excellent 'review article' dealing with the mathematical basis of music and hence its possible evolutionary significance. http://tinyurl.com/27yvrcw
was it an accidental byproduct of an intellectual (or auditory) process or is it an adaptation that serves us well? Of course for those like us who love it profoundly, it's inconceivable it could be accidental-- the feeling you get when you hear something beautiful is much too transcendent and deep, and too connected with emotion. Even though we listen in solitude to our stereos or ipods, it must have first been a purely social activity, much like language was a social adaptation but turned out to be highly useful for organizing thinking into coherent and rational constructs within one's own mind. The more profound mystery is why music is strongly connected with the emotions. But I think this reflects the use it was put to in societies, and for infant-parent bonding, in other words it fits the social adaptation theory. Every culture for example has a 'genre' of music specifically used to soothe infants.

A fascinating study using just-born infants from deaf parents (thus never exposed to music in the womb) to see if they prefer consonant intervals (5th for ex) over dissonant seemed to suggest they did, that the brain is hard-wired to appreciate the consonance. "Balkwill and Thompson found that complex melodies with large, irregular or unusual changes in pitch tend to be associated with negative emotions" (not only just in babies) -- and we would add, except for the progressive music fan, who loves those complex, large, irregular, unusual changes.
Why do we like these dissonant intervals so much? Is it really a kind of progress in intellectual understanding of the theory of harmony or is it just an obsession with newness, as my wife always tells me.
Everyone knows there are mathematical ratios to the consonant intervals, octave is 1-2, fifth is 2-3. So the major seventh is 10-19 (abhorred in classical music up to the romantics), the minor second is 25-28, and the dreaded tritone is 5-7. Being a relatively simple ratio of small whole numbers, and primes to boot, it's surprising it's considered a dissonance. But this may be a european cultural convention since it's used a lot in other cultures.
Of course the major seventh is used extensively in jazz, where chromatic notes create strong tensions that lead to resolutions, the minor second is loved in the dominant with seventh for its tension demanding resolution to the tonic. Jazz is like the late romantics, chromatic notes are used elaborately to add interest to otherwise straightforward chord progressions, circles of fifths, blues 1-4-5's. But progressive is altogether different, using discord front and centre to make enjoyable music. There must be recognizable elements or it would be atonal. It's analogous to the way you won't laugh at a joke you know very well already, we need to enjoy something we have never heard before in a new combination of chords, melodies, chromatic notes. What is the explanation for the progressive fan's brain? Who is going to volunteer for functional MRI and PET scans?

I've thought a lot about this issue, whether our love for progressive music is an aberration of desire for novelty (analogous to the old joke that is no longer funny) or some higher intellectual processing of the basic auditory circuits of enjoyment. Everyone gets bored with a melody they know well, but we seem to be bored with a whole form of music, the standard song. No question the average person hears prog as weird, strange stuff. And that's exactly what this album is: weird, strange stuff. The first long track starts with a blues riff and gets into a long drawn-out jam session. The second side entitled Dr Seuss Ballet is more adventurous, reminiscent of that long improvised part in king crimson's 1969 court album. It's hard to tell if the music is composed or improvised, and it's pretty challenging even for the average prog fan. Album ends with an Egg-like bach keyboard fugue with electric piano-- a bit more atonal than the compositions of Dave Stewart

From http://brightsitez.com/node/6058271
"This obscure project's lone album is a truly unique piece of experimental jazz-rock. Things start off in a fairly "groovy" manner, but weirdness soon sets in, with psych guitar, ring-modulated electric piano and freaky "electronic sax" all over the place, sounding almost like Xhol Caravan's Tim Belbe jamming with Yuji Imamura & Air on a bad acid trip. It only gets crazier from there, going completely off the deep end by the conclusion of the first side-long track. Side two is a little more sedate, shifting between eerie atmospherics and jazzier sections.This group was the brainchild of Arnie Lawrence, who was once a member of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show orchestra (!?), but also had a long-running interest in experimental, psychedelic forms of jazz. As you listen, try to keep in mind that this madness was the creation of a man who once played alongside Doc Severinsen. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction!"

Personnel:
Arnie Lawrence - Saxes
Ron McClure - Bass
Ted Irwin - Guitar
Luther Rix - Perc
Dick Hyman - Keys
Mike Knotts - Keys
All music composed by the whole band

On the back of the album is a blurb-like quote from downbeat,
"The first time I listened to this music, I was awed. It's so unlike all the other synthesis music, the jazz-rock whatever. It's cosmic without being pretentious and down to earth without being trivial, at once freaky and funky, and altogether of the spirit, created in a free get-together of the spirit. All that happens happens because they're creating it as they will, out of and into all that they happen to be. And the more I listened, the more I was out of and into myuself, which is what this music is about."

No question the album and band name are from a book by Stewart Edward White (1940) which dealt with spirituality, and life after death. This is what the blurb is trying to suggest in typical seventies-speak I think. The unobstructed universe is thus open to spiritual movements throughout its range. What Dr Seuss is doing there, I have no idea.

Unobstructed Universe...

Lutha - Earth 1973

I look on life with mixed feelings...
What is life all about anyways, why are we here, what are we doing here. What am I doing here, here in my head as it were. How did I come to be, how did anyone else.
I've more than I deserved...
I have two children who will carry on my flame. But they are not me, they will not be me, and it's only a genetic imperative to produce children. It's the nature I can't escape, it's not me. If I leave behind my thoughts it is equally ephemeral. I have a happy life but I will always be struck by the sadness of awareness.
I've no rhyme nor purpose, I'm an empty room...
How do I know that anyone else is conscious? How do I know there is not just me conscious in the universe? But of course it might just as well be only me for all it matters. In the end when I die it won't make a difference how many other conscious individuals there are either here on earth or in the whole universe.
I draw the curtains so no one can see how empty I am...
I don't believe in god or soul or spirit. Every day I have to face the fact that when death comes it will be forever. How can life be meaningful in a world in which the sum total of one's experiences, life, memories, senses and sensations, will be taken away so abruptly. If it happens tomorrow life will be horribly incomplete, but if it happens in 40 years, it will not be any less incomplete to me.
The truth hurts me....
I think every day about this problem, and there is no solution of course. To die quickly is to be wholly unprepared, to die predictably, is to be even more unready. How will I say goodbye to my children? What will I tell them, what will they say to me that will make a difference? My wife mistakes these thoughts for depression, but it's not, it's awareness. There is only one thing truly eternal, Plato's ideal forms, which today we recognize as the eternity created by mathematics and science, truths which transcend all humanity. Godel's incompleteness theorem and Fermat's last theorem will be true whether or not humans or any intelligent species are present, they exist in a timeless and spaceless place. When we access the truths of mathematics which are the concepts of relations extended to their furthest logical implications we are in contact with the only eternal thing in our universe. Or is it even eternal? Is there another universe where Fermat was wrong?
It will take a long long time to open the door, if indeed I ever do. Should I succeed in passing from this room, I should become timeless...
Eternal truths are of course no comfort to those who like me are in that empty room looking out. And there are so many of these empty rooms in the world. Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? Like Gaugain we must ask ourselves these questions every day. If it's true that intelligence is a short-lived phenomenon expected to last perhaps a few thousands of years in the middle of a universe that is 14 billion years old and will continue to expand for trillions and trillions more, there truly is no meaning at all to our existence nor will we ever find any. No matter how amazing it is that the human brain can understand everything from quarks to cosmology the end of humanity or of my life will return the universe to its essentially timeless chaotic, cold, mechanical state. A state governed by wave functions and who knows what else unknown physics we will never touch in the platonic cave and again-empty room.

On this album there are two standout tracks, the aforementioned and quoted "Empty Rooms" and "Waterfall," which was the B side to bluesy single "Here and Now". Music is straightforward rock and folk with some (really enjoyable) progressive touches. The instrumental Waterfall has some beautiful strumming evoking the water flowing on top of relatively standard A minor and E minor cliffs.

Band History:
"Lutha was formed in Dunedin [New Zealand] in 1970. They established themselves very quickly in Dunedin, as all five members had previously played in top local bands such as Throb and Pussyfoot. They were insistent on remaining a Dunedin based band even after attracting considerable national interest.
They signed to HMV in 1972 and produced two albums during that year. They were the self-titled "Lutha" and "Earth".
Their first North Island gigs didn't come until late 1972. Had they moved to one of the larger centres, Lutha could have proved to be even more popular, but when they did shift, it was only to Christchurch and by that stage, 1973, it was too late."
http://www.sergent.com.au/music/lutha.html

Link will be up within 90 minutes of this post.

Waterfall...

Vesala Nan Madol 1974

I post this because of the similarity to the previous Aaltonen. The cover is equally beautiful, the music also a little bit more difficult than most of us would like, it's challenging-- actually it reminds me again of Moose Loose and Hiro Yanagida, but with less organ sound. I hope anonymous will agree.

Areous Vlor Ta...

Aaltonen - Etiquette

A much more difficult album than the strings one. The cover is typical seventies gorgeousness, a woman is staring out at a pond or fjord perhaps searching for the loch ness monster's mate up in northern europe. The colours of the photograph are very vivid but at the same time seem to be lost in time, specifically, 36 years ago. The music too seems to be lost in time, with the kind of experimental jazz we don't hear done very well anymore. The first song is a concession to jazz standards, but the rest is original craziness. Actually, come to think of it, this reminds me a lot of hiro yanagida, and moose loose, just like make lievonen did.

Tracklist

A1) But Not For Me
A2) Fountain
A3) Pieni Kaunis Tanssi Tyttö
B1) Summer
B2) Bhanki
B3) Etiquette
B4) Perhaps

Etiquette...

Mariavah - "Les Heures Incolores" {Belgium} [1979]

Belgian progressive in French style, first album, private pressing - More info welcome

Coquillages...







Link in comments...

Make Lievonen (Fin, 1977)

This is the last gem I'll be posting here, I promise to all. It's a miraculously superlative album of all-instrumental progressive jazz-rock, like a cross between Moose Loose and Bo Hansson maybe, just the right mix of originality and accessibility-- the former to satisfy the jaded long-standing music listener's need for newness, the latter to get the right emotional kick. In the overall sound it is most like the Hiro Yanagida albums. This stuff just feels like a power outlet plugged directly into my soul, that could be used to power up streetlights from here to downtown, it can't but make you happy and wholesome. The greatness of this album is the way the composer has fit the music to the vignettes so perfectly.

"Rain Dance" is pure F major happiness, a key often used for this kind of nature composition (e.g. Beethoven's pastoral symph) perhaps due to the rain-like sound of the b flat - ? Again synaesthetes will have to help here. "Sea Horse" tries to get that ocean feeling going again with the inevitable fender rhodes sound. A really weird melody then plays out in saxes and ?clarinet. Quite inappropriately the sea horse starts getting all funky with a banged out bass line and bluesy saxes. Hey! let's ride that sea horse straight outta town man! Funk makes a reappearance later in "Tickets please" (to a disco full of cougars?) "Monster Rally" does a fantastic chord change of D minor, heavy synth riff, to a surprising Bflat chord-- sounding quite monstrous indeed. "March of the Lonely Riders" does a plaintive, mysterious A minor to Aflat major-- great change, melody goes A C F E -- Eflat D C D -- then C Aflat A-- suddenly a tritonal E flat based chord clashes in on top of the A -- oh that great and magnificent tritone, said to be the most dissonant interval, so essential to good progressive and the health of the cerebral cortex! Later a bridge does a bass going up by semitones with a sax melody winding around on top-- reminds me of Mingus' Shoes of the Fisherman's Wife but it may be just coincidence, so often musical similarities are just that. "Peace Street" is again F major happiness, rolling down like a happy bus of schoolchildren into fields of gold, I can't imagine a human being who can't feel happy listening here, except maybe myself, for whom happiness is always clouded by the realization of the ultimate fate of extinction for humankind (latest IPCC predictions for business as usual temperature rise, 6 degrees by end century). There is one throwaway song ("Etyk" ) which keeps to the same chord (C7?) through the whole track, 8 minutes of it, it may move out of it but I didn't have the patience not to fast forward through most of the track. It should be a crime to dwell on the same chord like that, no matter how interesting the jazzy riffs on top are. Album ends with a cute 'farewell' song, this really reminds me of the Moose Loose style with a lot of flutes and soft chord landings. As I said, it's like a kind of pictures at an exhibition album, with very visual representations of moods.
Please enjoy this last treasure posted.

Peace Street Two...

An open letter...

When Shawn Fanning invented napster more than 10 years ago and the program broke out into the mainstream it was like being directly lifted up into heaven-- All of us who really love music must have realized instantly that this was going to totally change our worlds, the mp3s and the idea of sharing freely all the music of the past that had been hidden and kept secret in warehouses, record stores, people's collections, or even used record bins. I remember it like it was yesterday... I spent days and days finding album after album I had wanted to hear but couldn't, out of print stuff, rarities you could never find in stores, masses of regular albums I could never have bought. You might recall when napster was about to be shut down in 2001 and we frantically tried to download as much as possible before the end doing all-nighters just like in university. Some moved to winmx, I moved to audiogalaxy where there was no concept of leeches or hoarding, everyone was forced equally to share and take because of the set-up of that system. I never really thought about hoarding albums away until I learned about the record collectors who were so unwilling to part with their prized possessions, most of which turned out to be terrible! To pay 100 dollars for what is musically worthless-- no one can possibly argue that this is a good thing, unless you have invested so much you are past the point of no return. Music is bigger than any one of us, it's for sharing. We are in a minority, there are not a lot of progressive fans out there, why does it make sense to keep music away from the few people who can enjoy it? To be secretive with something so valuable -- as we must all agree, this stuff is valuable art-- it really seems pointless. I have never heard of a writer hiding his great novel away from people for fear of it getting well-read and well-known. I have never heard of people hiding a book of poetry they love to make sure no one else reads it. Even jd salinger only did this after he became rich from catcher in the rye.

If a really really good album is lost forever to the world because the only people who own it are a couple of collectors guarding it in a bank vault safety deposit box, isn't it kind of a tragedy for humankind? I think because of my children I worry about this kind of thing a lot, and this is my reason. A given album on the blog is downloaded by perhaps 1000 people total, but this is in the whole world. And that's pathetic, out of a population of 7 billion humans almost. Instead let's try to spread the word and share everything.

Jaune et Encore 1979

Another shockingly good french album of jazz-rock, almost as masterful as the earlier Patrice Meyer. The originality of the composition is breathtaking, as well as the high dynamic. The only fault here is the unevenness, sometimes the artist gets caught up in unnecessary pyrotechnics or allows a song to drift for a bit. Otherwise the playing is extraordinary. How did these guys come up with so much originality, creativity, passion, fierceness of invention, back then in the seventies? My jaw drops as I hear this, there are more musical ideas here than in an average semester at any music conservatory. Where has all that gone now? And how many gems like this are there still out there? I wouldn't know, ask the man who has everything. He's not likely to share much with you if you know me, of course. He quite hates me now, you understand, you'll see his comments posted anon under anonymous. (It's not enough to have everything, no one else can have anything.) I'm OK with that, and plus, my wife would really like me to give up this "weird little obsession" with collecting progressive music, as she calls it.

Credit for the rip will appear anonymously, btw. Please enjoy this album anyways despite all the drama.

Chimère...

Kornet EP

All of Kornet's albums are freely available on the internet already, this one is less so. I sincerely hope I don't offend any big collectors or men who have almost everything by posting this. I have asked permission-- repeatedly-- from the original ripper (his name is Jack too) and I got the go-ahead at about noon EST today, give or take five minutes. All I can do otherwise is to apologize, to apologize from the deepest layers of my heart, offering up my forgiveness in return.

I think all progressive fans know this band, if not, they really should brush up on them, they are a really good example of what I meant when I said european fusion really seems to blow american fusion out of the water sometimes. There's only three songs, but they are worth hearing at least once before you die, which is going to be soon for me. There's enough energy in track "727" to power two concordes from Paris to Stockholm in less than the time of an EP, you have to hear it to believe it. I can only hope more people enjoy this than want me to get run over by a garbage truck tomorrow.

727...

First Mysterious Appearance (Net 86)

An ultra-rare almost neo-prog album that reminds of belgians kandahar, machiavel, from the Netherlands. It has a few really nice progressive moments but the songwriting is a little bit bland.

A1 Intro / Insects 7:47
A2 The Last Detail 4:30
A3 Lord of the Underworld 5:35
B1 I've Been Here Before 10:00
B2 Fire and Music 4:29
B3 First Mysterious Appearance 5:50

First Mysterious Appearance...

Cloud Nine (1980 Ger)

A pretty rough around the edges private pressing German release, hard to find information about. It sounds very much like the progressive hard style of the time, no fusiony elements, pretty good riffs and chord changes from here to there.

Basta...

Amakudari 1987

"Amakudari (descent from heaven) is the institutionalised practice where Japanese senior bureaucrats retire to high-profile positions in the private and public sectors. The practice is increasingly viewed as corrupt and a drag on unfastening the ties between private sector and state which prevent economic and political reforms."-- from Wikipedia. It is also the name of a group which produced a completely unknown album in Toronto, Canada (by the CBC) in 1987 and disappeared without a trace, although they resurfaced 2 years ago with a follow up. They mixed an ethnic sound with well-crafted acoustic guitars, judiciously using some sitar, with very masterful compositions. The overall production sounds more like chamber music than new age because of the quality of the writing and use of piano and string instrument accompaniment in many places.
Listen to the E minor patterns in the second song, "Childhood yearned" which using the flat 7th and 6th (i.e. notes d and c sharp) perfectly convey the emotional state of nostalgia. As usual a cello playing sustained notes provides the deeper undercurrent of sadness. Suddenly the song will modulate into D minor, then A minor, then G minor, which is what separates it from the usual trancelike stuff which typically operates entirely within one key or even whole songs never stray from one chord. Although the titles definitely seem to suggest new age (shaman, incantation, caves, etc.) we wouldn't hesitate to classify this as progressive music.
"Ghosts of Christmas past" (terrible song title choice) in G minor weaves a melody with major third, minor third, minor sixth, second, virtually every chromatic note is used. In this case a xylophone I think has been brought in to accompany the sitar. The last song, "Whale song" has some nice soft synth waves under gorgeous guitar arpeggios. There is the customary and unfortunate middle section of whale song effects before the previous chords pick up again to finish out. Too bad no reference was made to the finnish, icelandic, and in particular japanese IWC attempts to lift the moratorium on commercial whaling-- thousands of whales are killed and served to schoolchildren in Japan -- although the IWC allows them to be killed for 'scientific purposes'. Although they are well aware of the celebrated intelligence of the cetaceans, not many people out there are aware that the majority of species including the right, the sperm, and the magnificent blue are still very much in danger of extinction. This is not going to stop the aforementioned countries from stacking the deck with political bribes to finally lift the moratorium on whale-hunting, an event expected to happen at the next meeting in a couple of years. By then presumably the insatiable appetite for bluefin tuna (maguro) will exterminate this magnificent animal as well.

Childhood Yearned...