Progressive Hallowe'en music at its most phantastic: Dieter Salbert's Musica Phantastica... (1976)

Mr. Dieter Salbert was a serious composer but this album definitely can be classified as progressive rock in its most advanced form.  On this album he plays synthesizers and the beautiful and sometimes eerie operatic voice of Alrun Zahoransky complements some tracks.  A sound similar to a theremin plays many of the melodies giving the music an outer space or spooky horror movie feeling.  Please note that 2 of the odes are poems written by the wonderful Pablo Neruda, although translated into German.   We will hear more from Neruda shortly in another highly creative album, this time from Scandinavia, keep checking back for that one.

Salbert's album Klangszenen from 1984 is excellent (provided you enjoyed this one), in a similar vein, and well worth seeking out as well.

I sampled the shortest track, Ode An Den Duft Des Holzes:

Jean-Jacques Ruhlmann - Impression L'enigme Infinie....



"No one shall expel us from the Paradise that Cantor has created"   David Hilbert the famous mathematician once said regarding infinity, and although in his discipline it's essential (a constructible mathematics is possible without it but with difficulty and apparently incomplete), it's still debatable whether or not infinity has real existence, out there in reality.  In quantum physics the infinity can't exist in space and time because of Heisenberg uncertainty-- there is a smallest unit of both -- and yet, for the equations to be solved, infinity must exist in the renormalization process.  What about the universe?  Although many if not most physicists believe there is a 'multiverse' out there of multiple universes of which ours is merely one, on the basis of the theory of inflation, both commonsense and logic argue against the concept of an infinity of universes...

Is it better to have a finite universe and be nagged by the issue of what is outside it and what came before it, or an infinite universe?  If the latter, unfortunately we are faced with such conundrums as the provable assertion that there is not just another me out there typing this, but in fact an infinity of me's out there typing this.  So which one is the real me?  In the next few years the new Planck satellite is likely to settle the issue of whether or not inflation is true or not, and it might turn out that it's not and the likelihood this universe is unique will increase.

But there is one thing I am sure about now after a lifetime of thinking on the topic, it's that humanity will never definitely answer those questions I first asked my father as a boy, where did the universe come from, what is outside it, how will it end?  Although I understand the optimism of physicists I'm reminded of an interview with Noam Chomsky the famous linguist (and revolutionary) in which he said something along the lines of this, 'If a chimpanzee were presented with calculus, or quantum mechanics, he would never no matter the effort come to understand it.  In the same way, isn't it likely that the human mind also will never understand some things, because of its very structure, and that we will never know what those are?  Because evolution is not capable of creating perfection.'

A beautiful cover foretells a beautiful album of chamber jazz such as the French were able to accomplish absolutely perfectly in those days... and since the subject is the infinite enigma, expect some very intellectual and dreamy music...

Ruhlmann is the composer and plays flutes, soprano sax, and clarinet.  In this opus from 1981, he is rounded out by Philippe Maté on saxes, Francois Couturier on piano, Merzak Mouthana on percussion, and Francois Mechali on double bass.  On the given discography he only has one other record listed, from 1978, unfortunately.  In the French online store cdandlp only this one.

The first track is quite representative:

 My other favourite is the Merzak Express, which features a beautifully done chamber score intro with bowed double bass, clarinet, and sax, showing the modern classical education Ruhlmann possessed, this passes into a zeuhlish piano ostinato figure with a wonderfully exciting crescendo build... progressive music at its finest.

Happy Hallowe'en (Week) -- and RIP Lou Reed October 27th, 2013

"When I was young and in high school, I wanted to play football for the coach...
The older guys said he's mean and he's cruel, but I wanted to play football for the coach...
Cuz' some day man you gotta stand up straight or you gonna fall and then you're going to die, going to die... "
-Lou Reed

One of the greatest and most uncompromising rock artists of the seventies period, and one of my old personal favourites, a true poet of rock, may you rest in peace Lou ...

"I'd like to send this one out for Lou and Rachel
and all the kids and P.S. 192, Coney Island baby,
Man, I'd swear, I'd give the whole thing up for you"

Coney Island Baby

Florian Poser's Lifeline is charting very positively on his first album from 1980 [by private request]

I felt bad about the unexpectedly untimely and precipitate removal of the first Florian Poser post so I'll give you this one instead, the first of three albums with the Lifeline moniker.  I think I mentioned  previously that "Winds" was in my opinion his best album, but you can judge for yourselves.  Or maybe you can't judge since you never got the latter. 
You can always email me.

The style is German fusion, smooth as a hot pumpkin latte.

The band is the following:       

• Bass – Ede Brumund
• Drums, Percussion – Clemens Wernsperger
• Guitar – Manfred Jestel
• Producer – Ulrich Maske
• Saxophone – Manfred Seegers
• Vibraphone, Instruments [Marimbaphone] – Florian Poser

.

Here is a track from Jestel, Mouthpiece:



And here are some more precipitational feelings from Florian to aptly complement the Rain from Winds and the current mini-monsoonal season in (some parts of) the Northern Hemisphere:

Audio Visions Images of 1984

 

Can you believe how beautiful the cover drawing is?  Please take the time to examine it more closely once or if you receive it.

This album is one of those Genesis clones that are so common in the field of progressive rock.  How can we identify the taxonomy of the 'Genesis style'?  In my view there are 5 elements: the nasally voice and individual singing style of Peter Gabriel, the often-outlandish lyrics and subjects of songs, the classical influence (e.g. Firth of Frith), the folky or medieval guitar often using 12-string, and importantly, the use of all previous four elements within the structure of an accessible rock or pop song that has significant and huge variability from one section to another (sudden tempo changes, dramatic crescendos, abrupt fusion passages, etc.).  OK, make that 6 elements in total. If one or other element is missing, it doesn't quite capture the unique style.  (In neo-prog often everything is jettisoned except the most superficial imitation of Gabriel's singing style and lyrics and the synthesizer accompaniment.)  What was great about that seminal group was both the combination of elements and the sheer genius of the compositional and songwriting capabilities of the crew.  I guess the combination of Collins, Hackett, Rutherford, and Banks was golden.  Note that the Gabrielesque element was replaceable after he left the band, the rest carried on perfectly well in his absence.

As an aside, the amazing Canadian band "The Musical Box" has toured the world with a re-enactment of classic Genesis albums copying even the stories Peter told before each song.  I've seen them multiple times and can never get tired of seeing them again whenever they stop by in my town, it's so absolutely interesting, but so flummoxing to those like my wife who are laughing and shaking their heads on hearing the performance, asking, what the hell is this? The Musical Box is actually still touring, check it out.  I believe they recorded a CD too, perhaps more, or maybe I'm confusing it with a bootleg Genesis Live.  Someone can correct me here.

How often is it that a band coming out of nowhere creates a style that had no precedent, and then proceeds to influence an entire movement or style?  because everywhere in prog we hear some Genesis influence, whether in seventies Italian prog, later British prog, and the aforementioned neo-prog movement.  In fact in Germany in particular the Genesis imitators were legion in the late seventies carrying on into the eighties, as documented for example in other blogs' posts (e.g. Odyssee White Swan, Sirius, Lacrima, Audite, etc.).  Even when Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam made alternative popular, they were working on an existing style that had evolved in Seattle in the late eighties & already developed its quirks such as the soft-loud-soft-loud that Nirvana took presumably from The Pixies.  But Genesis, uniquely, created their own sound, I believe without precedent and that sound went on to influence innumerable talented musicians.  (I would love comments on the subject if there are some who feel this is not correct.)  Among those so influenced are this group of artists who recorded this album in Memphis, Tennessee, something like 10 years later than the classic Genesis style they were imitating, but the eighties jumpy pop influence is palpable too in some areas.  It's not altogether consistently great but more interesting and enjoyable for its mimicry. 

The song called "Blues" turns out not to be the obligatory fast-forward-throwaway but, about 2 minutes after a lolling Gershwinian bluesy melody, very surprisingly changes to a bona fide electric progressive instrumental --  have a listen to the sample:

Or consider this example which almost made me laugh when I first heard it, "Rise Above," about sitting in a traffic jam.  The spot-on Peter Gabriel impression is simply too perfectly done.  Really reminds me of those Canadian Musical Box guys, with Denis Gagne as Peter Gabriel dressed in a silly costume popping balloons with his index finger... Be sure to see them!




When we find an album (from 29 years ago this time) so rare and unexpectedly good, I always ask myself, how is it possible we can still find these treasures from the past?  Was the period so fertile there is unlimited gold in the ground still?  Consider how Tom Hayes from cd reissue discovered his recent Metaphysical Animation.  How many more such treasures are still out there?  When will the hunt end?
To which my wife says: "Tomorrow, hopefully."