Nathan Mahl – Parallel Eccentricities (1983 Canada). An album that I enjoyed from the first time I heard it some 10+ years ago. Mixes high energy symphonic prog with some period new wave elements. Not unlike Eskaton’s “Fiction” in that way, except replace Zeuhl with Sympho. A unique combination, this 70s meets early 80s thing, that seemed to primarily exist in France (Super Freego and Gutura also come to mind). Still my favorite LeBlanc outing, though I haven’t heard his last 2 recordings under the Nathan Mahl moniker (2008 note: I never did get the last 2 albums).

Mind Gallery – Guilty Until Proven Rich (1995 Canada). When their debut “The Lemmings Were Pushed” came out in 1994, I was very much satisfied. There just wasn’t a whole lot of early Genesis inspired instrumental albums to be found (most were mid period or more towards the “neo prog” sound), and Mind Gallery scratched that itch. Dutifully, I picked up the second one upon release and all seemed well. Until a few years later, and then it rather all seemed dull, lacking in inspiration and originality. And so I kept the better of the 2 (this one) and never looked back. Until now. In retrospect, I may have just been in a “mood”, as this really is some fine instrumental work, with plenty of great sounds, melodies and energy. I’ll probably pick up the debut again and also try their 3rd and final outing. (2008 note: I did neither).

Dillinger – s/t (1974 Canada). In some ways, this is darn near the perfect early 70s progressive hard rocker, with grungy organ and loud guitar, fronted by an extra testosterone laced lead vocalist. One can easily see this band as labelmates of Spirit of Christmas (both were originally on Daffodil), though Dillinger were certainly not as ethereal. But there are a couple of downers – one is their rancid rendition of a Spirit track – and, gasp, the obligatory over long drum solo on the side long piece. Overall, still a winner. The Daffodil library is owned by Unidisc, and a legit CD is readily available.

(Originally posted Dec. 2005)

Rialzu – s/t (1978 Corsica). The album that inspired my colleague Mike to coin the term “anally rare” some 15 years ago. Here we were, two dedicated collectors looking for progressive rock from Corsica. Corsica? Oh for crying out loud, when does it stop? This 4 figure album has always been impossible to obtain in original form, but fortunately for us, someone in our circle owned a copy, as we were able to obtain a cassette tape back in the day. For me, the tape seemed to douse my enthusiasm. Not sure why, but the album’s contents were quickly forgotten by me, and I even misplaced the tape. Then last year a CD-R showed up in a package of goodies, and the revisit clearly proved I had been wrong in my initial assessment. I didn’t even remember the strong Zeuhl presence, which Rialzu most certainly drew their main inspiration from. And now, perhaps amazingly so, I’m listening to the legitimately released CD on the always excellent Soleil Zeuhl label. For awhile it didn’t look like reissue was possible. The original label that issued the album, a dedicated Corsican folk concern, seemed intent on holding onto the rights and only releasing the album in some insane box set with every other album on the label. Rialzu was the odd album out for sure, as Magma inspired bands hardly represented Corsican culture. The original album was barely 30 minutes in length, and featured 3 tracks, two of them epics. The reissue adds two good sounding live pieces from 1977 and 1976 respectively, both unique compositions. They also threw in a one and a half minute video from the same 1977 concert. Haunting vocals, violin and nice guitar soloing distingush Rialzu from the pack. The album isn’t perfect by any means, and there’s even a pedestrian drum solo to endure, but for an album tagged as anally rare, it is better than most in that category (Mike will attest to this statement I think). And it’s the best album to ever emerge from Corsica, at least from the perspective of a progressive rock fan. Not even sure what the competition would be.

Resan – s/t (1973 Sweden). A very unusual album indeed, this Resan is. Starts out in a similar terrain to the The Beatles “White Album”, before drifting off into a folky flute number ala Trad, Gras och Stenar. But then the real party starts, with the remainder containing long, energetic, acid guitar driven numbers, some freaky percussion bits, dreamy cosmic pieces and an overall general sense of the psychedelic. Would’ve been a perfect fit for the Silence label. I could see where this album wouldn’t be well received by many, given its eclectic nature, but I found most of it highly appealing. Would make for an excellent reissue on Transubstans or Mellotronen.

Zog – Do ze Funkie Wiz Me (1983 Netherlands). Entirely unique album from post Het Pandorra Ensemble guys. While still very much a product of the 1980s (song structures, vocal style), Zog also possesses a strong admiration for 1960s psych and even the early 70s Krautrock pioneers. Some wonderful acid guitar soling belies its 80s heritage. There’s also the occasional reference to their fondness for “Red” era King Crimson, featured more prominently in the Pandorra Ensemble days. About the only other album I can think of that sounds like this is Iskander’s “Boheme”, another oddity from the 80s. Maybe the best way to describe is to call it 1980s psychedelia, and I don’t mean neo-psych, if that makes any sense. Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate Zog’s album more and more, perhaps due to its uniqueness. This, Zog’s only album, is a live recording. And at 56 minutes, quite a lengthy album for one disc. No CD exists.

Isabel Campbell and Mark Lanegan – Ballad of the Broken Seas

This unusual collaboration seems to weave together strands of British psychedelic folk, traditional Western music and some modern production values for an occasionaly Morricone-esque, epic and mythical fabric. It’s definitely unusual for both musicians, Campbell hailing from Belle & Sebastian and Lanegan from Screaming Trees, and the result is often something like Tom Waits meets Mellow Candle or Johnny Cash doing old Pentangle numbers. It’s all delivered in a somewhat mystical, folkloric tone that also rings modern due to the percussion and the merging is somewhat reminiscent of world/ambient fusions with this sort of past/present juxtaposition. Quite nice overall.

Derek Bailey – Pieces for Guitar

These almost sparse and bizarre guitar viginettes remind me quite a bit of the old Fred Frith guitar albums. The silence here is almost as important as the notes and it’s a lot like soft chiming at times, certainly in improvised and often dissonant themes, but all of it is strangely beautiful and I was very surprised, as I’m not usually as interested in solo work, how captivating this all is. Some are likely to hear this and think it’s some rank amateur banging away on the guitar randomly because it’s so far away from normal Western scales, in fact, I get the impression so much of this is tied together by a certain intuitive sense rather than any obvious rhythms or melody lines. So obviously only one to approach if you’re interested in music well beyond boundaries.

Cardiacs – On Land and In the Sea

Well the Cardiacs sure have a lot of really incredible albums, in fact I almost wish I’d have started with the late 80s/early 90s records rather than Sing to God and Guns. For one thing, after immersing myself in the lower quality live videos, these albums sound positively radiant in their production. In a lot of ways, I wonder how these guys get away with what they do. Their music seems similar over their career, based on very strange but almost signature chord progressions, all delivered with fantastic energy and bearing the stylisms of epic prog rock and bonkers punk. From a ways off I can imagine a lot of this sounding the same at first, but it’s really amazing how fast some of these songs start to stick to the head, revealing what is not just iconoclastic but brilliant songwriting. The epic finale “The Everso Closely Guarded Line,” at just under 9 minutes, works an instrumental melody that would put some of the classic symph bands to shame. To my estimate this band is still one of the world’s most occulted treasures, with a professionalism and sense of originality that belies how obscure they still are.

Aborted – The Archaic Abbatoir

I enjoyed Arborted’s Goremageddon album, other than the repulsive, Carcass-inspired lyrical imagery, mostly due to some of the electric guitar work that broke up what is basically run of the mill, riff oriented death metal. The Archaic Abbatoir, from a couple of years later, strikes me as slightly more dull with less interesting guitar work, in fact had I not known the years I would have thought the albums reversed in the lineage. Perhaps the band went for a more stripped down approach for this album, but generally I found the music lacking a bit in the excitement department, after all there’s really a lot of incredible music in the genre that surpasses this easily.

Cephalic Carnage – Exploiting Dysfunction

Probably the Cephalic Carnage album that brough the band quite a bit of attention, in many ways it might still be their best release as there’s a really ass kicking vigor throughout as the band blends doom, death and grindcore styles for an album of varying length songs. Carnage can do both pretty well as can be seen in their later EP work and the 15 minute title piece might be the centerpiece of the record with its heavy, involved riffing. I found the whole thing to be pretty involving throughout and could consider it compelling after another listen or two and it’s especially interesting to hear as I found Anomalies to be disappointing which has been holding me back on checking out Xenosapien.

Cardiacs – A Little Man and a House and the Whole World Window

Cardiacs history can be really difficult to sort out but in hunting through titles, this is actually what I was looking for, a collection of songs that document the music they were playing in the mid-80s. This has just about everything I was looking for and it all sounds amazing, although the performances probably can never match Cardiacs during their high energy live shows. This to my ears defines their early canon for which the band combined a pogoing, fast-paced punk rock with progressive rock aspirations, like a demented melding of Devo and Van der Graaf Generator. Ahead of everything else, assuming one can get the vocals, is the songwriting, which combines the progressive sense of the epic with a strange accessible style you could practically dance to. Definitely a good place to start with this all too underground British great.

Korekyojin – Manda-La 2, Kichijoji 6/16/04

Korekyojin are probably best described as somewhere between jazz fusion and the Japanese new music scene as typified by Il Berlione, bands on God Mountain, etc. For a trio, they’re quite the active and full musical outfit, spinning out rather angular, thorny compositions with the chops to keep it really interesting. As there are two sets here with, I believe, substantial overlap it was maybe a little tougher going all at once, but each one of the sets is strong independently. Like many groups in this general area, the band itself is quite a bit firier live and there were many times the music got my attention. Solid quality too.

This Heat – Knefeld, Germany 1980

This Heat has to be one of my favorites in that junction between the new wave and the old RIO wave, with great songwriting, experimental tangents and a sense of drone I’ve always found appealing and that tends to follow Hayward where he goes. Unfortunately a lot of the more decent sounding This Heat appears in the excellent ReR box set (and some not so decent sounding), so what’s left is rather muddy, except for one earlier performance that is quite listenable and closer to the music you hear on the album and thus akin to the Made Available disc. Unfortunately, live shows such as this lose part of the sonics that make This Heat breathe, so to me the live experience isn’t quite as exhiliarating.

Hugh Hopper with Simon Picard, Steve Franklin and Charles Hayward – Numero d’Vol

As an enthusiast of that musical world we call Canterbury, everything from Soft Machine to National Health, I’ve always had a mild interest in the solo work of most of the musicians, but for the most part the albums fall short of the original music. Albums like this, a full 70++ minute disc of what are obviously not the most prethought out improvisations make me wonder if the musicians are just surviving on their reputations. If I was to come from another angle and actually see something like this live, I would think my enthusiasm would be quite a bit higher, but it’s similar to going out to catch a McCoy Tyner show; I’d be blown away and have a great time but when I’d get home it’s still going to be Sahara I’m going to pop into the player. But really the jazz similarities are the important ones and perhaps if Hopper and maybe Hayward hadn’t made the splash they’d made in the rock world at one point it would be easier to see an album like this as part of the extended British jazz scene. Musically, it’s probably what you’d expect just by looking at the musicians, long jams with lots of space, Hopper switching back and forth from a jazz friendly tone to that monstrous buzzing sound he’s always been so good at and everyone just kind of lightly filling in some of the color as they go. Unfortunately for me, I’d prefer them to get some energy under their wings and let it burn more, but the parts like this only last for moments on the album before the meandering collapses the chemistry. To my ears this is just another of dozens of albums like this, all worksmanlike and very competent, but not saying a whole lot more to get noticed.

Allan Holdsworth/IOU – Frankfurt Jazz Festival 2/86 (video)

I’m not really the biggest Holdsworth fan so this video came as a big surprise to me as this was as good as set as I’ve heard from the guitarist, no matter what band he’d teamed up with. I recognize bits and pieces, a bit from a different band (UK? Bruford? been too long since I heard those) and then later, songs from his 80s albums all played with grace and outrageous musicianship from the trio. Holdsworth himself is pretty much the consummate professional and he spends his time varying his playing from the guitar to synth guitar, but never really spending too much time on the fast stuff. I was truly mesmerized by the greater part of this set, it’s always nice to get your opinion turned to the positive on something. It makes me wonder what live recordings are out there.

Devo – TV Appearances 1978-81 (videos)

Saturday Night Live and Kirshner performances, and even Merv Griffin from 1980, this is basically a bunch of different Devo videos from the peak of their popularity. The stage shows are bizarre and the fashion about what you’d expect from the era, with much of this being lip synched and not so interesting as a result (as Devo are quite interesting to watch when they aren’t lip synching). It’s cool to listen to the music though, as they tended to model their futurist pop on the backbone of synthesizers that groups like Tangerine Dream were using at the time. But after taking all the Whip Its and Coal Mines, I was ready to move onto something else.

Rictus – Christelle ou la Decouverte du Mal (1981 France). Very much a deep underground album from France. Raw and primitive overall but with some cool compressed fuzz sounds. At times the album recalls Nuance’s “Il est une Legende”, but this one is a bit untogether and has more of a straight rock element. There’s also some dramatic Ange style vocals that are cool. Definitely worth hearing. They have two other albums that I understand are more in the hard rock or even early metal styles.

Kha-Ym – 10 GMT (1979 France). Another one of those quirky DIY late 70s French albums on the FLVM label. I had this one on LP throughout most of the 90s, and I mainly kept it for its uniqueness. “10 GMT” is based on primitive tinny digital keyboards, with real drums and a lot of imagination. Not really like any other album, closest might be to those Frenchies who veered towards the New Wave like Lievaux – Transfo or an instrumental SuperFreego maybe. Was scheduled for a reissue on the excellent Mio label, which is now boarded up.

Jessy Joyce – Love Me (1976 France). Well, guess who’s behind the controls on this one? Of course, J.P. Massiera. So no surprise the collectable value of this one is through the roof. And add to that a cover with two very fine looking naked ladies, and you have an instant major rarity. Of course, many collectors don’t want the music to get in the way apparently – and on this front it’s pretty boring Janis Joplin like blues rock. Though, to be fair, it does features some nice guitar leads.

Novaks Kapelle – Naked. 1978. This Vienna based group has to be considered pioneers of the post-punk movement – almost before there was a punk movement itself… now that’s forward thinking! Fairly complex, but anguished basic raw rock album from a band that would’ve probably been a polit-rock group in early 70s Osterreich, but were in a completely different zone by 1978. One of the most disturbing covers ever of fully naked grandmothers enjoying a glass of wine together. On a gatefold no less. It’s a sight that remains with you… and not in a good way. Black metal bands take note: The whole satan peeing on the cross with virgins drinking goat blood is a total yawner compared to this thing.

The First International Sex Opera – Anita. 1969. God knows who made me this tape, but I’m guessing it goes back to the early 90s. Despite the band name, and the Amsterdam based location of said group, this is decidedly NOT erotic in the least bit. The female vocals (more like nagging shrieks, heavy sighs, rollercoaster screams and other irritants) are completely annoying. On this front, the closest comparison would be to Japan’s JA Caesar, but without any of the purpose and tension they bring. Musically, FISO is fairly interesting, as the band pretty much play in a loose free rock style with decent guitar and organ leads. My guess is this album was influenced by the Vampyros Lesbos movie/album from Germany, that enjoyed a cult following even back then.

Dimitris Poulikakos – Metaforai, Ekdromai o Mitsos. 1976. Another cassette tape gathering dust. Pretty easy to describe this Greek artist – as Dimitris is clearly influenced by Frank Zappa or maybe even Albert Marcouer. Has the complex rock and fusion tacks interspersed with the requisite amount of silliness. Probably too much of the latter for me to get too excited about this title, but there’s plenty of (uncle) meat in here to digest.

The Eagles – The Summit, Houston, TX 11/6/76 (video)

A good video of the band in its prime doing stuff like Hotel California, One of These Nights and more. Like any band with this much name firepower, they have to do occasional diversions into solo things, the most grievous all the Joe Walsh stuff at the end – not that I don’t like it but it sure stops being the Eagles at that point. And of course, there are a few tracks that I just don’t like (Lying Eyes will send me careening for the remote control whether it’s a CD or not next time). But generally I find myself entertained by the good spots.

Discordance Axis – CBGB’s, New York City, NY 6/4/00 (video)

You’d never think that you’d need an audience recording in order to finally get a good view of a band, but that’s the way it goes given the legitimate DVD collection, which seems to have been chopped up on purpose for some sort of aesthetic thing. DA are a pretty heavy grindcore group with the occasional ambitious piece and here they seem at their best, although it’s definitely missing the bass. This isn’t too long, which is just right for a band battering your senses like these guys too. The vocals, very death metal with a lot of shrieking.

Voivod – Tuttlingen, Germany 11/7/87 aud (DVD)

Voivod are the type of group that makes me think “the emperor has no clothes.” Starting as a thrash group in the 80s, they became the favorites of a lot of underground metal heads for what are apparently unusual and progressive ideas in their music, usually based around their late 80s material like “Nothingface.” This video of the group hails from the (slightly) earlier thrashier period and like a lot of metal bands Voivod don’t translate all that well to the live setting. Most of the time I was trying to ascertain if there was any sort of competence or chemistry in the work, for the most part it sounded like four musicians doing their own thing. The nasally guitar tones are way too weak to cut through the rhythm section or the caterwauling vocals and it leaves the whole thing sounding like an aural catastrophe, anarchic in a way that’s a lot more like punk than metal.

Caravan, Hatfield & The North, National Health – “Canterbury Collection” (DVD)

Very short collection of what appears to be the extant video sources of these three “Canterbury” groups, basically the German and British television performances. The Caravan clips, assumedly from Beat Club, are a bit beat up to derive much enjoyment from (“Golf Girl” is a kind of doofy ditty, better in its flow on the album than as a snapshot of the group). The Paris Theatre Hatfield clips I’ve seen before and they’re worth every second, in fact I’m not sure Hatfield were around long enough to have a bad period. They demonstrate pretty soundly that they were one of the great groups of the era, navigating complexity as if it was intuitive. And I believe it’s the Whistle Stop clip for the National Health from the second album, which is the band in their prime. The main emotion from watching this group of videos is a yearning for more, as these are not only highlights of the Canterbury stable but of progressive rock as an entirety.