The Floating Opera - S/T (1971 Embryo)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PN7wY-FdKY

Gilgamesh - S/T (1975 Caroline)

Very enjoyable Canterbury Scene fusion-prog-rock. Phil Lee occasionally plays his instrument sounding like John McLaughlin and the musicianship on the whole is great, but i can't avoid thinking there somehow are two levels in their music: First it is a bit like a thesis of a Fusion School. All the methods and cliches of playing the music of this distinct genre have been adapted fully. Secondly they concentrate too much on the pedagogic and formal aspects instead of the deeper content and meanings. Maybe what i say here is a cliche itself but it is how i feel when listening the record. Gilgamesh is still a fine entity even it too often misses Enkidu's point of view. ...One day later: The more i hear this the more i like it beginning to hear Enkidu running among the game on steppe. Getting better by every spin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJM4TBn2oT4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAZsx1gsK8Q

Felt - S/T

If you think you have already found all those hidden musical pearls, you should try this. Only 17- years old singer, composer, guitarist and the leader of the "Felt" Myke Jackson went soon after this to Christian music and fell to obscurity . I don't want to analyze the album now, just listen it. Somehow this whole "Felt" project reminds me of "After All". Great album!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nf4249393o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHw09vR10zo

Karen Dalton - In My Own Time (1971/2006)

I can't imagine a better country-folk album than this. It begins with almost too perfect song "Something On Your Mind" but after that it declines a bit, till she after a couple of tracks turns around and finally gets to the barn again being almost there where she once started. Her emotive voice is just one good motive for purchasing the album. A classic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsYHN7eCCtU

Bo Grumpus - Before The War (1968)

Light, soft and safe but unsurprising middle of the road psych-pop. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFdIG7_iBJE

Children Of One - S/T (1970 Real 2007 Akarma)

"Spontaneous music...great freedom to play and sing their own inner melodies and rhythms...from the inner nature of the artist." Nice eastern flavored jazz improvisation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpFYjzeWigs

Pink Floyd Atom Heart Mother Mini Poster 1973

                                           

"Musa" music magazine 1973 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOmII8n2dIQ

Orange Bicycle - S/T (1970 re 2012)

Since i have known the existence of this album i have assumed it would be more psychedelic tinged music it now turns out to be. Orange Bicycle was Wilson Malone's band but there are only for his compositions. One  track is by band's bass player Bachini and the other are covers. The best of them are Malone's "Hallelujah Moon" which is more than the other ones like the songs on his later solo album, which otherwise than this album is a great one, and Bachini's "Back" which is very good and a bit towars psychedelic elements. Something may tell  that one of the best  tracks on the record "Country Comfort" is by Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Orange Bicycle performs neat well played and produced rock and i like a lot R.T. Scales's vocals but in it's entirety it is a bit disappointment. It sounds they had plenty of talent but not a real musical leader and good enough songs of their own. Malone's solo album 10 - Orange Bicycle 7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpyVLa7ERwE

Paul Joses - Lonely Man (1975 Buk)

I picked this at a flea for 3 euros being skeptic for what i guessed the music would sound but because the cover art looked interesting: both ordinary and fancy. Someone had made effort to bear and set big mirrors in a pine wood! Isn't that something! Not until at home i noticed it was Keef. Paul Joses looks very he-man but sometimes he sings more like she. The album consists of country tinged folk ballads sung very a personal style. The dylanisque "Weaver's tale" on the other side is maybe the best track and the entire album is listenable enough to keep. Actually this is much better i expected. He seems to have moved to the other side of the Canal later. And still going strong. I'd like to have been  along on his gig shown behind this link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czD6UK66Vlc Super!

Downliners Sect - The Rock Sect's In (1966)

I have to confess i had never heard of a group "Downliners Sect" when i purchased this at a flea this for a couple of euros. And i have to say i have never much minded this kind of r&b garage beat music either. So it is a miracle i have heard this more than 5 times now and still like it a lot. That is mainly because of the natural, joyful and unaffected attitude when doing their thing. If their name means they belong to a group supporting people who like to be down, it would be a total contrast to their cheerful music.

After All - S/T (1969)

                                   

                                                 


What a great album! After listening two weeks a digital copy of the album I got my own CD copy today and am going to get a vinyl one too these days. I have talked to Bill Moon (played bass) via email and he was very kind telling me about those times when making this album. As i got the CD today and read Mark Ellerbee's (drummer of the band) foreword to the album, i noticed there is something Bill Moon told me that Mark Ellerbee does not mention on the sleeve. I think that explains why the music on the record sounds so "cohesive and tight" as Roger Magilio says on his own forewords yet the whole thing was canned in three days..

Bill Moon:  When we recorded this album not the normal way you do it. We sat up in the middle of the studio as if we were on stage. That way the recording would be exactly as we would sound live The record company wasn't happy with our first performance, so we came back and tightened up on the music for 6 months and returned and recorded what you hear now. There is some 30,000 thousand albums some where!!!  I guess most of them were destroyed., the company distributed them all over America for a sampling of how people would react to this sound. So they didn't get a good response and they cancelled pressing anymore.

As we can read they did not record it the first attempt but practiced their material for six moths more, then went back to the studio and made it in a couple of days. I think this is the main reason why it sounds so enjoyably smooth and tight at the same time.

Maybe it was not just a coincidence i posted Colosseums Valentyne Suite beside this. Maybe my subconscious did it for me. They both are from the same year and as i now see have some relationship. Both After All and Valentyne Suite are on my top ten list when talking about a certain kind jazz-blues (and psych) tinged rock from late 60s and early 70s.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vKO-MVgm28

"The Oaks Band", Mark Ellerbee's band after "After All"

Scott Bradford - Rock Sliders (1969 Probe)

A highly interesting jazz-rock album. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA4AK88Vr5A

Daddy Longlegs - Oakdown Farm (1971 Vertigo)

There is one very good track on the album: "Wheelin & Dealing" and two quite good ones, the jazz-rocking "Moog" and just rocking "Boogie". The other material is.. meh... farm music..? Oakdown Farm is an strange mix of different kinds of music styles. A "hard to understand" -album. Later... I'm happy i didn't bury
this after the first listening. After few more listenings it has insidiously hooked me. How do they do it? I don't know and i don't even want to know. After all OF is much deeper music one could hear at the first spin. OF is a sort of concept album with no concept. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sS30fumSCac

Curtis Knight - Down In The Village (1970 Paramount)

Very nice album. A bit Hendrix like atmosphere, but it doesn't matter. Hard-psych-soul is what comes to my mind. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_3fCt0MKxk

Warhole Velvet Bananas

Had succeeded to avoid to purchase this album for years, after hearing parts of it here and there and i still don't have a slightest idea of what this is about... feels like fishing with a longline with no hooks or trawling with a whale size mesh. But when listening this again and again i have to confess me feeling like becoming a hook maker and fattening to fit in this simple one size fits all velvet underwear.

Hullujussi featuring Frank Krappa (1974 RCA)

These three photos from the live 1974 Alibi Club gig of Hullujussi reveal FK himself was on the stage and played his guitar. As you continue to think, i'm sure, about the last and final not yet solved enigma: Velvet Underground vs Frank Zappa, i think this album is the answer. Frank played "I want To Get You Higher" with his side band Sisuvisnu Orchestra and it proofs without no doubt Lou and Frank were more than good friends and on the same track against those lazy flower smoking hippies around the bay area. By the way "Sisupojat" and "Victor Kalborrek" play on this live album too. Ok. bongo bongo bonzo dog funny Hullujussi = Grazy Johnny is joking for example with Frank Zappa's traditional "joke" being in hotel and ordering a local sandwichfor the breakfast. in Deutchland it was something .... and in Finland Zappa ordered voileipää for breakfast... vuolepää... vuolepäää says George Duke in Roxy and i think Hullujussi does its once again, Frank Krappa (Eeki Mantere) molestin FZ. Funny or maybe not... Did anyone understand something?

Nolo et Rähjä - Oodi (1977 Discovox)

I remember seeing N&R live in 70s. Their second album "Oodi" is engineered by Timo "Nuuskamuikkunen" "Dylan" Ulkuniemi and sub-produced by Juice. Strange Dali style painting is by Juntunen. The bizarreand ugly cover painting makes me think Juntunen was on his more out of one's mind period than ever. This one cover was not censored but some other his cover art were (Juice for example) was. This whole album stinks Juice Leskinen even there are not any of his songs. "Portti" is the best one. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDVLSRyJ6Ok

Juice Leskinen - The Diet Of A Concentarion Camp (1976 Love Records)

To the most original or otherwise finnished people... rest of you... don't bother.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v-tCv5cSv0

Chris McGregor's - Brotherhood of Breath (1971 RCA)

Mostly ok recycled afro-jazz but at times too much dull saxophone driven basic stuff. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mxl0tz6X7ug