Canadian Marcia Meyer's magnificent oeuvre, part one, Phases`from 1981 -- and Happy New Year to all!!

This was one of the most shockingly (to me) beautiful records my friends ever dug up out of the fields of oblivion and it's still very little known.  How they discover these lost albums I will never really understand but I have the utmost respect for their crate-digging acumen which I cannot quite equal in my efforts.  Briefly we have here a kind of proto-new age, without the silliness or simplicity, augmented by chamber instruments including flutes, on an acoustic guitar and piano basis with occasional soprano singing from the artist, and some very tastefully arranged string quartet textures on certain songs.  So for those who don't like a slightly schmaltzy style, it will be a turn off or a bad trip, but for those willing to open their minds and let the artist speak to their heart, this will be a revelation or passage through enlightenment in the best tradition of a magic mushroom, as it was to me.  The databases describe this as psych, folk, or acid, but really it's best referred to as proto-new age progressive chamber music.  And of course she plays all instruments and wrote the arrangements.

Like in the case of Kurt Memo's album recently posted in lossless, this is clearly a labour of love on the part of an utterly uncompromising artist who believed in her work even when the entire world couldn't care less (it was pressed by her).  How heartbreaking it must have been for her to have such an icy reception to what we can now see is such beauty.  It reminds me of another similarly maligned artist, Nick Drake's 'Fruit Tree:'


" Fruit tree, fruit tree
No one knows you but the rain and the air "
...

Fruit tree, fruit tree

Open your eyes to another year
They’ll all know
That you were here when you’re gone "

And throughout of course we get such a strong sense of the bond between musician and natural world, she could also have called this is a love song to the earth or paean to nature, we hear of rivers, ocean, trees, etc., the flute and guitar duet on side two is like a stroll through a cedar forest full of birds and life on a sunny day...

Note that she made another record two years later which is not in the discogs database but it is just as beautiful.  So the cold reception she must have received, for what she probably realized was a masterpiece, did not discourage her yet-- thank god.

Here is one of the most haunting songs and it features her gentle singing, called 'It's a long song':





This song is reprised instrumentally at the end of the record.

For an example of the 'progressive chamber' aspect, here we have the 'Phases II':





For me this is the best way to close out the old year, and I hope that others will agree, in particular those who are into folk and more intimate acoustic music such as the fans of Ezhevika Fields.  And very shortly I will be back with her second album.  But I wish that like Nick Drake her music could be popularized and known again.  I'm not holding my breath for that of course.  Happy New Year to everyone out there, and let's soon get on with our work of exploring and disinterring more beautiful music that no one yet knows about!! And you can be sure I still have a few up my sleeve.


A quick update, it appears her music is available directly from the artist on her website.  I will point you there and ask you do not share the download and I encourage you to purchase directly from her.  My apologies to the artist!

http://www.marciameyermusic.com/

Denise EP (Germany) - You Have to Hear It [1977]

This is a little-known German hard rock band but I sincerely wish their little cockroach EP could be played everywhere, yet it's not even expensive as you can see from the discogs entry (about 20 euros).  As we know in the late seventies to early eighties the great German engineering geniuses managed to replicate and even surpass the rock, fusion, and jazz invented and perfected in the United States and Great Britain, and it was such a prolific area to explore that to this day I still have not reached the bottom of this wonderful oktoberfest barrel of music...  Here the outstanding track is the last hard rock number about the "Kitchen Cockroach" and you and I will never of course come up with a better title for a song, nor better cover drawing.  Speaking of cockroaches I was amused in a recent New Scientist article to read about the secret to its success (though let us not forget the help of humans in propagating an animal that is really tropical to subtropical): its ability to consume any kind of food is due to a symbiosis with various microbial species that help it digest everything, showing once again how symbiosis and cooperation can be the secret to natural success, just look for example at the case of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt or even better, Ronald Reagan (who also could go, like the cockroach, months without feeding) and the M. Thatcher who would digest all the food for him so he could swallow without chewing or even thinking, sometimes even from mealy cue cards placed far behind him filled with those scrumptious words like deregulation and free trade and welfare moms...  It is notable that sometimes she would exit his digestive tract (probably via the anus) -- similar to the way corals expel the algae they are symbionts with -- and then she would be seen in speaking tours, for example, in Trafalgar Square, without ol' Ronnie.  Magnificently interesting.

And be sure to listen to the lyrics, here is what I heard at what point:

"This song is about a small animal
that wanted to be a great rock star
but he was too small..."

Radavique's B-sides from Netherlands 1984 [lossless!!]

And what a gorgeous cover graphic, again!


I believe this was posted in mp3 before, this is an upgraded rip in lossless for a great little eighties-influenced art rock / progressive album.

Information can be found here:

"Radavique:
Year: 1981 - 1984 Place: Enkhuizen

Band Members:
John van der Schaaf - Drums (1980-1984, Split Level) Middelkoop Martin - Guitar, Bass, Vocals Jan Koehoorn - Keys (1983-1984), former Redpoint, Split Level Jan de Jager - Keyboards, Vocals (ex- Reformed Accountable) Matthijs Boertien - Guitar (1974-1978, former Heaven, Captain) Ton Stavenuiter - Bass (1974-1978, former Reformed unaccountable) Johan Muller - Vocals, guest on the plates, Redpoint member Jaap van Zoonen - Bass (1980-1984, former SHOKE) Hans Vos - Drums (1974, member Clapham Junction to Jazzy Day) Kees Stumpel - Drums (1974-1978, former Heaven, to Enge Buren Band)
Live: 1974-1978 
Studio: 1980-1984

Rectilinear symphonic, dominated by keys, all short numbers.  Pearls of the dawn, and I will, I hear have a different style hear with folky influences and female vocals. The album was released as a private oil and is highly sought after by collectors of Dutch progressive music. As such Radavique was also included in the booklet  Private English of Limburger Jean Jobses."

[Thanks to google translate for the poetry as usual --The Editor.]

And you can see from the discography, there was no a-sides record, the title must be a joke.
But the music is no joke.  It's great and slightly progressive pop that all of us can now appreciate, 30 years later...  And for most of you out there I'm sure a nice welcome break from the fusion and jazz.

Part of Art, Son Sauvage. Germany 1983

As mentioned before this is a much more stunning and impressive record from this team including Herbert Joos, who 'composed' the third song as you can see (I get the feeling it's mostly improvised).  You may be aware that a crappy mp3 was circulating online for some time now, but unfortunately, in mono, which drives me absolutely crazy, we are not living in the nineteen forties anymore...

Here is jazz plus classical music at its utmost, elevated level of performance, creation, and understanding.

As I said with regards to Morricone, for us this music makes up in beauty what it lacks in popularity.



AND OF COURSE, MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Except, of course, those who don't celebrate it, like the Muslims and Jews, who I really don't want to offend, or the Confucians and Buddhists, or even the Atheists, of whom I am one, and therefore of course I couldn't care less about Christmas in any case, except for the fact my children are entitled to many many toys at this time for no apparent reason, certainly not because they are well-behaved...

CINEVOX 1203 (1983) Sonorizzazioni - Ecologia (featuring the incomparable Ennio Morricone) [lossless upgrade]

When I first heard this I fell out of my chair, again.  The amazing Morricone, responsible for so much fantastic Italian soundtrack music, can always make a beeline straight into my soul with his warm and expressive melodies and sounds, tinged often with melancholia, as in this instance.  Probably still his most famous is the theme for "Once upon a time in the West".

I wonder in particular if some of these fantastic compositions made their way into some of those late night art movies we watched when young, my brother and myself, in which sundry young and hairy Italian starlets got naked for older men and were apparently available, vaginally, for any man who sought their company for the night...  ah those good ol' days....

Note that Carlo Rustichelli was also a huge and prolific soundtrack composer, as were the other contributors to this record, Gaslini, Bixio, Piccione, and Ferrio.  So this explains the amazingly high quality of the music here.  A relatively poor rip was circulating before that really didn't do this music justice, so I bought the record, I had to.

First track, one from Morricone:





It's amazing what a skillful composer he was, especially in the late seventies period: oftentimes a theme in a minor key would gracefully pass into an unexpected major key, as in the soundtrack for "Cosi Como Sei" before returning to minor, like a life of sadness interspersed with unexpected happiness.  I'm reminded of American poet Robert Frost's fantastic line:

"Happiness makes up in height what it lacks, in width"

And in fact we can say the same about this music we love so much, that for us it makes up in beauty, what it lacks, in popularity...

Note the two different covers, of which the top is a little more attractive, no question.

If anyone has more information on this release, such as where these tracks appeared in movies, I'd really welcome it.  I really have to wonder how many stunning songs are lost to time altogether now from these old Italian soundtracks, if this is any indication of the quality thereof.

Ennio's Mesa Verde: