Luna Sea, USA 1976, by request

I remember long ago (almost five years ago!) reading about this record on the cd reissue wishlist.  At that time Tom certainly didn't make it sound appealing and worth fighting for.  But in time a friend sent me a copy so I could ascertain that he was (or perhaps rather the AC), indeed, spot on in his assessment:

"This is another rarity sent in from The Alaskan Connection. I thought he did a magnificent job at describing the album, so take it away AC: ' It's the lone private press LP by an almost totally unknown US band named Luna Sea. They were from Blair, Nebraska of all places, but the album was recorded in Iowa. The first side is going to really test your willpower, as it's just straight radio-rock a la the Eagles, so you'll just have to "man-up" and slog through it. There is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, though, because side 2 is totally different. Suddenly the synths appear, and things start getting a lot more interesting. It starts out in a still fairly accessible style, but things get proggier literally by the minute, until the last track "Rousing The Ghost", which is a fantastic piece of instrumental symphonic prog with great guitar, keys, and even a little flute. Oh, and be sure to stay tuned for the unlisted (and totally stupid) outro! A completely schizophrenic album, but even the band seemed to know this as they named the first side the "Light Side" and the second side the "Dark Side"! Hard to tell what they were really trying to accomplish here. But, such is the nature of the US underground. One part confusion and one part inspiration. I guess that's kind of the charm! In any case, this thing is seriously rare. It only first emerged onto the collector scene within the last year or two, and since it was first discovered only like two or three copies have popped up." Thanks AC!  So true on the question "what are they trying to do here?". It was very typical for bands in the 1970's to try for a radio hit while mixing in their progressive rock ambitions. That strategy never did work.'

The last track ('Rousing the Ghost,'  mentioned above) is clearly killer, there will be no political debates on this issue, not at all, not ever:





Information from database here.

Please note that in Tom's comments section, the following appear:

I can't believe this record exists in even a blog. My old roommate in Hot Springs Arkansas, Collin Thompson, was the drummer in this band, and also did a lot of the vocals. They toured with the band Firefall in the late 70's, and when Firefall came out with an album titled "Luna Sea", this upset band members enough to file a lawsuit. From the stories I have heard, Luna Sea members sold equipment and paid legal bills. Well you all know what happened: Firefall went on and Luna Sea disappeared. Unfortunate too because I rate this album better than any Firefall! I love the song "Everybody You Ever Met" and "Almost Profound Melancholia". Only a couple hundred of these records were made and mine is autographed. Thanks for remembering this!

Anonymous Joshua Gear said...

Another one to join in with a tie to this: 

My old guitar teacher, Craig Nance, was the guitar player for this album. He now lives in Harlan, Iowa where he performs with jazz groups though the area and teaches lessons (I learned from him from age 5 though high school).

He gave me a copy of this album, played onto a CD. I would KILL to get a copy of this record, but I recall him saying that there are probably very LPs left around. 

He is an amazing, fantastic guitar player, and it's a shame these guys never took off. 

Thanks so much for this write up, it was really surprising finding this review online!



And thanks indeed to the guys in the band, for crafting this beautiful record!

Impuls' Naima i and II from Czech by request, 1988 and 1990

This is typical Eastern European fusion-- of the kind we all know and love so much.  For example, from the first album, Monika 3:





And from the second, My Old Friend:





And of course, I dedicate this to my old multilingual friend, generous and dedicated and eternally impelled by the love of beauty, who ripped this record for the benefit of all of us: may you one day finish your search and return to us again...  we all miss you so much...

But in the meantime you have left us with your music and, as the great Greek poem said:

"Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;
For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take."

Swedish Änglaspel's1988 Live

Appeared on Jazz i Sverige 1982  This is their third album.  Evidently a live, recorded at Jazzclub Nefertiti, the 17th and 18th of January 1988 in Goteborg, Sweden, "at the 10th Anniversary of the Group".  I will admit that it tends to drag a little bit, and in this instance the length of the record which approaches the 50 minute mark is a negative not a positive but there is a great deal of Mingus influence here, which can be a welcome thing, sometimes unwelcome if poorly done, in this small group of four brass and sax plus three supporting players.

Мурад Кажлаев - Вечерний Арбат [Murad Kazhlaev - Evening Arbat: Jazz, Dance and Music] from ?1977

Big band music from Russia with this bandleader who was quite prolific.  In cyrillic, the data.
Some other albums from the slightly unprepossessing gentleman.  His classical musical composition, as always with these people, shines through the dark slavic forest full of, of course, dancing bears and those terrifying Putin tigers with their bare chests.  And those rebels armed with AK-47s, the greatest invention industry has ever fashioned...  For example, track A3 (translated by google as Old Saxophonist) shows off some vividly splendid fuguing:





Notice that the first 5 tracks of side b form a suite (Dagestan Suite, as translated by The Great Google) which luckily I was able to separate easily (unlike the case with that troublesome Trouble lp).   This composition is slightly more interesting as a whole though again not at the level of Nazaruk's Forest Suite.

Unfortunately an immoral but major majority of tracks veers into the easy listening direction of oncoming traffic for a horrific head-on crash leading to high casualties and expletives.  I'll spare you mention of the musical quotation of that godawful wedding march that is so utterly tiresome to hear, not just on a record, but in person at a ceremony, at least for those of us who have decades of such a state of affairs on our personal resumes already, or rather, have a look at The Great Google's tracklist in English and you'll see what I mean:

Evening Arbat. Jazz, Dance Music.
A1 Evening Arbat
A2 Kaleidoscope
A3 Old Saxophonist
A4 The stadium
A5 Minuet
A6 Wedding March

Dagestan Suite.
B1 Exotic Dance
B2 Morning Song
B3 Gorsky Dance
B4 In the Old Aule
B5 Oriental Patterns

B6 Paraphrase


That last Paraphrase is beautifully composed, soundtrack-like music which should have been-- could have been-- probably was-- used in one of those luscious euro-coproductions of the seventies wherein big-bosomed Ursula Andress runs through the Alps pursued by old professors usually played by M. Mastroianni with mid-life crises and a yapping wife perhaps played by Annie Girardot herself pursued by an Italian comic with a huge afro and a fat sidekick who keeps munching on chocolates and who later runs off with a large Labrador, played by Gerard Depardieu...  how I miss those stupid old Euro late night movies I grew up with, the music was always so beautiful, usually composed by of course, Morricone, and there was always at least one scene with nudity for my tender young eyes...

https://www.sendspace.com/pro/dl/3drujw

VA (Transjazz, Naima, Jan Buchar Quartet, Jakub Venzel) in Jazz Magma from Czech, 1986

This record features the four fusion groups Naima (whose albums I strongly recommend everyone seek out), Jakub Venzel, Jan Buchar Quartet, and Transjazz.

From Naima a wonderful composition called The Call that opens side 2 and that happily does not reappear on their I and II albums from 1988 and 1990: