I absolutely adore this record with its cute attempts at pop stardom and nods towards fusion and prog.
It was featured long ago on Tom's cd reissue wishlist:
Here's an album that has been getting some buzz lately within the collector community, and the ebay prices have soared because of it. I received info from both The AC and Midwest Mike roughly at the same time, and both unequivocally panned it. Of course, the first two tracks are pure late 70's mirror ball disco numbers, certainly not the sounds one wants to hear when shelling out hundreds of $.
This copy comes courtesy of The AC (saving MM the trouble of having to painfully endure it one more time). After track 2, I found the music to be relatively pleasant, not too far removed from the French band Cortex. Though by no means does it exude the exoticism of their first couple of records.
The AC says: "Here we go again... Another one of those "Jekyll and Hyde" LPs that couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to aim for the charts or pursue something musically interesting. The first side is absolute dreck, a nauseous brew of cheese-tacular disco, whiter-than-white funk rock and trite AOR/pop tracks that will have you clawing your ears out. There's one sort of proggy AOR piece towards the end that's okay, but the rest is just unspeakably bad. Then we hit side two, and it's almost like an entirely different album. A frenetic instrumental fusion track leads things off, complete with some scorching lead guitar. Unfortunately, there's one more bit of pain to endure, in the form of a hilariously bad lounge-funk number, but after that they finally turn the corner for good. The remainder consists of a couple tracks of pleasant spacey fusion with female vocals, followed by another excellent instrumental jazz-rock workout. So, we end up with about an even split in the good-to-crap ratio here. The group were from Regina, Saskatchewan (where the albums was also recorded), but the label was based out of Vancouver. To be honest, this album is a very marginal entry for this list, but I think it's worth highlighting due to the fact that it's just recently emerged onto the collector scene and is already garnering some very high prices. Recommended only to obsessive genre completists (like myself), the rest should pass."
And there you have it. Yet another album that has become part of the collector hype machine. An unfortunate consequence to the hobby itself.
One of the vocal tracks, Life is Worth Living:
A wonderful fusion outing called Duke:
sky high
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Holy prog-disco balls in WAV! As a cosmic disco fan of the disco-prog-rock-pop crossover period of the late seventies, I am always very excited to hear new examples and judging by the fact that only three people have a copy on Discogs and a single disc is currently retailing for £181, this is the proverbial rare as rocking horse shit release.
ReplyDeleteI actually saw this on another blog, but I am guessing you are the original source (as seems often the case with your rips, I see them on other blogs minus any reference to where they got it from and I always make a point of posting a comment that links back along with a polite suggestion they simply mention your blog as the origin).
Well, as to be expected, the more poppy/disco elements would get absolutely trashed by the 'serious' prog-heads, but I am equally charmed by its pop-disco aspirations.
Having listened to thousands of disco tracks over the decades, I would say that the Disko Krisko track really stands out for its musicianship, it takes a few listens to appreciate it and if I had any criticism at all, it would be its short length!
Actually, the album itself takes a few listens and then you really start to appreciate all the tracks and while the female vocal delivery isn't Karen Carpenter, she hands down blows 99.9% of current female vocalists out of the water!
Many thanks as always for the high quality of the rip!
yeah I love it too, as you said, it takes a bit of listening to learn to appreciate it
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