Dominique Guiot - L'univers de la mer from France 1979

There are two versions of this album, I much prefer the second cover which came later.  Both are French releases.  What an amazingly beautiful and surreal cover painting, as I always like to say, deserving of being in a museum rather than on an utterly forgotten LP...  Credit: photo de recto, J. Wyrs.  A confusing (and unhelpful?) note, since it's a painting on the recto.

The artist reminds me a great deal of Didier Bonin, posted on the old prognotfrog by myself, and the rips are again by our wonderful friend pollux, who does a professional job of cleaning up these records.

His later albums were quite disappointing to me, as you can see, he went on to library records.  The next one, La dame a la licorne, is much too simple and medieval for my tastes.  Incidentally, have you seen the tapestry series in the Cluny Museum, Paris, from which this title is based?  That medieval museum is simply a shockingly outstanding place to visit.

Again, consider how the beautiful first track, Wind Surf Ballad, should have been a radio hit back in the day, but most definitely, wasn't...

Mosaik (1982, from Sweden, not to be confused with French and German Mosaic/k)

Apparently it was posted on prognotfrog, and a reupload was requested... More information can be found here on discogs.

Originally posted by munju:

"It seems Sweden's Atlas never had a very easy time of it, only releasing one album in their six-year history, 1979's Blå Vardag. Ad Perpetuam Memoriam's mid-'90s CD reissue includes several bonus tracks, including one by the post-Atlas outfit, Mosaik, formed by all of Atlas minus one of their two keyboard players, Björn Nielsen. Mosaik is a surprisingly progressive album for the time, although as Isildurs Bane proved, progressive rock didn't completely die out in Sweden in the '80s, though it really wasn't looking too well for a while. Mosaik's a bit of a mixed bag, going from gentle acoustic opener, Återfunnen, through the piano and sax duet Önnestad to the rather overlong Rhodes and MiniMoog jazz workout Re-Båpp, although overall, the band kept the quality pretty high. http://www.planetmellotron.com/revm9.htm

A1. Återfunnen (1:49)
A2. Björnstorp (6:16)
A3. Kirstens rum (8:47)
A4. Tiden bara går (3:28)
A5. Önnestad (4:02)
A6. Ett oskrivet blad (4:06)

B1. Pappa har gått vilse (3:40)
B2. Re-Båpp (14:03)
B3. Trio (4:27)
B4. Mosaik: Gul, röd, orange (5:05)

- Dan Bornemark Sång
- Erik Björn Nielsen Orgel
- Hans Annellsson Gitarr
- Janne Persson Gitarr, flöjt, piano, bas
- Karl Witting Sång
- Micke Pinotti Trummor
- Peter Nilsson Sax
- Tomas Gunnarsson Violin, trummor
- Ulf Hedlund Bas"


Note that both French (Ultimatum, 1978) and German bands (No. 1, 77) of the same name are highly recommended, particularly the former, which was released to CD with some really wonderful bonus tracks that are as good as the original album (although as usual they did not improve on the cover).

Tomorrow I will be back with more new material hopefully, including the continuation of the Jordi Sabates story, a lossless version of some old rips requested, and more US fusion which is so amazingly tasty when unknown!

More 1982 USA: Fred Taylor's Court of Circe -- another brilliant lost fusion masterpiece from the vaults....

Another masterpiece discovered ex nihilo by my friend... how indebted I must be...
And notice the beauty of the geometric cover drawing (by one Barbara Kuhne) which suggests the mathematics of perspective, a fascinating topic in its own right.

All the compositions are by Fred Taylor, who is actually a percussionist.  No other credits for him on this database, which is sad.  He must have done much more and someone is probably liable to correct me here.

For me the standout is the Elegy subtitled To the Memory of Dayle Bates, composed by Craig Lawrence and Ron Madden, which is reproduced here:





At the bottom the following blurb:

"Fred Taylor is a native of Spokane, Wash.  His first musical interests were the piano compositions of Bartok and the jazz of Brubeck. [Ed. - no surprise here!]  These influences led to several years of classical piano training, until his sudden discovery of percussion at age 11.  In addition to a thorough study of perc., theory, and arranging in high school and college, Fred gained an extensive profess. backgrnd in symph. music, jazz improv., and all forms of popular music, his varied experiences include Country Western with Ferlin Husky and Jerry Hegarty, R and B, Soul and Rock with the Ink Spots, Tickled pink, and the Shakers, variety shows with Pete Barbutti, Tony Visco and Dick Fisher, and jazz with the Cozzetti-Gemmill Quartet [recommended as well! -Ed.], jazzdance and his own innovative groups, incl. Sanctuary.  Fred is currently freelancing and doing studio work in the Seattle area, where he lives with his wife Kathy and two cats Muthoo and Chicken.

Court of Circe is the first in a series of new music from Fred and his friends-- Enjoy!

Dedicated with love to flutterby..."

So there you go.  The composition as well as the arrangement is stunning, you will agree...  How sad there was no second album from this astonishingly talented crew...  was the music simply too good?

Rick Bishop's Mister Hide (USA 1982)

Now back to the great American tradition of furious guitar fusion.  This is a totally unknown album, undeservedly so, although when I glanced at RYM I saw the mighty osurec was well ahead of us on this.  There are definitely throwaway tracks though, namely, the standards that make up half of side 2 (which were written by Miles Davis).  The compositions by Rick are astonishing though, for the most part.  The music recalls Tony Palkovic, Tony DuPuis, note how the green cover of "Every Moment" is now blue here.

Here's the wonderfully brilliant ST A2 track:

Please enjoy this great slice of summer fusion!  Perfect to listen to next to a barbecue and beer...

E. Illin and G. Heinz - Mixed Shorties, Music for Television, Film, Radio, Brull CBW 669 (from 1976)

As you can see, the first side is all from Heinz and most of the second too.  Eugene Illin only appears in the last three tracks, and he was the reason I purchased this of course, on the strength of the great compositions he provided for the Drama in Rhythm library LP.  The bio from discogs says:

" Czechoslovak composer and saxophonist. 
Born 2 November 1924 in Biskupice pri Dunaji (former Czechoslovakia), died 12 March 1985 in West Berlin, West Germany. "

Notice that Heinz is more of a straightforward composer.
This would be one that would fit well in the dusty shelf blog, perhaps it already appeared in there once?