Rudy Perrone - Oceans of Art [Cathedral-related] (USA, 1981)

     Again I apologize on a holiday weekend for being a little bit slow to post.  As usual we can attribute this to the very perplexities involved in these quasi-religious holidays in which apparently we are to worship rabbits, some magic animistic bunnies, and the eggs of chickens, as well, douse ourselves in plenty of chocolate.  Perhaps someday an anthropologist from another planet, one that Kepler may have discovered recently in the habitable zone of some small red dwarf, could explain fully the odd ritual in which small children color eggs with bright colors and search for hidden entities made of excessively sugary substances that they engulf in a kind of primitive berzerk rage of overconsumption as the adults, primarily the female ones, decorate their houses in oddly bright pastel colors such as lime-green, pink, mauve, and baby blue, according to the religious strictures of the glossy magazines they read with beautiful females posing on their covers.  Subsequently they will be surprised to discover that the actual days are to commemorate the death of a celebrated religious figure and they will be even more puzzled and flummoxed.  And then as well they could try to explain the odd concatenation of culture that created a day called Hallowe'en in which pumpkins, witches, graves, chocolates, candies and costumes are placed in close proximity for children to fully absorb.  After that, the aliens will probably decide to kill us all to take over our planet, or at least, what's left of its biosphere, which may not be enough.  Perhaps they can also decide to enslave all the Westerners, as the Europeans did to the natives of the Caribbean islands, to farm the land and provide a huge harvest of food to them, that would surely be ironic payback, wouldn't it?  Then when the Spaniards for example complained, they could say, hey, you did this to the natives of Hispaniola for your sugar plantations, remember that?

      Returning to the show here, we have a really beautiful cover image from an artist who sounds very much like he was the mastermind of the US band Cathedral, which is my personal favourite Genesis-like band from that country.  So in fact this record is very much both Genesisish and Cathedralish, but less intense than the latter.  You will note that Rudy plays all the instruments here pretty much.  I have a rip from a friend, this is not my work here, that includes some live Cathedral bonus tracks, presumably from a bootleg.  If someone could enlighten us about this I would really appreciate it as I wasn't able to find any info on that particular issue.  I know there are many out there who know much more than me and I welcome any insights others can provide.  Still a relatively rare record, I've been trying to find a copy myself for some time, I love it so much.  Mellotron lovers in particular will drool over this one.

Meantime here is the most Cathedralish song on this album, called "Violent Silence," Track 10:




And here are some of the live bonus Cathedral tracks which I don't have any info on (of course these do not appear on the original vinyl of Oceans of Art):






Trust me, when I say you will be blown away by those bonus tracks here.  Not at all like the usual throwaway bonus tracks tagged on after a CD, not at all.

And who doesn't love that old Genesis sound?  The ne plus ultra of progressive rock, as I've said before.