Canadians Le Pouls from 1976, fresh rip from vinyl, lossless limited time only

 

Well, I gotta say I'm a little disturbed by that cover, but I'll leave it at that. Information here for this one-off band, with the French word for 'Pulse'. I read however that the founder of the band, Denis Lepage (who married singer Denyse, as it happens) is described thus:

From Montréal, Québec, Canada.Married Denyse Lepage and together formed the pioneering electro-disco duo Lime (2), reaching club success in the early 1980's. Denis LePage later came out to be transgender, singing under alias Nini No Bless. Passed away august 21-2023 (Montréal, Canada)

The music is divided between the fusion we love (all written by Denis Lepage), and simple or silly  funky pop, with perhaps a preponderance of the latter, sadly. At least they were a bit fair about this sibling rivalry. Anyways the fusion pieces are so wonderful it was well worth resuscitating this enterprise.

Among those outstanding compositions, we have the ethereal and otherworldly flight patterns evoked by the synths on the Ocean Cosmique:

And another stunning fusion creation called Hymne au Soleil:

Too bad it's not a whole album filled with joys like this, right?

Back to Abe Battat's Once Around the Block from 1965, vinyl ripped, lossless limited time only

 

Recall his track called was in Praise Poems Volume 3, posted here. I hope I wasn't the only one who was shocked by how good the composition was and is.  Unfortunately it's not the same as the track that appears on this LP, instead, that song showed up as a single later in 1970. Anyone have it and can share the full single, ie both sides?

This is definitely the oldest vinyl I've ever posted, I think. Info here, note the recording is mono (there exists a stereo version). That beautiful cover graphic is credited to Karin Battat, presumably his wife.

It's all piano and rhythm section with only one cover version, And I Love Her (yes the Beatles song). 

Once you were mine:

McGill + Manring + Stevens in 3 albums (Addition by Subtraction 2001, Controlled by Radio 2002, and What we Do 2006) by request

A lot of beautiful crazy energetic music in these, but not so much in the way of CD cover art-- I won't say more about that.

Information on this trio here. Looks like all 3 share composition credits-- making me think it's perhaps mostly jamming improvisations--with some suggestions-- and in terms of instrumentation, Scott McGill is the guitarist, Michael Manring is bassist, which would make Vic Stevens therefore percussionist. 

I think their first release is the most obviously thought-through and therefore impressive, or at least,  listenable.  The second one is not only unbelievably long, splayed out over 2 full CDs but also mostly free jazz as far as I can tell, unless the compositions are so complex as to be atonal.  One drawback is that it gets a bit tiresome with the repeated noodling and meandering guitarlines, like a chaos theory form of the German classic trio Dzyan, and the monochromatic quality, lacking in keyboards or any other instruments or even other guitar sounds makes it a bit of an endurance run.

The third oddly enough features covers, admittedly quite unusually original, of jazz standards like Naima, Oleo and even the tired old 'Blue in Green' who really deserves a quiet retirement like Jay Leno.

Title track from the first album:

Four Fields, which almost but not quite closes out the record, features some more delicate arpeggiation for a change, and note the ethereal sound of the bowed guitar (played with a violin bow):

 

It would be wonderful if the gorgeous playing on these 3 releases could be exhibited in some pared-down and more concentrated, focused pieces, and with more variety in sound and instrumentation. Then these albums would be totally outta the ballpark.

And every once in a while McGill pulls out the ol' acoustic and plays something more sensitive, though not usually more than once or twice per album, as in Winter's Tale from 2002:

Spanish outfit Outeiro - Ollos de Marzal, 1980, by request

 

From discogs, where a very long bio describes them rather intricately, beginning thusly:

Outeiro was a band that fused progressive rock and jazz. Their origins date back to 1979 in Vigo (Pontevedra). They started out as a guitar, bass and drum trio made up of Pepe Bordallo from Los Zuecos (bass, acoustic guitar), Fernando Llorca (drums, percussion and trumpet) and Rubén Péz (electric and acoustic guitar).

Shortly afterwards they were joined by Lorenzo Cuasante (keyboards), who comments in La Enciclopedia del Rock Sinfónico y Progresivo Español that “they gave me a tape that they had recorded as a trio with several songs. They sounded like a hard rock group but those recordings had a very original and exotic touch (even too romantic) to put labels on them. On the other hand, they lacked harmony and the meter they followed was quite arbitrary (imagine a 3/4 beat followed by a 4/4 and then a 3/8!) devilishly complicated and tangled for any rock musician to square off with.” At first Lorenzo thought that all of these were inconsistencies that needed to be fixed, but listening to the tape carefully he realised that these were not inconsistencies, that it was all premeditated and that it was precisely there where their originality lay. The music flowed with total naturalness in Outeiro.

and etc. etc.

The music is very much like their predecessor on this blog Caldera crossed with Sacbe, but perhaps slightly less creative and definitely with less of the tropical warmth of those 2. Quality is moderate, not outstanding like the earliest Sacbe and Toussaint.

Title track goes like this:

I should mention this is Bibiano-related (e.g., bassist / vocalist Florencio Gonzalez was also in Bibiano, once posted here on this blog).  Surprisingly the style that shows up here is quite different, not folky.

US Caldera in 4, by request

Discogged here albeit with minimal info.

I would say they are typical progressive Latin fusion from the late 70s, not as fiercely creative as the Mexican Sacbe band I loved so dearly back here, or Pe Ante Pe more recently here. In keeping with their popularity at the time they are rather smooth in fact with minimal craziness but extremely professional playing.

From the first album (ST, 1976), Synesthesia:

From the second (Sky Island, 1977), Seraphim / Angel:

From the third (Time and Chance, 1978), Mosaico clearly uses the same old Latin music cliches but does delve into more complex areas of composition here and there: