Vesselin Nikolov with White, Green and Reds in DON JUAN from 1978, Bulgaria -- wow!

Is there anything more beautiful than the curves of a female shape?  For us men, we must admit that not even music can come close...

Special from my dear friend:

"We all know of the excellent Seventies/Eighties prog-fusion groups from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, even Romania... but what about Bulgaria? The only name that comes to mind is that of Vesselin Nikolov, who made the great "Jazz and something more" in 1987 - and it is he who leads this group, a decade earlier: another really good record!"

And I thank him for introducing me to this astonishing artist!!  Note that the oddly named group he is playing with made quite a few interesting looking records, of which I posted a folky one last time.

This record is different though, it's 70s style fusion of the highest calibre.  Let's hear the track generically called "Riffs" with its gorgeous dissonant chords and powerful electric piano sounds that make me squirm in ecstasy:





But listen all the way to the end, where you hear an Om-like (Rautionaha, etc.) soprano sax wail above the thick electric eel of a piano riff, screaming in its poetic monologue a passion of exciting city nights and glorious emotion never held back, reminding me of walking New York City at midnight with my wife that time years and years ago when we were looking for a famed little-known Malaysian restaurant called the Fatty Crab that we had heard served the best spiced seafood outside of Southeast Asia and the hot tires and dizzying lights of the East Village were a vortical blur after a few drinks as we kept asking those well-meaning city folks with their hand-pocketed purposes and aims the way for us ahead while they laughed at us and we eventually found it some two hours later and it was oh so beautiful to sit down from the January cold and have a hot hot curry bowl full of seafood and laugh together in the tiny place being, as we were at the time, newly married as of a month before...

So please savour this record, astonishingly full of invention, from my friend who 'rediscovered' it for us...

___

Furthermore, I apologize in advance for this record being excessively scratchy, one must always be so careful with these Eastern European purchases, they are always NM, though when received they are horrifically etch-a-sketched just like a scuffed up pavement tile recently removed from a grand central railway station installed in the nineteen-twenties--and they were installed already used at the time.  Always they are scratchy, perhaps due to the heavy Russian winters... (or is it the relative scarcity of toilet paper?)  But no, according to sellers, of course, in Russia, there are no scratchy records.  "Nyet, nyet, nyet, there is no scratch on record," Igor will pronounce, "there is no scratch!  where do you see scratch!  is no scratch!  we do not have scratches on record in mother oops in Russia!  HA HA HA HA HA!!! Nyet!  HA HA! hey, you want cheap ipad mini too?  Is real cheap.  Is new.  No scratch."

In fact didn't Vladimir Putin himself once declare the same?  "There is no scratch in long-player record in Mother Russia.  Now you stupid reporters you stop asking this stupid question.  Is not happen here.  Is not important, like which beautiful woman I make love to last night, or whether Ukraine is now part of Putin empire (was not Jennifer Aniston! No!  Ha ha ha!!!  OK maybe.)  Yes you colonialists, you American hegemonial people with you army bases in pacific islands you use to bomb muslims, you have scratches on record like you have the blood on your hands.  Perhaps you want to scratch the Bear's back?  watch out-- for he will eat your liver... !  Is american invention, no? we have wax here, is best, is purest in the world, it has no scratch, is Russian wax, is made by Baba own hands in fish factory.  NO SCRATCH!  when you people you bring us capitalist 33 speeds and negro jazz music, you ruin mother Russia.  We had 78, is best speed for gramophone! fast fast fast! fast like when I ride snowmobile over tundra rabbits! perfect! you stupid american 33 speeds, is not even make sense, it is fraction, what school kid doesn't know 33 is not real speed for LP record?  78 is real speed!  HA HA HA HA!   You are babies, you, you no wrestle with siberian tiger like me, you afraid of radioactivity in North Sea, and nuclear explosion in reactor, maybe you europe people, you mother still wipe you behind?  yes? is it? radioactivity!  ha ha! It is use in russia soap, the radium, with strong vodka.  Use to clean chest hair real good."

And then I believe president Putin proceeded to drink a quart of crude petroleum sitting on the table.

But seriously, I love Putin.  I mean for those of us who used to laugh at cold war craziness, it's like being back in the eighties all over again, and who doesn't miss those eighties?  Now if only the mullet would come back too....  or what if Putin had a mullet? even better!


Addendum: a cleaned rip was posted thanks to a wonderful listener...