Soular System – Birth of Paradise (1971 Canada). Not much is known about this mysterious electronic album. The only name associated with it is James Bolden, and the album was released in France, thus the deduction of it being a Canadian affair. The music sounds more late 1970s than 1971, as the electronics have a late 1970s sound especially the electronic percussion (though the computer drums are primitive sounding, similar to Klaus Schulze’s “Picture Music”). Some psychedelic guitar on Side 2 adds much needed variety to an otherwise mundane album. Similar to Didier Paquette or Alain Renaud’s first album. No CD exists.

F.G. Experimental Laboratory – Hope (1977 Switzerland). One man electronic show from a gentleman named Frédy Guye. Good haunting electronics with some wordless voice. Akin to Jean-Baptiste Barriere though not quite as dire as those two albums. Guye should’ve added more variety to his keyboard selection to add color and tone to a pretty monolithic release. The Thors Hammer label (Garden of Delights) has already reissued “Journey Into a Dream”, and this album is scheduled to be reissued soon by the same label.

Francesco Cabiati – Mirage (1979 Italy). Rock / synth-based electronic hybrid that recalls artists such as Francesco Buccheri and Baffo Banfi’s 70′s works. The synthesizers of choice were modern for the day, but pretty thin sounding to modern ears, with the exception of the odd Moog solo. A very rare album that is much sought after by electronic collectors especially. Never reissued on CD.

Black Mountain – In the Future (2008 Canada). Many bands that have a retro bent, try hard to capture the essence of the late 60s or the early 70s. Rare is a band that understood the mindset of 1978. To me, “In the Future” is like discovering the most interesting looking album at the local Montgomery Wards, set inside some ancient mall that felt more like a DMZ than a shopping plaza. Black Mountain has captured the aura of what Arista Records originally intended to do, before giving into crass commercialism. It’s the type of album you can hear over and over, because of the many different textures, colors and styles. But not in a modern post-rock kitschy way. Rather with the perspective of the 1970′s landscape already in mind. The kind of album, in fact, you WANT to hear over and over in one sitting. Prog rock for the arena concert scene of 1978, and that’s not the same thing as arena rock. Those who were there know the difference. And if you don’t, pick up “In the Future” and compare for yourself. Recommended.

Radio Massacre International – Septentrional (2006 England). RMI have to be viewed as one of the most innovative of recent groups. Certainly within the electronic music space, a field that has the same devotion and non wavering loyalty to sub-genres as does heavy metal. You’re either “Berlin School” or “Ambient” or “Techno” or any other such labels, but you shouldn’t be all of them say many fans. RMI, who started out pretty much “Berlin School”, is now all the above and more, with recent excursions into trippy Krautrock and whatever else they feel like doing. “Septentrional” is one of their most polarizing CD albums (RMI’s privately released CD-R’s are even more off the rails). Produced by Ian Boddy and released on his DiN label, “Septentrional” is RMI at their most modern and controversial. But in a paradoxical way. See, “Septentrional” has more of that ancient mellotron than any of their other albums. Of course it’s put through the production grinder and is echoed, technoed, phased and manipulated through Boddy’s mad scientist lab. It’s all rather fascinating. Headphone music for the modern age. In fact, I now rate this amongst the top quadrant of RMI albums, and that’s quite a statement given they have such an impressive body of work. Keep it going guys!

Radio Massacre International – Rain Falls in Grey (2007 England). As stated in the “Septentrional” blurb, RMI are one of today’s most innovative groups. Case in point: “Rain Falls in Grey”. On this outing, RMI pays their respect to Syd Barrett. Musically this is RMI’s most overt space rock effort, with raging electric guitars and ferocious drumming. As well, RMI has successfully created those magical atmospheres that one would tyically find on an old German Ohr release, who themselves were enamored with late 60′s Pink Floyd. This being RMI, one is never too far from classic mid 70′s Tangerine Dream, and the combination of the early Krautrock sound with “Berlin School” electronics is highly fascinating. After a bit of a lull at the beginning of the decade, RMI has created a triumvirate of classic releases starting with “Emissaries”. Each represents an entirely different sound. Rare is this kind of innovation found, much less from a band whose recording history is almost 15 years old.

NoVox – s/t (2005 Netherlands). Cliffhanger may be my favorite of all the bands working under the neo prog banner. I like their adventurous songwriting, elaborate compositions, and mix of modern and vintage equipment use. NoVox is all the members of Cliffhanger minus vocals. Here the group mixes up full band compositions with piano solos, fuzz bass/drum workouts and mellotron featured tracks. Maybe what I like most from Cliffhanger, and NoVox, is the bass player. He’s very active and has that super cool “woody” sound that really drives the material forward. In all, a really good new album.

Oblique – s/t (1985 Netherlands). One of many obscurities that I had received in my cassette tape trading days. I didn’t even realize I had this until digging through the tape drawer recently. An interesting mix of Berlin School electronics, new age and instrumental rock with electric guitar and sax. Not too bad, though typical of the era. Never reissued on CD.

Pugh’s Place – West One (1973 Netherlands). An album I always think I’m going to love, and just never do. Pugh’s Place is the type of rock I really get into, with a winds lead, heavy guitars and high energy tracks. Maybe it’s the liberal use of covers (ugh – “Drive My Car beep, beep YEAAA” NOOO!). It is pretty good, but most albums in this genre score better on the whole. I don’t think this one ever was released legit on CD.

Supersister – Spiral Staircase (1974 Netherlands). Arrgh, this album just bugs the heck out of me. As if the silly portions of their previous albums didn’t hurt them enough, they go off and decide that they should release a whole album of it! Of course there are some good moments to be found here, but in the end, it seems like a bunch of great musicians wasting a lot of time goofing around for this outing. And never to release a new album again. Boo!

(Originally posted Dec. 2005)

Need to clear out a few that didn’t make the grade…

Alessandro de Lucchi – s/t (1978 Italy). Systems style cosmic electronic music similar to maybe Roberto Cacciapaglia’s “Sonanze” or Franco Leprino. Stefano Pantaleoni would release a similar album nearly 10 years later. Not much in the way of rhythms or tonal changes. Seems like de Lucchi did what he could with the one synthesizer he was provided. At times it comes across as a sound-test record. Will have a limited audience.

Firma 33 – Se Forst (1978 Germany). Firma 33 primarily play a commercially oriented rock style with German lyrics, similar to late 1970′s Novalis. There are some nice fusion moments interspersed throughout, with flute, sax, synth and guitar leading the solo parade. But the vocalist tends to croon, thus diminishing what potential they had.

Duty Cycle – Nero (1976 Netherlands). Duty Cycle plays a standard vocal pop rock with a light jazzy sound. The melodies are lacking and the vocalist isn’t up to par. The flute work, however, stands out – especially on the opening instrumental track. Overall, not a good album. Duty Cycle were friends of Marakesh, and their sole album shares the same label.

Pascal Languirand – Minos (1978 Canada).
Pascal Languirand – De Harmonia Universalia (1980 Canada).
Pascal Languirand – Vivre Ici Maintenant (1981 Canada). Pascal Languirand is sort of the Richard Pinhas of Quebec. A one man show of dark electronics (primarily Moog) and searing electric guitar. He’s a bit more cosmic than Heldon, which calls to mind Klaus Schulze. And he often uses wordless voice that reminds me of Franco Falsini. On “Minos” there’s also a trippy folk number with French vocals that I find highly appealing in this setting. “De Harmonia Universalia” is quite similar, a bit less foreboding and more cosmic than its predecessor, with no dropoff in overall quality. The trio is completed by “Vivre Ici Maintenant”, and again, perhaps surprisingly, there is no noticeable downshift in the quality. Here, Languirand takes us a bit further East while adding some acoustic percussive elements. Album could be presumed an anachronism considering the late date. There is a compilation disc that features some of the music above, but would be nice to see the albums come out on CD in full.

Champignons – Premiere Capsule (1972 Canada). Starts off in a trite go-go 1960s way, with an energetic keyboard driven instrumental number. This is followed by a very slow, depressing and excruciatingly boring 7 minute blues song with French vocals. From track three on Side 1 to the conclusion of the record, it’s all aces. The music becomes primarily instrumental while taking on a darker stance. The guitar has that ominous fuzz tone, and there’s an underlying jazzy structure lead by the fine flute and sax work. For these excellent tracks I’m reminded of the Eden Rose / Sandrose family out of France, and the relative progression from one to the other. If Champignons were lead by a female vocalist, that would solidify the Sandrose comparison. Never been reissued legit on CD.

Art Zoyd – Marathonnerre I & II

I’m probably not alone in not having previously explored Art Zoyd music after the Mariage album, after hearing reports that the band moved from a very acoustic-based sound to one that incorporates electronics and such. This set of two related and simultaneously released CDs more or less confirms almost everything I would have expected from these descriptions. The band still creates some of the most wonderfully, creepy and dark atmospheres ever (and in some ways look way back to their Atem labelmate Pandemonium) except that now, periodically, some sort of electronic beat comes jumping out and occasionally some of these are so banal and techno-derived that I found myself checking the disc. So this is definitely not the same band as the original, even with a couple of the original members still hanging around, and it’s a much more drastic stylistic change than, say, Univers Zero, even if you could see the roots of this style as far back as Phase IV. My opinion might have also been modified by the decision to play both CDs through, which possibly wasn’t the best idea, over time it felt like some moves and ideas were being repeated. I might not be the audience for this overall, as I was wishing that the electronic beats were totally absent.

Marc Ribot – Shoe-String Symphonettes

Ribot’s sense of eclecticism is something I’m appreciating more and more, from John Zorn to Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, and given that he’s got a somewhat rough guitar style, it always seems he brings a sense of adventure to everything he’s involved with. Shoe String Symphonettes was released on Zorn’s Tzadik label as part of a “series” of film-inspired soundtrack-ish music and it’s something of a departure for him. The music is generally steely and industrial while still managing to have quite a sense of warmth to it. There’s quite a bit of Ribot’s eclecticism even working within this field and the pieces, while generally shorter, kind of move all over the map and occasionally move away from pieces obviously guitar dominated. Definitely one I’ll be absorbing and enjoying over time.

Exmagma – 3

This third Exmagma record was unreleased during their existence in the 70s, yet unlike many unfinished records, I actually think this could be the band’s best work. Exmagma might have been better named Exsoftmachine with their organ heavy, somewhat Canterbury inspired rock music. Perhaps the most notable element of the band is the presence of Fred Braceful on drums, a player more notable for his jazz participation. While I haven’t listened to this enough to really work out the directions on display, my listening frequently drew me back into the music even while multitasking. There’s something kind of twisty and turny about their compositions and while I often wish there were some soloists at work more frequently, there’s a uniqueness on display here that shows the band finally starting to reach past their influences only for the musicians to go their separate ways.

Mythos – Quasar (1980 Germany).
Mythos – Grand Prix (1981 Germany). Mythos’ first 4 albums were reissued by Spalax over 15 years ago (unfortunately a pretty much barebones job on all). But these latter two have never seen the light of day in the digital age. Mythos’ first two releases are classic in the Krautrock/electronic rock genre, but the next two albums were pretty mundane straight ahead hard rockers. Which is why I didn’t think these latter efforts would amount to much (and, truth be told, “Grand Prix” didn’t). “Quasar” is definitely a creative effort, with quirky electronics and fast paced mechanical (and some real) drums. Stefan Kaske still sings in his ridiculous out of tune low voice, but is sporadic and fortunately buried in the mix. Some really great synthesizer work here, plus it’s nice to see Kaske not abandon the flute, and he puts the instrument through many effects to achieve a cool sound. Inventive effort, unlike any other really. Like a New Wave / Berlin School / Krautrock album. Not bad at all. “Grand Prix” picks up where “Quasar” left off and dives completely into the “man machine” early 80s synth pop New Wave racket. ‘Robot Agent’ is downright hysterical, with Kaske’s poor attempt at a British accent. What saves the album from a total disaster, is that Kaske flat out refuses to put away the flute, and its presence here is completely at odds with the rest of the material. Fortunately, that is.

Pythagoras – Journey to the Vast Unknown (1980 Netherlands). Fairly simplistic instrumental keyboards / drums duo, where melody and atmosphere are more important than complexity. Trends towards electronic music (Klaus Schulze, Wolfgang Bock) rather than symphonic progressive (Sixty Nine, Eden, Twogether). Apparently was a relatively big seller in its day, and strictly via word of mouth and late night cult radio. E-Music has always had a strong foothold in The Netherlands, which continues to this day. Pythagoras must be considered pioneers of that scene. Most of the music is laid back, and the keyboards of choice are string synthesizers and Moogs, thus missing some depth with organ or mellotron (which does make an appearance on Side 2, along with some nice sequencer action). Not as rocking as Schulze’s “Moondawn” for example, but pleasant overall. I also have their followup “After the Silence” here, but haven’t heard it yet. No CD exists for either.

Sangiuliano – Take Off (1978 Italy). It’s been ages since I pulled this CD out of the collection. A very unusual “electronic rock” album, especially for Italy, Sangiuliano has an arsenal of keyboards at his disposal to help create his unique musical vision. He relies heavy on the mellotron (especially the “choral” tapes) as well as his ARP 2600 to achieve the brassy sounds he seems to espouse. Real drums add a rock flair, and in this way recall Wolfgang Bock’s “Cycles” or even some of Vangelis’ mid 70s work. There’s more majesty in the compositions than your typical Berlin-School sequencer fests, and some of Rusticelli and Bordini’s instrumental work was brought to mind. An excellent album. My CD is an old barebones 1993 release on Si-Wan, licensed from BMG/RCA. As far as I know, this album has never been reissued in an elaborate fashion.

Marc Ribot – Plays Solo Guitar Work of Frantz Casseus

Solo guitar work by the indefatigable guitarist who might turn up almost anywhere.  What more can you say about a guy who can work in just about every style imaginable? Whether he’s skronking it up roughly or playing the gentle classical guitar work of Frantz Casseus, Ribot always seems to succeed and even if I’m in no place to be able to appraise the work of either artist, I was surprisingly engaged through this solo work, and I’m not someone who tends to really gravitate to works like this. The music has a certain sort of melodic style that works around more familiar scales while always hanging in there in terms of its friendliness.

Daevid Allen / Don Falcone – Obscura 12 – Glissando Grooves

An intriguing collaboration between the Gong and Spaceship Eyes chiefs but like a lot of these projects that ride between ambience and electronica, I tend to prefer the former style and even if there aren’t really that many true beats here, the ones that do work in seem just like any other sort of rave or house style. But aside from that personal issue, there’s also a great deal of psychedelia here, the stuff that reminds me of Allen’s work all the way back to his late 60s sound collages. It’s all liberally drenched with a lot of atmospheric synth work and strangely sounds a little like Berliner synth in parts, but overall this is the sort of cosmic/modern headspace fans of the artists involved will already likely expect. Of course any sort of heavy textural music with Allen waxing poetic over the top is usually of interest in these parts.

Mingus - Mingus in Europe

A big sprawling concert, originally from two volumes, from Wuppertal, Town Hall, West Germany 4/26/64, this features Mingus roughly around his Impulse period, leading a quintet with Eric Dolphy and Jacki Byard involved. There’s never a question with Mingus that his sense of composition and his melodic framework didn’t work very close to the trends of the time and much of this sounds like it has its roots in a bop a decade earlier, even if the actual melodic lines touch on areas that could only possibly come from the mind of this bass player. The live music stretches out a little more, but overall it doesn’t stay terribly highly charged and for my ears, I started tuning out a little in the second half, but that’s more likely due to the challenge of the writing than a reflection on the quality here.

La Desooorden – Ciudad de Papel (2007 Chile). La Desooorden are very much a modern progressive band, that utilize current production techniques as well as some dark, atonal metal guitar. So elements of Tool and Porcupine Tree can be discerned on a quick glance. That alone would not make an A-list group, but underneath this superficial view, we find a group exploring all aspects of exciting music. You find Latin percussion, jazzy bits, folk melodies, early 70s Italian prog rock and a host of other and exciting ideas. A very deep group, that reveals something different with each listen.

WintherStormer – Woodwork (2007 Norway). The name WintherStormer is a combination of the two main protagonists Terje Winther and Eric Stormer, both of whom play a large array of analog and digital keyboards. Not surprisingly, WintherStormer are an old fashioned Berlin School style electronic band with lots of spacey textures and cool sequencer lines. They’re augmented on album by a guitarist and drummer, which add a nice rock touch, and give the group many more compositional options to pursue. Definitely on par with Radio Massacre International’s more recent works or Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream’s 1970s rock based efforts.

Djam Karet – No Commercial Potential (1985 USA).
Djam Karet – …And Still Getting the Ladies (2004 USA). The following review is more of an overview of the band Djam Karet, but the two albums listed were the inspiration…… One of the longest running progressive rock bands, Djam Karet has been at the forefront of the instrumental space rock movement for well over 20 years. Their debut, “No Commercial Potential”, was a true anomaly when released in 1985. The concept of long guitar driven rock instrumentals was extinct, and the title is as accurate as any in history. They began to bring more compositional structure into their material throughout the remainder of the 80s, as well as adding an electronic music element to their sound. I first encountered Djam Karet with “Reflections of the Firepool” in 1989, an album that is as fresh today as when it was released almost 20 years ago. In 1991, they took a chance with the radical approach of releasing two albums, each one focusing on their two very different styles: Acid jam rock and spacey electronic music. The albums received much (undeserved) criticism in the day, and it seemed the fans preferred the integration over the separation. Time has healed wounds, and it seems the hard edged “Burning the Hard City” has fared better with their current fan base. From here, the group sort of floundered, without a clear direction of where they were heading. The experimental electronic oriented “Collaborator” (1994) is the odd album out in their discography. The lackluster response to this album combined with a last minute cancellation at the first ProgFest, seemed to push Djam Karet out to pasture. Until, that is, their signing to Cuneiform Records and the release of “The Devouring” in 1997. For many, this was their best album up to that point, and some will go as far as saying it’s their greatest album period. In any event, the album seemed to be the logical step of where Djam Karet was headed with “Reflections From the Firepool”. The positive response to “The Devouring” ushered in a new tidal wave of releases, that continue to this day. They even revived the one-take, no-overdub “No Commercial Potential” concept with “…And Still Getting the Ladies” and “Still No Commercial Potential”. Djam Karet seem to never run out of quality ideas, and let’s hope they go on for another twenty years!

Tangerine Dream – Rarities 1968-71

This is a collection of various early studio and live recordings which covers the period before they became a predominantly electronic outfit. It starts with a piece from 1968 that more than apes Pink Floyd and then follows their early space rock phase through the live Bath Tube Session, a full 8 minute Ultima Thule and onto the collection’s major studio outtake, Vampira, a very spacey, abstract multi piece set that’s more reminiscent of Zeit than any other album. The two part Ossiach Lake caps the whole thing off perfectly. Even though much of this stuff is fairly minor, it’s all so formative and unique in the band’s canon to have been worthy of collection in this manner.

Styx – Crystal Ball

I swear to God when this started playing it sounded like my cell phone was ringing and that oughta clue anyone into to the sheer level of foof going on in this second period of Styx’s existence. I just had completely forgotten how sweet they even were this early, in fact I’m thinking of a totally different definition for the album title than a big globe of crystal. The musical moves are all professionally rendered of course and the album did have a hit or two, but everything was killing me from the lyrics to the vocal harmonies to the tinkly synths that fringe the whole thing. It’s true the band got quite a bit more painful than this later and that this probably represents some of their better work, but that just made me even more surprised when listening to this just how frilly it was or how close to something like Starcastle. In many ways this music is sort of the very definition of AOR-prog and if you’re like me your facial expression will look very similar to what it would if you’d just taken a big drink of something too sweet and syrupy.

Gravy Train s/t

I didn’t have quite the same luck with the second Gravy Train as I did with this one, which really impressed, definitely a record of the era, with some nice hard edges and a slightly jazzy progressive rock style that reminded me of a ballsier Gnidrolog. Some nice instrumental sections and a good sense of melody made me move this to a heavier rotation. And I really never liked Gravy Train when I went through their albums a decade a go, so I’m glad to go for at least one of them.