Don Valley Parkway's Swish Timing [sic] from 1986 -- more from Toronto after Martin Springett...

A fusion album in the mid-eighties could be disappointing, could be promising, which is it?
Here's one listenable track in the middle of side A:

Big Island Hawai'i and Mofoya's Send a Message review and download from 1979

MoFoYa = 'More for You' and here we do get a lot indeed.  The cover is a drawing of the Big Island of Hawai'i  complete with two mountains, including what is usually billed as the tallest mountain in the world if you count its foundation below the sea, Mauna Kea (more than twice the height of Everest, apparently).  It's readily visible due to the astronomy edifices built on top, their silver shining like beacons on the snow cap you see when you lie on the beautiful hot beaches...  (And hence the track called "climb the highest peak" at the A3 position.)

First, from popsike:

"Obscure Prog Psych band from Kona, Hawaii. Lots of variety on here. There's great funky wah-wah, mellow prog with flute and female vocals, some trippy treated vocals, synths, loud guitars, soft ones, etc.  Here are 10 tracks of groovy pop-meets psych-meets flowerchild samba rock. 

Female vocalist GAILYVON's spacey Hippie stylings are backed by BILL MONTEI (guitars, synthesizers, strings, & backing vocals); TIM VALENTE (bass, flute); JOHN ALDEN (guitars, vocals); & RONNIE ATWATER on drums & percussion & backing vocals."


This was recorded in Kona, famous for its coffee, a small city on the west side of the island.  Of course I've spoken before about Hawai'i and its friendliness and great beauty, many times before.


Probably the most accessibly gorgeous song is track A4, called "Magic Sands".





Oh how I want to go back to those turquoise waters and white beaches backed with jungle-draped high cliffs intercepted by fresh waterfalls!


Track B2's Transition shows how loco progressive these locals could get when they were in the mood for it:




Now anybody want to go to Hawai'i with us for some ono grinds?  Maybe some spam sushi or a nice big plate lunch full of macaroni salad and kalua pork?  But good luck trying to find this record for sale there-- it took me three years to buy a copy finally on ebay...

And dig those Galaga type old school video game sounds at the very end of the record...

"Don't stray there-- tidepools--  you better watch out..." (B4)

Eric Tocanne Questions d' Habitude...

Not a lot of information about this stunningly brilliant guitarist.  This record seems to be his only work, and it recalls to me the avant-garde jazz of Claude Barthélémy whom I featured before on this blog.  The latter made a number of similar records but his first, the one I reripped and posted, is definitely his magnum opus.

Here we get tons of tritones, dissonances, minor seconds, diminished chords, etc., etc., all the usual textual apparatus of progressive composition on a funky kind of beat that never lets up on the energy level like my children in their post-Hallowe'en zany mania of candy-driven delinquence & dereliction.  All instrumental.  In particular, the first track features some ascending guitar patterns on a swing walking bass that typify this release:

Martha Elefteriadu (1980) Kresby Tuší

Another fantastic find from my friend, a Radka Toneff-like dark singer with a bit more exuberance and energy than the former who played with Martin Kratochvíl's famed Jazz Q and with extraordinarily progressive compositions by Michael Kocab, the famed Dezo Ursiny, and others.

From my friend, and bless him for discovering this unknown LP:

Martha Elefteriadu

Comes from a family of Greek immigrants, who fled from Greece because of the civil war and settled in the 1950s in the former Czechoslovakia. Herr mother died early in his childhood, and she grew up in the orphanage for Greek children. Martha, after high school graduation studied medicine, later moved to study Psychology, which she finished at the Charles University in Prague. This album is a reminder of East Europe's Sovjet controlled allowed music! Keyboards sound is horrible, especially solos!

After Carita Holmstrom, Radka Toneff, Petri Pettersson, I didn't think there was much hope of finding another unknown SSW album like this one... really some tracks here deserve to be well remembered if there is any musical justice at all in this ol' world, though as we know, there isn't.

When you check out the credits on discogs, notice that Michael Kocab leads the backing band, that famed progressive jazzist Jiri Stivin plays flute on here too, and that Ursiny provides backup vocals on track B3 which he also wrote, though it's unfortunately not of much interest, sounding like a bossa nova sung by the Andrews Sisters-- not a pleasant combo.

The first song in particular reminds me of Radka's Lorelei composition:





Notice the chords that Kocab used in this song.  Starting with an Esus7, we move to Dmin6 on F base, E half-dim with added 9, then E7, then a stunning jump down to what I think is D♭, which opens up a whole new world of flatted gemlike riches, including B♭ and A♭, then F and D7 are employed to transition from there back down to the beginning chord of Esus7.  As I've said before, such a unique chord sequence it's guaranteed no human invention had ever used such a series before.  What a joy of discovery to listen to this song and the skill with which Kocab plays a melody atop such wondrous surprises.  So different from the music of today where the standard progressions are used ad nauseam, the same ones that were mastered in pop music 100 years ago already....  And listen all the way to the end of the song, so you can hear the flight of fancy on the synthesizers which recalls to me the best work of Czesław Niemen such as on his Idee Fixe record... What a time that must have been when you could make such uncompromising music on a solo album!

And what a delight to rediscover, so many years later, this lost treasure!

The two sisters together made many albums back in the day:

Head Over Heels from Germany 1983

As usual in these cases the gorgeous cover painting really drew me in.
The music itself is southern or country rock sounding as if it's American, but it isn't.
I mentioned before how cute it is when the Germans pretend they are US.  This is a great example of that odd imitation.

A typical line:

"In Munich you're born, in New York, you're home..." 
I love it!

"The Chance":