Bernard Lubat and his Mad Ducks, 1971 [FLAC limited time only]

 

Bernard Lubat:

French (library) music composer, singer, pianist, vibraphonist, accordionist, drummer, band leader

Born on May 12, 1945 in Uzeste in the Southwest of France

Note that he was in the Live in Montreaux fusion album with Engel, Louiss, etc. posted here.

While information on this very early fusion release can be found here.

As you might expect there's the kinda nutty early Soft Machine (1, 2) vibe with silliness and psych noodlings but also quite a large amount of surprisingly well evolved and composed great music, enough to make this 1971 album more modern sounding than its year (at least in my opinion).

To Yasmina features lovely harmony (I think, 4-part) vocals:

On the elegant and thoughtful piano solo Mickey Schroder's Dream, it's Bernard Lubat himself playing, as you can tell from this databased page:

Some Claude Engel: 1972 99% Pop, 1973 More Creative Pop, 1976 Fantasmagory

 

Claude Engel is of course a French guitarist who was involved in Omega Plus, Magma briefly, Troc, and Univeria Zekt.  I posted the Lubat Louiss Engel Live in Montreaux back here.

Aside from those groups outings, he made the library records 99% Pop and More Creative Pop, plus an ST 1973 and then notably the 1976 Fantasmagory, the most progressive of the bunch.  That first solo 1973 one was more chanson and therefore I didn't include it here in this package.

As an ex. of the library styles, Ralentissimo A from 1972's Pop library:

I posted Teddy Lasry here and there in the past, with whom he collaborates (along with Lubat) on 1973's More Creative Pop.  Teddy's stunning Fiction Melody, obviously is a masterpiece of the prog genre, pretty much a textbook lesson in how to write creative and intense prog rock:

From the wonderful Fantasmagory which is all written by him, very much an acoustic guitar-based work, but with interesting chords, harmonies, and some funky passages (the second side's Martian Suite), plus ethnic importations, the title track feat. vocals:

Less electric than Alain Renaud but similar.  The beautiful solo guitar piece called Improvisation sur Colchique sur les Pres, sounds very much like classic Larry Coryell, which is a wonderful thing always:

I was not a little surprised I had never heard that album before, but happy to discover it now.