Mr. Euphoria (USA, 1983)

Continuing on with American guitar-prog rarities in honour of the upcoming election in the United States, for which I strongly encourage all registered voters and registered nonvoters to go out and vote as soon as possible in yet another useless exercise of wasted time and unnecessary energy so the haughty political oligarchy or rather plutocratic ruling class can feel justified to do whatever it wishes with no regard whatsoever for human beings or their environment (and to think they used to laugh at communist countries for their useless preordained elections--  now you get two identical parties to choose from instead of just one-- woo-hoo!)--  here's the album that to me seemed like a progressive masterpiece utterly lost to time and even to prog fans.  [Footnote: What we need is a real "truth party" that could state the obvious: this is all a vacuous diversion so power can remain with the top point one percenters and the corporations they are eternally married to 'till death do us part'.]

Very simply, this sounds like the tightest, hardest, no-fat version of mid-seventies king crimson you could imagine, as if the great Fripp was totally focussed on song-writing and brutally keen on cutting out all filler, chamber pretensions, and excess frippery. Track 3 (1 Day 1 Month 1 Year) even features some of that trademark staccato Fripp guitar style. 

All songs are instrumentals powered forward by fully-automatic electric guitar chainsaw action.  Occasionally there is a touch of synthesizer (also played by the formidable guitarist, whose name is Richard Rhodes.  His backing band consists of Gordon Rhodes on drums (sib?), Tim Sanz on bass, guest Eric Petersen on synths for track 5.  Tracks 2, 5, 7 are compositions by Sanz and the rest is credited to R. Rhodes.) The energy and tritones never really let up until the fierce ending in which you feel like you scraped your face and right temple on the pavement in extreme music-listening sports.  Guaranteed the ceaseless tritoning and riffs played as thirds (just like Fripp) will drive your wife (and kids, if you're unlucky enough to have those) out of the room, and if they are unable to so leave, they will be begging you for mercy (or at least throwing plates at your head).

When you listen to the rip notice too that the record is mint, the sound couldn't be any cleaner-- oh the joy of listening to that fresh vinyl (from almost 30 years ago) rotate..... and thanks to the mighty osurec for teaching me about this unknown band.  As always I am following in his giant footsteps.

As sample I uploaded the intro, with its awesome hard diminished chord riff, crank it up as loud as you can when you listen, it's awe-inspiring in the manner of the (ancient) seven wonders of the world. Note how the crazy reverbed-out lead guitar plays such interesting harmonies on top of the driving riff.


And the third track "1 Day 1 Month 1 Year" with its "frippertronics:"



Once again I repeat it, how is it possible for music this excellent to be so lost so completely?

John Macey "Eclipse" (USA,guitar fusion ,1981)

John Macey "Eclipse" (USA,guitar fusion ,1981)

One day,I found this album here and have loved it and ,at last,purchased the vinyl.
It is near-MINT vinyl.....so lucky !!!
I am very happy to enjoy this passionate prog guitar fusion album with all of you.
John in Heaven will be happy to know his surpurb album is spreading all over the world......

I offer WAVE file only because you can get the mp3 from the link above.

track5

Mike Elliott - Diffusion (USA, 1983)

The copyright on this record is for 1983, in reality, it was recorded between May 1980 and Feb. 1981, as you can tell actually.  All compositions are by Elliott except the first song, co-written with Ricky Peterson, and The Air (last song) which is taken from Bach.

This is a radical departure from the earlier "City Traffic" -- on this record Elliott does american style fusion along the lines of the Shadowfax - Watercourse Way album.  Notice for ex. on the second song, the song for Janny, those stunning flying-carpet moog passages by Peterson.

A kind of folky vibe appears with the open string strumming on the next piece, Saguaro Bend (in Arizona?).  Then a more groovy laid-back fusionary outpouring in Lothlorien with some really tasty chord changes that just spice the smoothness so perfectly, like a jalapeno chocolate truffle.

Altogether, so well-produced, enjoyable, and extremely well-written, I find it distinctly sad that with this the 'Natural Life' discography, which we covered for almost a decade, comes to an end.  Of course today, Mike Elliott still performs the guitar, that I don't doubt, his talent is immense.  But what does he now think of his past work, lost to time?

(Note that the album I have features a red cover, not the typical black of the above photo, which was the original pressing from Celebration.  Mike says this about the cover: "The batik featured on the cover was given to me several years ago by a student, and was done by a friend of his.  Time has dulled my memory, and I can no longer remember the names of the student or the artist, to that unknown artist my apologies, and thanks..." )  [Wouldn't that be great if the student-artist announced themselves in a comment below?]

I'll include as sample the majestic moogs travelling the intergalactic space between our right and left ears on "For Janny":

Notice the really gorgeous delicate-mystery atmosphere these musicans build up with the E minor intro.  Here, the F sharp (a 9 for E minor) is being used tritonally on the C major chord that starts the song which is technically what provides the mysterious mood.  Very soon, Peterson's moog starts to assert itself playing string-section-like backing notes before the guitar re-takes command.  Pay attention to the end of the song where we get that 'flying - moog' effect that always makes me think of a spaceship in deep space.

The big highlight of the record is the extended synths-guitar suite on side 2 called appropriately enough, "An Eclectic Suite", with titles of The Float, The Fat, The Snake, The Wave, any fusion-fan will absolutely salivate like a pavlov dog (to use Mick Jagger's wonderful proverbial phrase)  over this grinding machine of electric jazz-rock factory-line luxury riffs... disappointingly though it ends in a fade-out, a bit of a cop-out I would say for such a technically proficient and inventive composition.

Coming soon btw is another big american lost progressive masterpiece ( this time not fusion for a change )  that I can't wait to feature, after which I will be on holidays for quite some time, so hopefully, the others will fill in to keep us all occupied through the cold fall...

VA - Folk and Rock (Germ., 78)

A beautiful VA album of folk rock from Germany, featuring well-known bands Aquarell, Hartleed, Lilienthal, and the awesome Emma Myldenberger, with each band playing 2-3 songs.  Fans of folk will surely be thrilled with this entry.  I was particularly impressed with the Emma songs (except the last one, which made me want to vomit) of course, we all know and love this group -- all reading this should (by now) be familiar with this band, and if not, I recommend you definitely dig into their discography.

Btw, several of these songs are interpretations of traditional folk songs. You will see on the scanned (lol!) insert which songs are written by the band and which are trad.

Thanks again to Sebastian and the growing bin records website for bringing this to our attention!
As samples, first the bizarrely-titled track from Hartleed:
Wok op fro + Schottentanz




And then, the Emma M. entry called Colchiques:

Esa Helasvuo - Think-Tank-Funk (Finland, 1973)

 

 

I will continue with the Natural Life discography in a moment, note that Mike Elliott went on to do two more solo records, City Traffic (similar to Atrio, mostly jazz standards solo or with rhythm section), and the much more fusion-oriented and interesting Diffusion in the early eighties.  As well Robert Rockwell III (don't forget that number!) did a solo record with the band called Androids, much more in the funk direction.  This was just before the Natural Life records came out I believe.

 

Now I will take this opportunity to introduce you to a contributor by the name of Morgan, a multilinguist irish-finnish lad who has shared quite a number of rarities for us in the recent past.  He let me know about this record which really stunned me silent, due to its combination of classical compositional skills with the beautiful electric fusion sound of the seventies we know and love so deeply.  Originally he had it on vinyl but recently it was reissued in a small number of copies in Finland on CD.  All the usual comments I've made about european fusion apply: the skills of composition (not surprising from the country of Sibelius), the variety of tones and emotions, the enormous technical proficiency, add to this the uniquely finnish (or is it scandinavian?) tendency towards very progressive jazz sounds.

 

Artist: Esa Helasvuo
Album: Think-Tank-Funk
Release: 1973 / 2011
Genre: jazz

“Hardly the funky set you might guess from the title, but a really compelling set of Finnish jazz from the early 70s – one that’s got a contemplative sense of sound, right up there with some of the best ECM material from the time! The project is led by pianist Esa Helasvuo, who also seems to play electric as well as acoustic – stretching out over slow-building lines from a group that includes Hasse Walli on guitar, Teppo Hauta-aho on bass, and Edward Vesala on drums – plus some extra-cool added violin and viola, which make these sharp edges that underscore things very well. Titles include “Song For A Tube”, “Lily Flower”, “Mixed Fruit Flavoured Chorus”, “Think Tank Funk”, and “Dialogue (parts 1 & 2)”.”


A Personal Note From Mr. Morgan:
KIITOS Rocket-Records uudelleen julkaisusta ja mikäli jaossa oleva äänite on vastoin sääntöjänne, poistamme linkin välittömästi!


Oh yes, and what about that title?  have you ever heard anything more politically ridiculous as an album title, the think-tank funk?  how about we send this album to one of those so-called 'right-wing think tanks' for entertainment... 

Natural Life - All Music (USA, 1976)

We'll continue on with their discography with this record in which Bill Berg is no longer credited to percussion but is still doing the covers and artwork, which in this case are just stunning, with the mauve watercolours on the back particularly beautiful. The music is the same chamber-fusion with a light touch of flutes, soprano saxes for colour, etc. Let me introduce this with some fine a-propos words from our very own apps:

" Very melodic US jazz/fusion with some smooth sax work,delicate electric piano and ethereal bass lines not unlike the softer side of RETURN TO FOREVER."

Well said. Again, it boggles the mind that these records are so rare, not a cd reissue in sight, when the quality both of composition and of musicianship, are so utterly top-notch. And that, of course, is why I indulge in this bizarre and time-consuming hobby, it's a kind of community service to rip these old records for posterity, in the hopes posterity will respect the astounding work that went into them and give them a higher spot in the musical-quality scale of things than oh I don't know, the latest Britney Spears cd, perhaps. And for those like me who do believe we are heading towards a post-industrial world of blackouts and brownouts, it is quite imaginable that the manually-cranked record player may yet make a comeback, a hundred years from now, when electricity is sporadic, and people want to listen to this virtuosity from the past -- on the other hand, we are more likely to see manually-operated computers and cd players anyways if that comes to pass, so forget that fantasy.

I particularly love the last track, Elysian Fields, in which the musicians really pour their hearts out in their improvisations, with a gorgeous evocation of the paradisaical title. Why is music so tightly connected with emotions? As I said, it's the pre-eminent mystery of arts, because of the highly abstract nature of music. Is it a byproduct of the construction of the human mind? A byproduct of the necessity of creativity for intelligence? (Intelligence is half creativity, since solving new problems with old tools mandates that ability we describe as such.) Is it purely a social construct to foster strong groups in a shared enterprise? Is it possible to understand purely mathematically, in the terms I used earlier, for ex. as a simplicity of processing power in the auditory computing areas releasing a pleasurable sensation? Is it as some psychologists have discussed, a kind of pleasure-technology along the lines of a cheesecake, which doesn't exist in nature, has no greater purpose but is created solely for taste pleasures?  Let's first understand the delineation of the problem: The amount of time and energy some devote to music (such as [cough] some of us bloggers)  is such that it cries out for explanation in terms of how it must have enhanced the survival prospects for proto-humans. For sure music, as well as menopause, menstruation (both of which do not exist in almost all other animals with a couple of exceptions), homosexuality (which does exist in other animals), and the female orgasm, are the pre-eminent mysteries of human evolutionary theory. I will not mention the beautification of females as opposed to males (the reverse of what is seen in almost all other animals) since this is relatively well understood both in terms of the fact men must be choosy when they are so invested in their families and children (vs. other species in which the men donate their sperm and then abandon ship forever), and also of course the cultural effects of living for the most part in patriarchal society where powerful men are highly sought after as household heads. In this regard it's interesting to reflect on the fact that biologically in humans, both men are women are equally drab or equally beautiful (say, to a discerning chimpanzee it's hard to say who is more attractive), however, there is huge cultural pressure on females to improve their colours and looks. (Just think: why were women not born with bright red lips, not needing a lipstick industry?) Thus, the idea is that patriarchal society has not been around long enough to enhance the actual physical beauty of women. (And of course, I promise in a future post I will delve much deeper into these female evolutionary mysteries including the large mammary glands, female attractiveness, and female orgasm, probably much deeper than really necessary.)

Elysian Fields:

Natural Life - Unnamed Land (USA, 1977)

On this record, which I think is quite superior to the previously posted ST, the basic quintet (recall this comprises Mike on guitar, Robert Rockwell III on saxes, Bill Berg on drums (and cover art), Bobby Peterson on piano, and W. Peterson Jr. on bass) is augmented by a half dozen more musicians playing vibes, flutes, congas, clarinet, and Rick Peterson on synths (on the last track).  Each song is composed by a different musician pretty much.  For me the standout is the collaborative track "Trio" which is arranged by Elliott, but composed by the two Peterson  gentlemen.   This record has a kind of smooth overall softness in composition and arrangement that to me is so attractive and typical of the late seventies style that, as I mentioned, is utterly concerned with crafting beautiful music with no cynicism, irony, technical artifice, or impediments.

Both "Unnamed Land" and the next, "All Music" are really masterpieces in this genre of american chamber fusion, like the famous Coalition Mindsweepers from osurec.  Btw I'm confused about the placement of the ST Natural Life, although the date on the sleeve is 1977, it seems originally it was the first record to appear, since it predates Mike Elliott's Atrio from 1974 and seems to be a little rougher than these next 2 records.  Presumably it was private pressed first, then rereleased on ASI?

I want to draw your attention to the track Trio, in the middle part of which there is an absolutely stunning vibes-flute interaction, this part is called "Migration" and is credited to bassist Will Peterson.  I don't know how you can more perfectly 'describe' acoustically this image of birds in a wetland, taking flight, dipping, soaring, splashing, in a soft and beautiful landscape.  And it leads so wonderfully into the springtime with the soprano sax from Robert Rockwell.  (As I said before, the soprano sax and the clarinet are classic instruments for these seasons.)  Pay attention as you get suddenly an ascending riff (on the sax) exactly like a bird flying away towards the end.  Just stunning.

And what about the cover drawing from Berg? Well, seems to be a group of native americans or perhaps africans in shallow waters at a beach with the vision of ancestors in the sky-- esthetically great, but the concept?  And the faces in the sky--  yikes!
Here's the track I mentioned, Trio:




TS

Mike Elliott - Atrio 1974

This is the guitarist-leader of Natural Life accompanied by the rhythm section of the band, that is, bassist Willard Peterson Jr. and drummer Bill Berg.  Without the keyboardist I think the fusion was left aside and what we get here is some softer electric guitar standards and compositions.  Reprised or rather forshadowed (since this album came before the ST Natural Life posted yesterday) is the beautiful ballad Theme for Carla.  Incidentally the dummer, Bill Berg, is the highly talented artist responsible for the cover drawings of all these records (you'll see that they all are from the same guy).

One thing I used to love about jazz back when I was an all-out fan was the musicians' dedication to sheer and unalloyed beauty, along with an inclination towards virtuoso perfection.  These are really old-school values which rock exploded in its insistence on honesty thereby sacrificing technique.  But when Elliott plays each note of the melody so clearly with gorgeous backing chords in "Theme for Carla" you almost get that sense the beauty is so intense it's like looking at a beautiful landscape say Waimea Canyon on Kauai (in Hawai'i) in the brightest daylight without sunglasses, or perhaps, it's as if you were having a date with the stunning Dayana Mendoza and she's laughing at your every word.  But then the record skips and you think:  "damn you, tristan!?!"

The record closes out with a couple of solo guitar tracks. Again, the mastery of chords on "you don't know what love is"  is simply astounding, along with the delicacy of touch I would have been thrilled with this back when I was a jazz fan.  But after discovering progressive rock there was to be no going back for me.

(Theme for Carla)

You Don't Know:

Natural Life - ST (USA, 1977)

 

Again thanks to the mighty osurec for introducing me to this band that to me is reminiscent of the Muffins in their more approachable, less grumpy moments.  It's headed by Mike Elliott who was quite prolific in the seventies, most of the composition is credited to him.  Read the notes on the back for info on the music.  There will be more to come, promise, or rather, threaten?

Princess Flower & The Moon Rays - "Dreaming The Magic Of Your Maya" 2LP (1968/1970) (kindly submitted by polvere di farfalla)

"Dreaming the Magic of Your Maya was recorded in room number 22, at the Hotel Stella in Paris, over a three-month period in 1967. This was where Ziska and Loren were living at the time. It was a garret room on the top floor of the famous/infamous left bank hotel and room 22 was the best room in the place, overlooking the Jardin du Luxembourg, on Rue Monseieur-le-Prince. It was small, you couldn't fit more than fifteen people in it

The hotel was full of musicians and poets and performes and artists and various colorful people moving up and down in the bohemian world. Friends would drop by room 22 often and engage in spontaneous music making. Loren kept a Sony reel to reel at the ready and recorded all these sessions. Sometimes, when more people showed up than could fit in the room, they would break into groups and to to play music in the park. It was a time of intense experimentation and freedom, of pushing the boundaries. Meanwhile the student revolution of 1968 was fomenting. It was an exciting time to be in Paris...." from artwork

- Fej Mornin - guitar
- Raja Samyana - percussion, drums, dumbek, chant
- Loren Standlee - vocals, flute, harp, alto flute, mouth harp, chant
- Daevid Allen - guitar
- Ziska Baum - chant
- Patrick Firpo - guitar
- Loren Lawner - violin

LP1 - Paris, 1968
22A
I Lovin Spaceship
II Women of Moon
III Vanishing Rama
IV Guharam Rock
22B
I Between Spirits
II Ancient Faces

LP2 - NYC, 1970
C
I Rainbow Forest
II Titicaca
D
I Voyage to Nebadon
II Ananda

Thanks to polvere di farfalla for the rip (flac format + artwork)! :o)

Rainbow Forest...
Titicaca...

link in comments...

Arturo Meza con Gente de Mexico (Mexico,1985) ....prog folk

Arturo Meza con Gente de Mexico (Mexico,1985) ....prog folk

What's your ultimate favorite 10 prog albums ?

In my case,
The following 10 albums are listed at once.. (no order)

1. Eduard Artemiev　"Warmth of Earth" (Russia)
2. Mike Oldfield "Incantations" (UK)
3. Tribute "New Views " (Sweden)
4. Genesis "Foxtrot" (UK)
5. Genesis "Selling England by the Pound" (UK)
6. Maria Burmaka　 "N 9"(Ukraine,)
7. YES "Close to the Edge" (UK)
8. Steve Hackett " Voyage of the Acolyte" (UK)
9 .Ashra Temple "New Age of Earth" (Germany)

And the last one is ....

This album by Arturo Meza.

In fact,he recorded  almost thr same tracks twice.
And released  twice. (maybe both in 1985)
The other one (as his 1st solo album) was also released as CD before.RYM
But" this "one has never been released as  CD. RYM
And I believe that "this" only vinyl version is much better than his 1st solo album.

I got this vinyl in 1985,and continue listening until today,, and it alway gives me  a lot of joy and discovery .
Happy to enjoy this Masterpiece with all of you.

List up  your "ultimate 10 favorite prog albums" here  if you can ,please .!



track1

Lenny Mac Dowell - Airplay (1980, Germany)

Lenny, real name Friedemann M. Leinert is a brilliant flautist from Germany. Starting with Flute Power he made some beautiful jazz-rock albums in this period, of note for me is the masterpiece about politics and the environment called "Balance of Power, " which was in fact released to CD and is available for purchase.   He went on to produce more ambient or new agey stuff later in the 80s, similar to Chris Hinze.  As far as I know this nice light-fusion record from the later fusion era has never been re-released.  All the titles are composed by Lenny except where indicated on tracks.  His backing band includes the following musicians: Mike Herting, keys, Peter Oehler, guitars, Horst Stachelhaus, bass, Manfred von Bohr, drums.  Recorded by Carlos Albrecht August 1980.

Other Music - Prime Numbers (USA, 1980)

This album is more acoustic and indonesian-gamelan-influenced than the previous post of "Incidents Out Of Context" (which featured both synths and elec. guitar)  but the unusual tunings from self-made instruments come out a bit clearer in this earlier work.  The group, although still founded by Dale Soules, Rosenthal, and David Doty, is much bigger as you can see from the back image with the addition of a slew of musicans who jumped ship after this first release-- I don't think I could really blame them when you consider how utterly uncommercial their output was.
Now I'll transcribe some of the liner notes included inside this record for your edification as they really illuminate  the oddness of this music.

"  The Tuning:
Other Music's tuning system, affectionately known as OMJ 14 is a form of just intonation with 14 unequal intervals per octave. Designed in May 1977 by David Doty and Dale Soules, OMJ14 is derived primarily from the ancient greek modes recorded by the 2nd century Greek theorist Ptolemy in his Harmonics. Just tuning systems are characterized by the fact that all their intervals can be represented by ratios of whole numbers. For this reason just systems possess superior consonance when compared to the equally tempered intonation now in general use.
The Instruments:
As in indonesian gamelans, the foundation of OM's ensemble consists of metallophones. These instruments, comprised of aluminum bars suspended over individual tuneable resonators, span a total of 5 octaves divided among 4 voices, bass, tenor, alto, and soprano. The alto register is enriched by the tones of a 2 octave marimba with keys of cocabola, a S American rosewood. Additional coloration is provided by a set of tubular brass chimes, originally part of a pipe organ, retuned to OM's system.  A variety of drums are heard on this record,"
incl. both balinese and western instruments. The flute on "Gending" is made of a 3/4 inch acrylic tubing, it's a notch flute and plays a scale of 7 tones. The singer on the track "Blue" (which I've sampled below for interest) is the composer, Dale Soules.  He is reciting a poem which is about being a social animal, in a very odd and tuneless way that somehow reminds me of Viola Crayola's song "What is the meaning of love" or a Hatfield and the North flattened by antipsychotic drugs perhaps (and I mean that hundred percent in a complimentary way).
I don't have the time to completely transcribe the liner notes so hopefully anyone interested can glean some more info from the scan I attached.  There follows a discussion of the musicians, their trainings, and detailed descriptions (highly interesting) of their compositions.

Now for those who don't know the idea behind just tuning, I will briefly go over the basics, simply, the reason an octave or fourth or fifth is consonant or sounds good to our ears is because the frequencies are whole number ratios, e.g. an octave above is twice the frequency or half the length of string required, similarly for the other accepted basic tones.  When you try to create more than 5 notes with this system unfortunately it breaks down and  you lose the whole number ratios, as well, you can't really modulate to another key even as simply as going from C to G since then you have to use slightly different tunings for the other intervals-- get it?  For this purpose the europeans invented their well-tempered system of 12 tones, which to me works perfectly well, but from time to time people have rebelled against it.  Why these whole number ratios sound agreeable to our ears must be because the energy used in the brain in processing the simple overtones and frequencies makes it easier for neuronal transmissions, and this simplicity of interpretation is perceived as positive somehow.  I don't think there could be any other explanation for why this is so though it has never been proven true.  For those of us who love prog as I've said before, on the contrary it's the addition of dissonances and unusual sounds that is pleasing, and that has to do with our tendency to be bored quickly with the usual sounds and to require some kind of extra mental stimulation in our art.  Note that as open-minded as I am, I still detest the 12-tone atonality of Arnold Schoenberg because there is no diatonic or harmonic basis against which it is building dissonances in opposition.

So there you have it, more mathematically correct pop tunes with long memories...

Other Music - Incidents Out of Context (USA, 1983)

The blurb on the back cover says:  "It's not easy being a composer of music so novel, so offbeat that it has no name.  Folks at cocktail parties inevitably ask, Just what sort of music does your group play, anyways?  and there you are.  No quick answer.  One tends to try and explain the 8-year history of Other Music, and / or  the 8000 year history of world music.  One becomes entangled describing arcane tuning systems, instrument-building techniques, and intricate electronic circuitry.  Perhaps it would be best and wisest simply to say that we write polyrhythmic pop tunes with a long memory.  we have fun with them and hope you will too."  - Other Music

It's unusual for american composers to use 'world music' or at least it was, in those days, compared to the europeans who embraced the style and added it frequently to the progressive mix (cf. the recent Pan-Ra posting).  These guys hail from California and did another record in 1980 called Prime Numbers.  I think their originality, although it reminds us a lot of the 'minimal synth' stuff coming out of Germany, deserves to make their product better known, and to me, it is definitely utterly unique and enjoyable.  I also love the humour (or humor) that they inject into the mix.  On the front the band is feasting on some electronic components, on the back, chopsticks are holding an old circuit component.  I think they could be best described for the prog fan as an american version of A la ping pong with some Third Ear Band-like medieval folk elements thrown in.

 

Musicians are:  Andrew Fischer - hammered dulcimer, dumbec, english horn, metallophones, synths.

David Doty - cello, marimba, metallophones, synth.

Dale S. Soules - french horn, trombone.

Carola B. Anderson - drums, marimba, metallophones, sax, synth.

Henry S. Rosenthal - chimes, drums, elec. guitar, metallophones, synth.

 

All the selections are in just intonation -- I will explain in the next post what this is, for those who don't know.  I will also explain therein what their "metallophone" is, as well as launch into a long and boring disquisition about the mathematics of music and its connexion to neurobiology which no one will read fully, a subject that endlessly fascinates me to the same extreme degree it bores my wife to tears.  The "just intonation" is what gives the music the ethereal-ethnic sound that is not familiar to us (in the west that is) ever since the days of the well-tempered klavier.  The cover and the photography are by the percussionist, Carola B. Anderson.

Incidentally I knew nothing at all about this group until osurec introduced me to them more than a year ago, thanks again to his knowledge and expertise in unearthing these lost treasures for us all.  Why do I always feel like I playing catch-up to these master collectors?

So here we go, 'polyrhythmic pop tunes with a long memory' ...

VA - Unknown Titles.... Known Titles {Germany} (1981)

Again credit to discobasso for his growingbinrecords store for the discovery of this VA album from Germany with utterly unknown artists, save the 'other' Alcatraz (not the famous vampire state bldg group), who did a record called "Music Made by Hands". When you listen to this record, ignore the first 2 reggae throwaway tracks, unless for some utterly unfathomable reason you have an excuse for liking reggae (here we can expect a comment below along the lines of, "hey! watch it! I like reggae!"), focus on track 3, a fusion band along the lines of germans psi, lindwurm, zebulon, etc., called "Cheapness Forever" which performs a beautiful grandiose instrumental starting with some wonderful dissonances on the horns and petering out to a very attractive e minor ending. Some popish and folkish numbers ensue, then after the pedestrian rock band "Railroad Track" punishes you at the start of side b, you will be shocked into quiescence by the band Melange and their Trettioariga-Kriget-like progressive hard rock. As I've said before, it's hard to do prog on a heavy metal basis, but these guys perform magnificently. Both tracks are superb compositions in the genre and it's utterly a tragedy this group did not make an album. Or did they? A quick search I did, complicated by the commonness of the band name, was fruitless, but I know there are folks out there who know far more than me about the subject (e.g. Sebastian probably).

Included as samples, the aforementioned Track 3, and the hard rock titles on side b.

Cheapness Forever - Eintopf


Melange - A kin to rock


Melange - Brontosaurus [sadly, there is no such dinosaur anymore, it was renamed --Editor.]


Oh yes, & please take a good admiring look at that cover art-- I just love it to death, a big reason I bought this record from the great discobasso at www.growingbinrecords.com.

Check it out!! An incredibly well-thought-out selection of rare and well-priced vinyls!

Chris Hinze - Parcival Live 1976

As I was making my way through the Chris Hinze discography for attempted completion (for which success is slated circa October 2079), I noticed this item and thought, please tell me it's not related to the Wagnerian opera with its embarassing fantasies (I here tactfully avoid use of the freudian word 'auto-erotic' often used in conjunction with this phrase and subject) of teutonic supremacy for which reason, along with the loathsome tautologies and indescribable boringness of his music, I now am utterly averse to this composer... but no, it's not related in any way to Parsifal the opera -- in fact it's one of those apollo moon landing attempts at combining jazz and classical with composed and improvised elements to craft a jazz-opera in double-LP format, back when the future was so beautifully bright for intelligent and adventurous and masterfully composed music--! and bell-bottoms, polyester suits, moon rocks, and Bill Crosby's Kool-aid (without the postmodern mass-death-irony of Jonestown's spiking) ruled the day... oh happy times....

How could this formidable accomplishment (in an operatic box no less, not foldout sleeve) be so forgotten, abandoned by the wayside like the detritus of a fast food picnic, even in the realms of jazz? Possibly because it's terrible and deserves to be forgotten? Not likely if it includes such luminaries as Jiggs Whigham, Gerry Brown on drums, Charlie Mariano on saxes, Michael Becker, and the whole apparatus composed and arranged entirely by Chris!

But you can judge for yourself if this is alike to the aforementioned hamburger wrapper or instead Hinze's magnum opus lost to history... I have recorded it for your enjoyment and in the end, you decide... is this cd-worthy or delete-bin-worthy? My own opinion is obvious, I spent several hours in an attempt at properly cutting the chapters into tracks that could be more easily enjoyed... but we need a master shige or should I say, remaster shige, to properly do justice to this work. One thing that I would mention is I would have wished that it had been recorded in a studio, no matter how professionally the sound is recorded live, it's always lacking something in clarity, although I understand others feel the opposite, that the live nature of it enhances enjoyment in some subtle way.

Now for those who are impatient I would ask you to proceed on to the music, I want to do this work a bit of justice by discussing the story behind it and Chris Hinze's original conception which was indeed to attempt to emulate Wagner by resuscitating the old forged (it is of course not an original element of goth mythology like siegfried) story of Parcival or Persifal, however you wish to spell the name. It's a beautiful story though and it's unfortunate it was essentially co-opted by Wagner, in the same way that, in modern times, the search for the holy grail from the crusade days cannot be told without reference to Monty Python's treatment of the subject, at least for those who are older than about 35 (40?) I would think. For I experimented at work and asked all those in the sub-35 set about the holy grail and the looks of befuddled puzzlement were totally at odds with the twinkling in the eyes of all those over 40, who immediately set into talking about the knights who say ni, etc. Anyways the story is about how the hero both must prove himself to King Arthur and the other knights of the round table (oh no not them again...) and also attempt to find the holy grail and the sacred spear to be brought back 'home' again to England. He must both prove himself a valiant knight and show himself to be pure (good luck on that one).

Biographically, Chris Hinze studied first at the royal conservatory in The Hague, then moved on as so many brilliant composers did to the Berklee School in Boston. For the 1972 Holland Festival he was commissioned to compose "Live Music Now" a suite for orchestra which won him the Beethoven prize in Bonn in 1974. The present work was also a commissioned piece for the Holland Festival, of 1976. What glorious times those must have been in the musical world...

I mentioned some of the luminaries on this recording, the orchestra is conducted by Dolf v.d. Linden, the actual CH combination includes James Batton on keyboards and voices (he's phenomenal), Doug Hammond on drums, John Turner on bass, Stephan Diez on guitar (who went on to do a fantastic fusion album called Mirrors), Mariano on saxes... Others are Kenny Wheeler on trumpet, John Lee on bass, Cheryl Alexander on lead vocals-- Hey wait a minute do we need this many bassists and drummers?

As you listen bear in mind that Chris is responsible for all the composition and arrangements, from which you can see his talent is immense. This is so much more than just a straightforward jazz concept album, there is an incredible variety to the music, especially notice the Ravel-like impressionist pieces at the start of the second side, evoking mystic travels, butterflies, various animals, and the dinosaurus (?!? what the--?), my favourite part of the piece for its compositional complexity and interest.

I will do scans later (there is a booklet inside, and the record cover has a hilarious walkman ad with hinze promotion) and attach as its own package. Note that the uploads are failing again most of the time due to large file sizes, please be patient for the post, it's as slow as the snail mail these days.

Big apology for the scratchiness of side c, hopefully you can get past it to hear the theme from parcival again, by the fourth side you get pretty sick of hearing that same melody -- shades of Wagner I guess. I would love it if folks could come back and comment on their opinion of this work later after listening... good or bad, of course.
And please check Chris' website to see what he's up to today-- living in Ibiza, playing the flute, and meditating apparently-- that's the way to live your life... There he lives and works in a quiet and secluded spot up in the mountains with a beautiful view over the Mediterranean Sea.
http://www.chrishinze.nl/

Here is the aforementioned walkman ad with chris' blessing and two naked german girls--- oops I meant, dutch girls (I don't dare look closely enough to be able to tell)

Themes - Contemporary Contrasts (Library, 1977)

You never know what you'll get with these library records... at least these composers have great track records: Hawkshaw, Parker, and Moran have all made some great music. But without some possibility of listening, which sometimes means purchasing blindly, it's quite impossible to assess the music inside for merit. And it's amazing how many of these libraries were made back in the day. So now I try to do a little bit of research before wasting my money on terrible records, of which my wife complains there are far too many in the basement taking up space that could be better used for, oh I don't know, a new shoe closet, or maybe a collection of handbags.The point is this is a pretty good one. There are shades of Heldon on the first side, some inventive chord changes reminiscent of french prog on "echoplex", some Terry Riley-like keys on the side B opener, Crystal Cascade: basically, this is a record very much influenced by what was going on in prog and fusion in the mid-seventies, although by the time this appeared in 1977 as we all know the fusion and prog trends had already become utterly passé in the UK... It's interesting to me looking at the back of the sleeve that simple emotional descriptions of the tracks-- for ex. echoplex is described as "languid movement utilizing repeat echo" are so apt for this type of exercise, indicating again how closely connected music is to emotions, and I daresay, these connections are universal in all humans. I've talked a lot in the past about the evolutionary mystery of music, i.e. what is its survival advantage in humans and ultimate function, and it still is indeed a mystery, especially this strong link between universal emotions and musical creations. Even the minor third (sad) versus major third (happy) takes a lot of explaining that requires straddling both mathematics and biology. But as I've said before, for those of us who passionately love music (and all those reading this must be of that disposition), music is the only taste of heaven we will ever have on this world of impermanence and mortality.

First up, a very progressive number with some interesting passages, Expanding Horizons:


Then the aforementioned Echoplex:


As well as the B1 track Crystal Cascade:


And, please note that filejumbo is momentarily up again and you can download from this service at this present time (19:37 EST for the next 4-5 minutes give or take 5 minutes)

Frederic Rabold Crew - Package of Voices 1976

A request from our friend ushaped, this one got me curious since I really love the Frederic Rabold Crew, which here has 9 members total incl. american jazz singer Lauren Newton (whose picture is above of course). I don't see her on the cover though, another female has taken her place, puzzlingly, or perhaps, unfortunately.
This strays somewhat more into the free-jazz territory than the other outings from the Crew. I will put up song samples shortly but uploading is not cooperating this afternoon.The mp3 for Kjol's second album was reuploaded but that's about all the upping the internet's behind can take from me today apparently.

CREDITS: Bass– Fritz Heieck
Bass Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone– Walter Hüber
Drums– Manfred Kniel
Electric Piano, Piano– Uli Bühl
Engineer– Carlos Albrecht
Guitar– Thomas Horstmann
Soprano Saxophone, Alto Saxophone, Clarinet– Erich Stangl
Tenor Saxophone, Bass Clarinet, Flute– Wilfried Eichhorn
Trumpet, Flugelhorn– Frédéric Rabold*
Vocals, Voice– Lauren Newton

Brigeen Doran's Kjol (with Fernando Saunders) Sunny Day {Germany} 1981

I don't know how people like osurec can be so knowledgeable about this rare music and can be so far ahead of me but there is certainly no doubt about that fact as just over 1 year ago I knew nothing at all about this record or these people ... Kjol is a band made up of the Doran siblings, Brigeen Doran the sax player, sister of Dave, both of whom are sibs to the guitarist Christy Doran of powerful danish fusion outfit Om (who amazingly I did know about from years back) ... recall my stupid remark in the Birdland post: 'this christy doran must be some amazing lady...' ouch. ... Well, at least I can come back today and say, 'this Brigeen Doran is some pretty amazing lady... ' "Sunny Day" is their second record from 1981, their first being easily available already from a number of sources. It is just as good as the first record, an equivalence not often the case in music wherein artists put out only 2 records. In contrast to Om this group presents a more funky fusion sound with some really hard-kicking grooves and nicely composed melodies, less in the free and atonal far-out wilderness territory that Om often strayed into in their unexplored improvisationary field trips... more down to earth and accessible, cf. the last track on the first side which is a simple, less than one minute duet between guitarist Affolter (playing a synthesizer-guitar) and Brigeen on sax. The group is rounded out by Heinz Affolter (who also is producer) on guitar, responsible for most of the composition, Dave on percussions, and Fernando Saunders guesting on bass and with lyrics on some songs. Hard to believe these 4 can engender so much energy and power in the music with only them, no one else on board in these sublime tracks, not a single throwaway for me. I know some of you out there feel this fusiony stuff can really get boring in tiresome wankery, but there is little of that here to force you to lose interest, and you can always sit back and focus on the incredibly fast limbs of Dave on those drums-- wow, what a workout he gets out of that drumkit-!

The short duet from side a, "Where are you:"


As well as the third track on side b, a particularly interesting and well-composed number ending in some pretty wild-ass arpeggios, "Midnight Frost:"

Artischock - Besorg's Dir! 1982

Remember the VA album I posted last week--? well here we go with the record from the band that did the lovely song "heile welt" called Artischock, with the beautiful Denise Grozelanny-Tullmann as singer. She appears on the back wearing fishnet stockings that are simply not for the minnows. The music is slightly-wavish pop hard rock with some nice energy and grooves, no silly synths or digital percussion, caveat that there is not much in the progressive arena of composition but altogether, for me, enjoyable songwriting. Are we getting tired of german rock and jazz yet? let's wait till after one more german post from me, coming soon, or perhaps a hundred more german posts...

A sample track: The bizarrely named "ei!"


And the one I fell in love with, Heile Welt:

Igor Bril Jazz Ensemble ‎– An Orchestra Came (1980) USSR,jazz rock ,fusion

Igor Bril Jazz Ensemble ‎– An Orchestra Came (1980) USSR,jazz rock ,fusion

Brilliant Russian jazz rock,fusion band (8 male players)....ripped from the  LP.

A1 Cuban Rhythms 4:26
A2 In High Spirits 4:37
A3 C Jam Blues 3:48
A4 Tabula Rasa 5:21

B1 An Orchestra Came 5:49
B2 A Green Tram 5:04
B3 Today And Tomorrow 6:58


RYM


A-4

Chris Hinze, Sigi Schwab, Eberhard Weber, Lala Kovacev - Wide and Blue 1976 {Germany}

Is it possible to get tired of virtuoso flautist Chris Hinze? Not for me... here is an outing from 1976 featuring the amazing guitarist Sigi we have seen before, Eberhard Weber performing his customary ECM-style electric bass smooth melodiousness, and Lala Kovacev on percussion. Oddly enough most of the compositions are from Mladen Gunesha, with only the 5th track (sampled here below) by Hinze. The former is not a name familiar to me though I note he has a german wikipedia entry, he is clearly a european composer and arranger from former yugoslavia.

Torsten Brandes and David Ward Maclean - Strange Fruit {Germany} [1984]

An amazing lost record that builds atop a foundation of Joni Mitchell's late-70s jazz-rock style (cf. her record Don Juan's Restless Daughter or the German Sango posted earlier) a progressive architecture with unusual instrumentation, original chord changes and odd tunings (dropped D appears in a couple of songs), occasional string quartet accompaniment, dissonances with the requisite minor seconds and tritones, all those myriad gothic embellishments that make progressive rock or any fiercely imaginative non-mainstream music. Of course, there are a few throwaway songs, some simple syncopated acoustic tracks such as the "Festival Blues" song and the generic "A Song" on side a, "Lovely Vivian" on side b (tracks that to me appear commercially oriented and which I recommend you delete and ignore), but the closing 3 songs on the record feature some pretty astonishing originality. I detected some Nick Drake influence on "Liverpool Street" and in fact the song "Spider" which I sampled below, is actually dedicated to Nick (and presumably about him) ! --surprising considering at the time he was virtually lost and unknown as an artist.

Check out on track 4, "How can a soul survive" the way the guitarist (not clear who it is) proceeds to do an almost atonal walking bass-style solo on acoustic punctuated with odd bass notes in the middle of the tracks. It's hard to play these crazy notes on the guitar when so much training involves playing 'correct' chords on this particular instrument. Again it's a 'no-brainer' that these guys had classical musical educations in universities. Or check out the lugubrious string quartet on track 9 "The Spider" which adds an eerily melancholy dimension to the song (in the booklet the tuning is described thusly "both all strings one tone below concert" [i.e. both guitarists]). Note how the slackness of the strings adds a kind of slight echoey - dungeony atmosphere to the plangent piece. On the closer, "Lost and Found", the bottom string is tuned down to a low C for both players, and surprisingly, a bass sax sounding like a bassoon provides some highlights to the chords. Again the chord progression diverges in a very unique way after the intro. The tritones here are partly between the bent blues note of F sharp and the regular classical use of tritone for mystery effect -- as if a synthesis between classical and the blues -- brilliant!


Of course the title of the album seems to be a homage to Billie Holliday's famous song based on a poem about the lynching of african-americans in the South, but there is no real reference to this in any way. Could it be just a coincidence? I doubt it considering the deep jazz knowledge of the artists.One of the most charming aspects of this record is the 12-page booklet that appears as an insert, of which I've excerpted a couple of layouts below. It records the odd tunings of the guitar of which the musicians obviously were quite proud (a hallmark of Nick's style too).
When I think of the creative composition and masterly artistry on this record, it really seems sad to me it was lost so completely, when these artists evidently put so much work into their product. It reminds me again of the quote or paraphrase from my favourite animated movie about the man who planted trees: "When I think of all this man did in his lifetime, it fills me with wonder at all we can accomplish ..."










Song Samples:
Intro, Walking Zones (about shopping pedestrians in Germany)


Torsten's Rondo (instr. for 2 guitars)


Spider (the song dedicated to Nick Drake)

Boline {Denmark} [1982]

This is not of course either the masterpiece or "masterpiece" to which I was referring, neither the first nor the second of these, it is an unusual hard rock - new wave danish RIO-influenced proggish lost album along the lines of Zauberfinger but with less compositional complexity or originality, I am not sure exactly what happened to the aforementioned piece, it is perhaps somewhere on this computer but the hard drive, of course, being full of thousands, or tens of thousands of songs, is not easy to search through and in fact, although it is now downloaded onto my ipod, there is no way to transfer off this ipod back on to the computer-- apple has made this very difficult for no obvious reason to me other than mere perversity, so it may be that this "masterpiece" (I dread to use those quotes today, I know not how else to describe it though, please forgive me), will no longer show up again, how ironic that it should be so rescued from oblivion only to be thrown back into the unending ocean of nothingness again much like our simple lives and existences, but then is it not fitting, and how many other such masterpieces have truly been lost (here because I am speaking in the abstract hypothetical I dispense with the quotes) just as the plays of Sophocles that were lost, as we know from contemporary accounts, so many works from ancient Greece (--considered of course masterpieces by their brethren, who would never have dared to ironically use quotation marks as we moderns are so apt to do) are lost to us, and think of Petronius' Satyricon, this record oops I mean novel copied by hand through the brutal middle ages, survived in the end only in pieces, perhaps destroyed in conflagrations, or by over-inquisitional zealous monks, despite its prurient content it was rightly regarded by those chaste monastics as a masterpiece of literature, so it may well be like this my masterpiece of progressive will never see the sound waves of the light of day or night but then I wonder, was it ever really a masterpiece (after all when I played it for my wife her response was 'can you please stop listening to music and help me with the kids, you know, those children that you're the father of,' which was not positive, at least I didn't conceive it as such although I did appreciate the honesty which made me doubt whether ever her praise can be taken at face value or is merely polite 'humouring' of my odd taste, the middle of which cerebration suddenly was shattered by a more strident urgency in my wife's voice, 'can you please tell your children to stop!! !' (running and screaming in circles that is -- a habit of which they are peculiarly enamoured)), was I merely deluding myself in this respect because perhaps many would have disagreed, the majority even, and would have denigrated it-- would it be better I not propose it as such only to get shot down as it were, perhaps better that it is lost again to the evil criticisms of jealously impervious humanity, perhaps it is better that it is merely a memory, merely the shadow of an imagining which you can translate into your own pygmalionic ideal in your own auditory or intrasensory terms as you so choose, so perhaps let us cloister it with so many quotations, let us say, that it is indeed this " " "m" or """"--masterpiece""""""(note I do not bother with any symmetric arithmetic of the quotations now, we are in free-jazz territory as it were now) so worthy of quotes that I shall multiply the quotes million-fold until they are legion, until this page is but a series of little ticks on the tops of the lines to represent what is the greatest acoustic memory that shall never be, never be represented as such in existence, an "acoustic" "memory" that is no more a """[m]-yhwh""" than the memory of the letters and lines that I punctuate my thoughts with, let us call it the ineffable, the tetragrammaton, the "that-which-shall-render-thee-deaf" the name of god which is unspeakably strange unusual and to be placed in invisible quotes now (this is why you cannot see them anymore I wrote them in invisible ink) -- but what if it is not so either, and it is truly a masterpiece, one of the greatest ever created by human minds, then truly this is a monumental tragedy worthy of another lost LP oops I mean play of Aeschylus it is a horrific event, comparable to the extinction via space-rock of the sauropods and depressing in the extreme, wherefore I am tempted to return to the iv heroin or perhaps crushed oxycontin that is the only succour for such profound suffering and pain -- oh wait a minute, I think I just found it again... It's right here. OK forget what I just said. It'll be up shortly.sample track, appopotomax [!!] :

KPM 1193 - Classical Synthesizer (Alan Hawkshaw) and Stained Glass Windows (John Leach) - 1977

This is obviously not the "masterpiece" to which I was alluding earlier that I will be posting soon, and I say that with the requisite quotation marks not in enigmatic coyness or postmodern irony but more to protect or blanket the word in an attempt at avoiding the litigiousness and controversy demonstrated in shige's czech album post which was derided on all sides for lacking the attributes of masterpictality although given the variability of musical tastes, such an opinion can surely be defended by anyone choosing to undertake the exercise, not to mention in my blog postings I don't feel I am guilty of overhyping anything discovered by myself or others, I feel I am being honest in for ex. stating such and such a record is mediocre, or contains bad tracks, or throwaway songs, etc. -- they perhaps don't stand comparison to classic Genesis but unfortunately in a lifetime of listening to music every day all day, I can no longer enjoy those classic records anymore due to boredom or habitude though I acknowledge intellectually they are good, the emotional nausea or feeling of satiation as after one eats too many onion rings and french fries sets in & repulses me, sending me off in search of newer material (fresh fruit or vegetables) such as this record, admittedly disappointing, but worth the effort to locate and listen to once, and anyways it's not for us to determine what is or is not a "quote unquote "masterpiece" quote unquote" as when the great master shige (who I perhaps was guilty of overpraising due to my honest affection and regard for his efforts, sincerity, and extreme generosity (and for those qualities I would rather suffer the embarassment of overhyping than a reduction in our relationship),), when master shige said, that it is a masterpiece if you love it-- [notice here I remove those dread-inducing quotation marks as if running naked through a field, openly exposing myself to the laughter of witnesses, but I don't care, we are dealing with the 70s here, when streaking was fashionable, in the time before aids people ended cocktail parties with random orgies or at least this is what I read about in playboy magazine when I was young and looking through their back copies in the corner store...] and let us all remember that for most people, records made by such artists as Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, or Kate Perry are considered masterpieces, and who is going to dare argue with the populace comprising 99.99 percent of humans? -- but perhaps I am boring you. On to the music.Like a lot of library LPs this is two separate albums on one record. The first side (subtitled "Favourite classics arranged for synth and elec. keyboards") consists of synthesizer-played classical pieces, which I dreaded to hear when I saw the titles, eg. "Elise" -- what else could it be but the overplayed Beethoven piece I learned at age 9 -- then the song called toccata synthesis -- could it be anything but the Bach Toccata that so recalls Doctor Kevorkian? Similarly with "Joy of Jesus," and "Sonata in the moonlight" ... it's hard to believe anyone is not sick of hearing these pieces, but then again, I hear "Stairway to heaven" played pretty often on the radio too and I'm sure all through Oesterreich you can still hear "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik."There is one non-throwaway song which is the sole composition by Alan Hawkshaw (who is by and large a fabulous composer) called "Rhapsodie Gentille." What a shame there is not more like it on side one.Side 2 is called "Stained Glass Windows" subtitled "Art and architecture" and I assumed it might contain some cathedral organ music, which I've mentioned before I adore (see the post on Estellet-Brun which was possibly the single most popular post ever on this blog, or any blog for that matter, including even the new york times news blog), why I thought it might have organ I don't know, but take a guess as to whether it does or not. Instead you get orchestrally pompous or perhaps grandiose music suited to a religious TV show perhaps. Oddly enough there is an entry called "Mosque" which seems out of place in those pre-multiculturalist, culturally relativist, days. And it seems John was pretty inspired by that one since it's almost the longest piece in his collection.I've said it before, the european cathedral is one of the greatest art forms humanity has ever created, and I never tire of visiting them wherever they may be. But I pray that someday our progressive music will also be considered one of the greatest achievements of human creativity and will be given the credit it deserves.