Patty Pravo from 1976

Patty Pavro:

Real Name: Nicoletta Strambelli

Profile: Italian singer born 9 April 1948 in Venice, Italy.

Diva, counted since the sixties as one of the greatest interpreters of Italian music, boasts a chameleon-like career that has seen her go through various musical styles, continually reinventing her image: from idol beat to sophisticated interpreter of Italian and French songwriters, then experimenter of rock in its various forms. The album "Biafra" (1976) brought unknown genres to Italy such as the Funk and the new wave. Successes like La bambola (1968), Pazza idea (1973), Pensiero stupendo (1978) and ... E dimmi che non vuoi morire (1997) have marked the history of European pop.

The contrast between the peculiar low and sensual timbre and the filiform beauty, the imperious force of the personality, the provocations and the excesses have made her an icon of elegance and transgression, which has contributed to the evolution of the costume by distorting every canon linked to the figure of the female interpreter in Italy.

I am not so sure there is much for the prog rock fan to cling to here, as her output seems to me to be mostly basic singer songwriter stuff.  Perhaps the 1976 album is the most proggy, consider Sconosciuti Cieli:

Note the highly emotional songwriting, with the 'trappings' of a prog basis, eg synths + allied instrumentation, etc. but lacking a bit of the complexity.

Leo Nero's Vero from 1977 [flac limited time only]

Info on this dude here.  Note he had a follow up album in 1980, described as new wave.

It was recommended by a commenter and I finally got a chance to listen, definitely I would recommend hearing it.  Most of it is straightforward late 1970s singer songwriter stuff very emotional, piano based, along the lines of David Bowie circa. Young Americans, but without the guitar and funk, or Lou Reed as on the Berlin album, some of it quite ordinary.

A lovely instrumental called La Bambola Rota:

Some lovely Gentle Giant style dissonance in the Tastiere Isteriche:

Multiple Chikara Ueda albums [17 total]

 

Many thanks to the commenter who uploaded all these.  Of the ones that I recognize as not available before there's the Funk Beethoven, the Disco ones, Mellow Wonder, and Funpico, but I'm not a Chikara Ueda expert and I wouldn't know if these were common or rare.  I think there have been multiple posts on him on this blog before as well (4 before this one).

Anyways, thanks a million for assembling these and sharing them!  I will listen to them a few at a time, or even fewer, because I find it a bit generic and therefore exhausting but I know there are plenty of fans out there.

The link will probably expire quickly, go ahead and request reups.

Obviously, I didn't bother to post all the album covers since there are 17 in total in the package.

More of the crazy Tie Break from 1995, with Jorgos Skolias, cassette

 

I posted their stuff in 3 separate installments, here with 1989, here with 1990's cassette Duch, here with 1991's Gin Gi Lob.  They never strayed from the wild progressive mixture of uptempo nuttiness vocals plus angular dissonant music.  I think this one completes their 1990s oeuvre, assuming the Retrospective is a compilation.

A track called odszukany w cieniu gives you a clear idea of the totality, and note that the music accompanies spoken poetry from Polish poet / priest Jan Twardowski:

A track called Telefon milczy sounds like the Super Freego from recently:

Shockingly uncompromising music for 1995, I'd say.

Richard Hill's Chanctonbury Ring, from 1978 by request, FLAC limited time only

 

Richard Hill made quite a bit of library music back in the day, I would love to know the quality of that material.  This LP is from 1978 and is not really library, being more concept album I would presume.

It's a bit of an odd mix of classical composition plus orchestral plus commercial songs plus Mike Oldfield type instrumentals.  Despite the cover and the impression you might get, it's definitely NOT Oldfield-style progressive music.

The track called Sisters of the Moon gives you a reasonable idea of the contents, note the mix of orchestra and simple melody with bizarre background (orgiastic?) chanting:

Arousing Polaris, Archives 1974-1975, by request, FLAC limited time only sorry

Unfortunately the sound quality is poorly recorded, and for me that's a huge detraction, but for others maybe not.  From what we can discern the music is solidly in the prog rock mold though with the chord changes, dissonances, irregular rhythms, etc. Info on this release here.  Note the odd song names, reminding us of famed US band Yezda Urfa.

Opening track, Girl Friday gets her shoes caught in the revolving door:

Arousing Polaris was a creative rock band whose influences were the late psychedelic era and early British and European art-rock scenes. It brought together four musicians unified by a passion for creative expression and the cutting edge sounds of the times. Although trapped by the American commercial scene, they managed to have a solid following, despite their failure to have out any recordings, until now.

This documentation represents the groups earliest musical statement. At this stage they were purely instrumental, adding vocals about a year later.

Rehse and Frankovic were neighbors and played in several projects before. Demichei and Rehse were school mates, and Krueger met Rehse at technical school. Rehearsal was at Frankovic's basement. Ages ranged from 17 to 22.

In March of 1974 Rehse bought a Hammond organ, which marked the beginning of rehearsal with Frankovic. Initially they jammed with a drummer from their "William The Conqueror" days, but Demichei was far more suited for the position. Krueger would join a short time later. The line up on these recordings would last until August of 1976, when Krueger decided to leave. After his departure the group became a trio, expanding it's sound with electronics and various ethnic instruments. In June of 1979 they disbanded for 10 months before re-emerging as the psychedelic pop group "Plasticland."

Glenn Rehse.

A review of this release by local media Shepherd Express:

https://shepherdexpress.com/music/album-reviews/archives-74-75-by-arousing-polaris-rockhaus/

A lost CD, Australian Justin Humphries' Mind Funk from 1997

 

An album that to my surprise was not databased on discogs, although likely to be this artist.  However if searched online it can be found for sale in some rare places, for example here.

The opening track called Cloud shocked me when I first heard it, because it so closely resembles my favourite library album the Ozone one from back here, by Phil Moon.  The ingenious chord changes and movements, stately and cloudlike of course, stunned me:

Title track is more typical of the rest of the instrumental fusion:

But there's a whole bunch of great music in there, you'll see what I mean, electric guitar-based fusion but quite original and quite excellent, esp. when you consider the multitudes of songs and albums we've already heard in that sphere of life ("are you sure you're not collecting the same album over and over again?" in my wife's immortal words).

Maybe after listening you'll agree with me that it's tragic this CD didn't survive the 'test of time' --  but so much garbage pop culture did.

Picnic at Hanging Rock OST 1975 with the Ascent Theme

 

I was surprised to find out there is no actual soundtrack for this lovely, deservedly famous movie, despite the beauty of the theme music which was written by Bruce Smeaton.  In a way it makes sense, kind of, since the remainder of the tracks are the abhorrent Zamfir pipes of pan folk songs we all grew up with, sadly, and very well known and tiresome classical pieces.   Presumably the detestable nature of the Zamfir stuff was enough reason to avoid forcing any human to listen to more of it.  But it's tragic the ascent theme wasn't released.

I hadn't noticed the music at all actually when I saw the movie, but I was a kid at the time, what I remember is being highly impressed with the extreme beauty of the cinematography (and the girls) as well as the depth of the emotional themes and the mysterious story which I thought was based on a true story, but today in the age of wikipedia we can learn it was purely fictional from the beginning.  

People have put together unofficial soundtracks it seems with the different pieces, and these are what I uploaded.  But it's obviously beholden to the progressive music of the 70s, eg early Genesis or Pink Floyd with the varying minor chords, classical-derived, the very odd time signature which I think is said to be in 17/8, and the beautiful spacey synth sound, as I call it.  If you haven't heard the Ascent Theme before, you'll see what I mean, it's really quite stunning, too bad we can't have a full album's worth of this stuff, I suppose we did back when Pink Floyd made Meddle and Echoes, etc.:

Richard Sussman's Evolution Suite from 2016

 

I posted the Bob Moses-involved album Tributaries from 1978 back here.  Richard Sussman played the piano on that magnificent album, with gorgeous contemporary jazz, but nonetheless inventive compositions.  His own page says:

American jazz bassist, pianist, composer, arranger, and educator, born March 28, 1946 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

To my surprise he was in the protoprog band Elephants Memory, which made a really good debut album back in the late sixties.  Subsequently though if memory serves me correctly, which it usually doesn't anymore, they reverted to basic or commercial rock with nothing progressive.  Looks like he was also briefly in BST which I hope everyone loves as much as me and the Mike Santiago work with Entity, which I posted back here a long time ago (more than a decade ago!), and that one of course is a bone fide masterpiece of US fusion.

Anyways back to this one, which carries on where Tributaries dropped off, with a little more composition, modern classical and atonal, surprisingly, despite appearing almost 30 years later.  Sadly virtually no info on that page but a note inside the package shows the performers' names.

A perfect example is the second movement:

A great point of comparison (if any remember it) is the Moe Koffman Solar Explorations work I posted here, with its 'ideal' trifold mix of classical modern orchestral, big band, and fusion, featuring advanced instrumental compositions, which I still dearly love partly for the fact it's utterly unknown to everyone.  I think on a head to head comparison though the Koffman work is better because of its insane variety, no surprise given the fertile time period from which it emerged fully evolved.

But this too is a beautiful piece of art.  And also completely lost to time.

Tropico (with Chikara Ueda) - Mellow Peanuts, 1978 [by request, limited time FLAC]

 

Info here.  Pretty pedestrian instrumental funky stuff for my taste with nothing much to cling to.  But I am well aware it's incredibly popular and in demand, as it was requested before. I find, especially, the boingy synth melody sound that shows up here and there really hard to swallow.

The best I could come up with is Una Sera di Tokyo with its very Italian soundtracky sound:

The title track is quite representative, rightly or wrongly so:

Request: Elliot Freedman Group - Bands of Merriment, Vol.1, West Coast Quintet Live [by request limited time only]

 

With regards to these guys, discogs says:

Profile:

The Elliot Freedman Group advances a harmonically elegant, compositionally uncompromising, non-canonical adventurous jazz.  “Very, very good avant fusion” Guitar Player magazine

Of course the title of this one is either ironic or ridiculous, you choose.  As described, it's tight fusion with some contemporary jazz elements (eg acoustic jazz piano).  His personal style is very similar to Alan Holdsworth, but I find the sound of the guitar which is somehow passed through a synth (?) quite distracted sometimes with its twangy whistling aspect.  You'll see what I mean when you listen to it.

For ex., the first track, Finding Form For:

Back to Fumitaka Anzai in 1984's Chikkun Takkun

 

I posted Anzai's first from 1982 here, and as mentioned earlier I've always really loved that one.  So I was highly curious to hear this second album-- if it's as interesting as the first one.  Needless to say, we can answer with a partial negative.  But the search is always worth it, given the gems that turn up here and there.  You can also see from the database page, kind of, that there is a mixture of artists doing the tracks here.  Though I did give up, short attention span as is common nowadays, trying to collate which ones are from Anzai and if they're the good ones.

Anyways, the whole sounds very much like a library video game album, with all the tracks a minute or two long.  Some of the better ones do have prog bases to them, for ex. the A 6 which is Stravinskyesque dissonances:

A lot of electronic noodling appears, as on B1:

The libraryish B15:

Phaedrus Triptych 2017 limited time only, requested

This one-off album or rather CD is interesting because it's from Spanish keyboardist / composer Carlos Plaza Vegas, who I've known well for decades from his band called Kotobel -- one of my favorite 'recent' prog bands.  This work is definitely little known, and unfairly so really.  Is there anything fair at all in music, these days, in 2025?  I don't think so, personally.

The track called Dawn definitely sounds like it comes right off a Phaedrus album, it amazes me when I think of all the work and thought that went into this composition, with the originality of it, the freshness of the chords, the sheer creativity of it:

While a track called Perpetual Movement illustrates the classical chamber side of things, like the Japanese TEE just posted:

Stunningly too, all the music from beginning to end is worth listening to carefully, there's not a single weak spot on there!

French After Life - Cauchemar, 1975 [Fresh Vinyl Rip]

 

From discogs:

Wide-ranging French rock band from Lyon (1969-1975). 

A good (critical) review from big prog collector apps on rym:

A French band, mainly singing in English with one and only album, released in Spain!

Strange case this After Life group, who's main figure appears to be French underground composer Jean-Pierre Massiera.  After Life employeed several members in a stint of about 5-7 years with Roddy Julienne playing  the acoustic guitar and singing, Ralph Benatar, Bernard Monerri and René Mémé handling the electric ones, Xavier Dubois as the bassist, Hervé Duclos performing on keyboards and Jose Muñoz responsible for the drumming (apparently a Spanish citizen).  The music comes as a definition of inconsistency, it's all over the place with fading Psychedelic Rock as the basic guiding light, leading to several, different styles, some of which sound completely dated.''Cauchemar'' (1975, Discophon) contain some tracks close to Alice, a bit of Theatrical Rock with standard French drama qualities on the singing parts and a sound somewhere between Psych and Progressive Rock.  Other tracks remind me of Strawbs, a mellow Psych/Art Rock with some folky vibes and soft electric guitars and keyboards throughout, but there are also many dull moments of uninteresting Psychedelic/Blues Rock.Musical extensions do not stop here, several tracks visit some light jazzy qualities and the bass work reveals an evident funky approach, similar to compatriots Nemo.  A sought-after release, ''Cauchemar'' is absolutely confusing of a release with many 60's leftovers (strong use of harmonica, psychedelic overtones, guitar/piano-based grooves) and does not actually meet the value of its fame.  Several Massiera-related works out there are much more interesting, this goes mainly for fans of dated Psychedelic Rock.

It's definitely inconsistent but has some nice moments, at least I've always remembered it that way.  Also note that a mono rip has been circulating online forever, so the (good) music did require upgrading.

The first track with its crashing dramatic chords, called Cauchemar (nightmare), sounds quite insistently like the classic French band Ange:

Le secret de la vieille dame recalls so much I've posted here before, like Le Chien des Dunes, Mor - Stations, etc. etc. and I admit I have a weakness for this kind of rambly French songwriting:

Too bad it's so short!  It's a good composition.

Posology reveals the psych side of the things mentioned above, btw that's a great word, referring to dosages of drugs:

Unfortunately the remainder of the album is, as mentioned, surprisingly generic, bland, and simplistic.

HUR: Hommage a la Musique de Christian Vander, limited time only

 

Info here for this 2 CD set.  Released in 2009 this is a truly stunning compilation of some really unbelievable music, deserving to be placed next to the greatest modern classical music as far as I'm concerned.  Different prog artists contribute and reinterpret these assorted tracks, presumably all Magma originals but I'm not totally sure, which makes it all the more interesting.

From Ain Soph, Cosmos A Fiieh:

From Patrick Gauthier, The Last Seven Minutes:

La Somme des Parties, Rerecorded best of Shylock, limited time only

 

I'm going to do a few French posts, because I really love their prog and found a few new things.

Shylock is one of my all time favorite artists with its gorgeous mix of chamber classical with electric guitar front and center headed of course by Frederic Lepee (who 10 years later created the Philharmonie band), and hailing from the beautiful Riviera city of Nice.

This album from 2016 features rerecorded material which showed up for the most part on their 2 (masterpiece) albums released 1976 and 1978, although I think some appeared as bonus tracks on the musea Cd release.  There are 2 tracks that are for sure new for this one, including La Roche Trouee, a demo:

And another is the Dixieme, note that the 4th to 9th appeared on the other albums (eg. the famed composition Ile de Fievre is the 8th):

The interplay of piano and electric guitar is just ethereally lovely, and equally, so rare to hear nowadays.  But then the way the track changes completely into a dissonant Frippian riff, and again changes into the classical opera-like synth chord patterns augmented with strings, halfway through! Hard to believe.

More folk with Tamburlaine from NZ 1971, 1973

1

A New Zealand folk-rock band.

They made these 2 albums with some lovely compositions.

From the 1971 album Say no More, I can't believe how expressively emotional the Rainy City Memoirs are:

And gotta love the surrealistic artwork on their second album.  The best song in my opinion, Sunny Side:

Sower from USA 1977

 

Complete change in direction for one more, with basic folk countryish stuff.

Databased information is here:

US 1970s folk/psyche/rock act, fronted by Charles Maxwell & Kelly Cargo.

With LP info:

Recorded at Val-West studios, Alb, New Mexico, Aug. 2-11, 1977.

Needless to state, an only child from this band. Instrumental called Smile Back: not  Burnt Norton (first and second sides were mistakenly labeled) with just gorgeous guitarwork (for those curious, this is an eruditic T.S. Eliot reference):

Sixto Rodriguez 1970, 1971

 

Another unknown ssw from the early 1970s with similar music to Sally Eaton, the usual simplistic psych folky songs with suffocating political content plus the chamber and orchestral arrangements (done by a certain Mike Theodore).

Bio:

American singer/songwriter and guitarist, born July 10, 1942, Detroit, Michigan, USA - died August 8, 2023.

Rodriguez released the solo album "Cold Fact" on the Sussex label in 1970. The blues-funk style of his overtly sociopolitical lyrics gained him little popularity in the US, where he once performed onstage with Hispanic activists the Brown Berets. However, his music found a resonance with a fan-base in South Africa, where he became somewhat of a cult legend. He also toured Australia with Midnight Oil during the 1980s.

Rodriguez was also known as "Sixto Rodriguez" and was once a Motown session musician. Works include: "Cold Fact", "Coming From Reality", "After The Fact" & "Sugarman: The Best Of Rodriguez".

Sixto's brother Jesse (aka Jesus Rodriguez (6)) co-wrote songs for Rodríguez' catalogue and repertoire.

Sugar Man, from the first album:

From the 2nd album, the song called It Started Out so Nice grew on me a lot:

After that, he put out a live album in the early 1980s--how unusual is that for a folky?  Did not listen to that one.