Mr. Euphoria 1983, by request plus Bob Moses Tributaries and Jukka Hauru

 

Wow thanks for reminding me about this masterpiece I once bought and ripped 12 years ago! I forgot about it totally. Should've been on this blog but it wasn't. Here's what I wrote about it back then:

Continuing on with American guitar-prog rarities in honor of the upcoming election in the United States, for which I strongly encourage all registered voters and registered nonvoters to go out and vote as soon as possible in yet another useless exercise of wasted time and unnecessary energy so the haughty political oligarchy or rather plutocratic ruling class can feel justified to do whatever it wishes with no regard whatsoever for human beings or their environment (and to think they used to laugh at communist countries for their useless preordained elections--  now you get two identical parties to choose from instead of just one-- woo-hoo!)--  here's the album that to me seemed like a progressive masterpiece utterly lost to time and even to prog fans.  [Footnote: What we need is a real "truth party" that could state the obvious: this is all a vacuous diversion so power can remain with the top point one percenters and the corporations they are eternally married to 'till death do us part'.]

Very simply, this sounds like the tightest, hardest, no-fat version of mid-seventies King Crimson you could imagine, as if the great Fripp was totally focused on song-writing and brutally keen on cutting out all filler, chamber pretensions, and excess frippery. Track 3 (1 Day 1 Month 1 Year) even features some of that trademark staccato Fripp guitar style. 

All songs are instrumentals powered forward by fully-automatic electric guitar chainsaw action.  Occasionally there is a touch of synthesizer, also played by the formidable guitarist, whose name is Richard Rhodes.  His backing band consists of Gordon Rhodes on drums (sib?), Tim Sanz on bass, guest Eric Petersen on synths for track 5.  Tracks 2, 5, 7 are compositions by Sanz and the rest is credited to R. Rhodes. The energy and tritones never really let up until the fierce ending in which you feel like you scraped your face and right temple on the pavement in extreme music-listening sports.  Guaranteed the ceaseless tritoning and riffs played as thirds (just like Fripp) will drive your wife (and kids, if you're unlucky enough to have those) out of the room, and if they are unable to so leave, they will be begging you for mercy (or at least throwing plates at your head).

When you listen to the rip notice too that the record is mint, the sound couldn't be any cleaner-- oh the joy of listening to that fresh vinyl (from almost 30 years ago) rotate...

As sample I uploaded the intro, with its awesome hard diminished chord riff, crank it up as loud as you can when you listen, it's awe-inspiring in the manner of the (ancient) seven wonders of the world. Note how the crazy reverbed-out lead guitar plays such interesting harmonies on top of the driving riff.

Aforementioned third track:

Another review, from rym:

The first thing that stunned me after listening to this album was the place and time of its origin. The USA and 1983? Much more appropriate would be, for example, France and 1971.

However, I began to be surprised already when listening to the first composition "Intro". After all, this is 100% math rock, the origin of which almost all music publications date to the end of the 80s. Of course, this was only one of the first swallows, but, nevertheless, judging by "Intro", the birth of math rock occurred almost half a decade before the official (albeit somewhat vague in time) date.

Okay, let's start from the beginning. Mr. Euphoria is a trio consisting of Richard Rhodes and Tim Sanz, who periodically try on the roles of a guitarist, then a bassist, changing them with each other. In addition, the first is the author of five songs on the album, and the second three. I tried to understand the composer's style of each of them based on the authorship of the songs. Frankly, I couldn't. For example, out of three compositions composed by Sans, one is made in the style of soft fusion, the second is heavy prog, and the last is jazz fusion seasoned with elements of raga. In the third "Northern Castle" Sans also plays the harp, but it sounds like a sitar. Oh, I almost forgot - the third member of Mr. Euphoria is the excellent drummer Gordon Rhodes (a relative of Richard?). And I want to say that the group is a triumvirate of equal musicians, each of whom is not averse to improvising. All eight compositions are instrumental and made in the form of a rehearsed jam session. In terms of style, the compositions are located in the segment from jazz fusion to gloomy heavy prog. When listening to some of them, I had an analogy with the composition "Cannonball" by the group Sky (though the music performed by Mr. Euphoria looks more serious). But the closest association seemed to me to be the album "IOU" by Allan Holdsworth.

The only minus is a certain "rawness" of the recording. Alas, but Mr. Euphoria did not have its own George Martin.

Not a bad album.

Info on discogs is here.

Another review at the bottom of the page:

Excellent all-instrumental prog rock! Angular, somewhat dissonant compositions that suggest inspiration came mainly from Red-era King Crimson, as well as minimalist composer Steve Reich. In their heavier moments (particularly on Side 1) you’d swear they were doing a sort of proto math rock style - something that Don Caballero made a career out of just 10 years later. They stray into other styles, as well… a couple tracks on side 2 made me think they were also into Zappa and Allan Holdsworth.

All 3 requested albums here, Mr Euphoria, Bob Moses Tributaries along with my big fave Bittersuite in the Ozone, and Jukka Hauru's masterpieces of prog fusion.