Friday, September 20, 2013

Formerly Fat Harry - S/T (1971 Harvest and Capitol this re by Prog Temple)



This is The Beatles playing country music. I mean if The Beatles were from Texas or SF they would probably have sounded like this. Nice and friendly mellow country tinged rock. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oxtPdRtX9U

Saint Just - S/T (1973 Harvest this re by AMS)





I was thinking which one of their two albums are better and now i feel it is not even hard to decide. This is it.
It sounds more authentic, flowing and jammy. The first half minute of the first track "Quando nel mondo..." begins like some gnoissienne or gymnopedie by Eric Satie. On the whole the first song is great. Jenni Sorrenti sings much better on this their first album than on their second an final one. Some tend to say she sounds like Annie Haslam, but i'd say it is a bit too wide heard. Aniie's vocals is sometimes too clinical to me and Jenni sounds a bit too raw, but at the same time real,  true and alive.The more i listen to this the more sure i am this is a significant record of music by young Italians. The combination of the instruments played here fits perfectly in their music. And Italian language fits too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0VF-R_ynuM

Saint Just - La Casa Del Lago (1974 Harvest this re by Akarma)



I'm not sure which of their two albums are better. Most people would not listen Jenny Sorrenti's singing even 10 seconds and i have to admit it sometimes  makes me feel a bit embarrassed too but when i listen to the best flow parts of the album such as "La casa del lago" i forget the worse parts and get sublimated to another level of feeling through music. Casa del lago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5OyHA2pQD0

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Virtanen - Hal-00 (1974 Love Records)





HAL-00 is strange proto punk from Finland. Pertti "Veltto"("Slothful") Virtanen the leader of the group named after him (Virtanen is one of the most common names in Finland by the way) is a psychologist, a hypnotist, a rock musician, a multiple member of Finnish Parliament (True Finns), the official Shaman of the Year 1996 etc...

Gentlehood - S/T (1973 Columbia)




This is told to be progressive rock. Maybe so. Anyway it is an album that takes time to get in.
Oh My: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9qNl2ooQns

Marsha Malamet - Coney Island Winter (1969 Decca)





When listening this i get filled by a feeling i would love to spend a day on Coney Island in winter in 1969.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1Tq1SeQuJo

Crabby Appleton - Rotten To The Core (1971 Elektra)



The other of their two lps and not the better one but ok. Not any typical Elektra album, i think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSMciN-R8NM

Jeffrey Cain - Whispering Thunder (1972 WB)



Country blues with nice sounding harmonica. Produced by Jesse Colin Young from Youngbloods.

Texas - S/T (1973 Bell)



A low price record fair find."Over 8 minutes long "Don't Love Have a Funny Way" begins promisingly turning abruptly to rock jam, including some passages typical to progressive rock.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Mama's Pride - S/T (1975 Atco)



Now it is so that i don't much like southern rock but this hears to be one of those exceptions. Mama's Pride is very listenable mixture of music which reminds me of  Eagles, Deep Purple (at least one of them looks like Ian Paice), Johnny Winter, and some others i can't recall just now. "In the morning" is a superb song which would bee good enough for any of those better known contemporay bands doing bluesy soulful rural rock.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y210XJuRVhE

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Giles, Giles & Fripp - The Brondesbury Tapes 1968



How i got this CD: It was about a month ago when i found on YT a singer named Judy Dyble (Fairport Convention) singing the well known King Crimson song "I Talk To The Wind". I called my friend Jukka who knows everything about KC and asked if he knew who Judy Dyble is and of course he knew, but unexpectedly  he didn't know she had sang "ITTTW" because she does not perform on the first album of KC where the song is found.

So Jukka had purchased two copies of this pre KC music by Giles, Giles & Fripp (McDonald). The other was for me.

A quote from MDE 2001:  "The bondesbury Tapes is presented to you as a detailed musical sketch of the transmutation of GG&F into the seed-vision of King Crimson during the spliff-end of the 1960's"

If you like to know how King Crimson became King Crimson this CD may explain something. But as it is true that these early tapes don't mostly sound like KC at all it is interesting to speculate what was the role of those two guys Greg Lake and Pete Sinfield when founding KC. Or maybe it was the extra member of the group i psychedelic drugs that showed the new perspective. Fripp has said making In Court of... was an "instant mash". He on the other hand has said the band never used any drugs. Or maybe it was so that the combination chemistry of the grounding members and those two new ones created whole new visions and music?

I talk to the wind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQIs07vvQHk
Erudite eyes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZRCbd2D14Y


Rain - S/T (1971 Project 3 / CD 2008)



It rains harmoniously, varying from drizzly soft and dreamy to more straightforward pit-patter. Nice sounding keyboards. The music is well written and played pop with some prog aspects. Produced by Enoch Light.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAWGmc1y7q8

Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Fireballet - Two, Too... (1976 Passport)




Imagine combining Zappa and Yes and if you think you would like it add still a pinch of Gentle Giant and Genesis and you get Fireballet. "Two too" is vainly put and left in the shadow of their first and better known album. Maybe someone would say "Two,too..." is a collection of rip-offs from English prog bands and Zappa and even Stravinsky (on "Carroon" great guitarist Ryche Chlanda occasionally even plays his guitar in the style of Frank Zappa) but actually this album is much deeper in many ways than one can imaging at the first sight or hearing. I hate AOR and this basicly is something like it but they don't take themselves and the music too seriously and that can be heard too, even their playing sounds constant fireworks and endless twiddling. I'm not sure if they do this somewhat tongue in cheek or not and it does not matter after all. For me this album is one of the few (AOR oriented) pomp-prog albums made after 1975 that i like. Great musicianship, very talented group.

Ryche Chandla seems to play with Rennaissance nowadays. http://renaissancetouring.com/2013/02/renaissance-announces-new-guitarist/

This keeps me in good mood and it seldom happens that i smile when listening to music but this makes me do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fy57LXRVjBQ

In addtion to previous: I got their first album "...Bald Mountain" yesterday (thanks to Jukka) and after listening it a couple of times for now i find it mostly a bit dilute mellotron and moog gruel except the 18 minute long main track "Night on bald Mountain" which is very good (even occasionally maybe too ELP/Genesis/VDGG-esque) classic prog rock.

To sum up: "Night on bald Mountin" is a serious and ambitious prog effort from young musicians and McDonald behind them. Unfortunately they sound too much like their idols in English progressive rock ELP, Genesis etc.. On "Two, too" they seem to relax and go nuts without losing any of their musicianship and with that attitude they manage to reveal some funny side of serious prog rock. The attitude is a bit like Zappa's in some of his works and at the same time get reminiscences of such as Sparks and Todd Rundgren too.

I just found a term ZOLO concerning a music genre that descries such tracks on "Two, too..." as "Chinatown Boulevards", "It's about time" and "Carollon". They make the backbone of the record and "Flash" is interesting too. It makes me think if there is some self irony by them as "serious" progressive rock musicians in the lyrics of "Flash". "Flash" discreetly and boldly culminates the whole naive and cosy New Age filosophy of the most of the early prog rock.

ZOLO: The term "zolo" was first coined by Terry Sharkie via his "Zany Zolo Muzik Hour" radio show to describe a cross-section of bands and artists with similar approaches to music. Zolo is characterized by hyper, jerky rhythms, synthesized bleeps and boings, polka-dot percussion, chipper falsettos, zany imagery, and aZappa-esque sense of humor. While Zolo contains elements associated with Progressive Rock or New Wave, Zolo itself is a creative thread that runs independently of both of these genres. 




Sailcat - Motorcycle Mama (1972 Elektra)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GH7IqnxheTs

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Egg - Egg (1969-1970 Decca this CD 2004)




I find this album very solid and pleasant. Yet there are some adaptations to well known classical composers, they work quite well and fit almost seamlessly to their own material. The more i listen to for example such tracks as "I will be absorbed", "The song of McGillicudie The Pusillanimous...", and "Symphony No. 2" the more i enjoy this original art work. Egg will long feed my body and soul and what is the best: without any cholesterol. By the way i was happy to get to know there is such a nice and cute word "pusillanimous" in English language.  If elbow is the most beautiful word in English, pusillanimous must be one of the cutest. Excellent album!

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Peter Gabriel - Security (1982 Charisma)


This is what happened to the so called progressive rock of the 70's. Genesis with Gabriel was one of the original ones on prog era. In 80's he was the Leader the Messaiah to lead the progressive rock on the next level. Did he make it? No he did not, because he was too much believeing just He was the progress. He was not. This music is very listenable 80's art rock, but not much more. I can use this music to clear my mind temporarily after an overdose of everything i usually listen. Shock the monkey!

Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds - Hallway Symphony (1972 Probe)



Sad to say, there's only one good original song on the album "Anna, No Can Do" composed by Alan Gordon. The standard rest stuff are composed by Lambert/Potter, except one Simon/Garfunkel cover. I may keep this just beacause of Anna No Can Do. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV57oc0Do3Q

Sound In Motion (1973 Quadradisc)



Quadraphonic "field recordings" from different places: streets of London and San Francisco, a car race in Reno,  etc.. man collecting junk on streets of London, the engine number 45 on the rail paradise Klamath & HoppowValley Railroad, Saturday morning on Portobello road, San Francisco Cable cars... When listening to these different sounds scenes i never got tired. On the contrary i would listen even a whole album of steam engines coming and leaving.

That's Underground / The Rock Machine Turns You On (1968 CBS)




The United States of America's "Hard Coming Love" is the One on this album. I'm going to use this as a clock face  - make a clock on my wall of it. I have made some for my friends and my daughter using red coca cola vinyl lps. This will be for myself. Nice  album . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtWS2IXsLf0


Walter Carlos - Clockwork Orange (1972 CBS)



Music by Walter (Wendy) Carlos from film Clockwork Orange. "Wendy's" own electropsych piece "Time Steps" sounds really good, like a mix of Tangerine Dream, ELP and Oldfield's Tubular Bells. Oldfield must have had it on his mind when planning TB. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqE-y4CLSRA

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Druid - Toward The Sun (1975 Emi this CD 2003)



Someone says on RYM:  "The Yes-clone label is well deserved, but still a damn fine album. Perhaps the best Yes album Yes never recorded." I agree with that with an addition that the sound scene on the album is much like on "tales from the Topografic oceans" 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtHShqcKRuM


Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Thirsty Moon - S/T (1972 Brain this CD 2006)



Wonderful jazzy Canterbury style prog music. I just love this album. Big City and Yellow Sunshine are the highlights.

Big City: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i0Nht6W6dU
Yellow Sunshine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L23nbsQn7wM