Levallet Marais Pifarely return with Eowyn, from 1986

So later in the eighties they made a more commercially oriented album, if you can call complex chord changes, intricate violin patterns and quasi-atonal melodies played by a highly musically educated trio, commercial.

At any rate it's more accessible than the previous outing-- a welcome relief I would say.
It definitely recalls Confluence and the series of albums I posted related to their artists such as The Great Gousti.

A stunning track that recalls the great French violinists, like David Rose soloing in his best moments, A3's Siegfried, composed by Didier Levallet (bassist and 3/8th composer on this LP):





Pifarely contributed 1/8th and thus Marais is responsible for fully half.

Throughout this record I try to follow their minds as they play and I find it both exhilarating and exasperating trying to follow their complex calculus of sound-- like when I first learned about tensors (the higher order vectors), and their transformations...

Frank Robson's second album Stay Awhile from 1976 by request

This his second album continues in the same vein of bluesy James Taylor-like songwriting (the earliest records he made, and without the solo acoustic) with harder progressive elements here and there, horns-driven round the speedway track.  Taken straightforwardly as an album from the "golden age" it should be on every top hundred list of best rock albums, ever.  Sadly, we will never find its presence there or anywhere similar no matter how much we choose to enlighten those awful criterati...

In particular the title track is a pure masterpiece of melodious storytelling with its deep horns and emotive intensity:





In addition to that wonderful laidback of with sustained notes in the melody, the key here is the chord progression with a not-so-rare initial sequence: C, C7, F, Bflatm, Aflat, then the big surprise: the diminished chord in A, with its awful tension, steps us up to Bflat, after which the song is able to return to the 'stepping stones' of F, G7, and thus tonic C.

But the LP is chock-full of gorgeous musical ideas... have a listen to the casual sexiness of "You're Just My Love:"





Really? It couldn't have been a radio hit back then?

Apologies for the mono rip here, all I had.  I would've purchased the vinyl for a better but the price is a bit prohibitive with the dreaded Christmas approach.  If you take a look at his discography he made a third album in 1987 which eschewed the rock and horn sound for a simpler songwriterly approach in keeping with the times, and is of less interest particularly due to its inferior quality.

ADDEDNUM: quimsy provided a stereo rip, thanks!!

Irvin Malonen's Inner Voice, by request, Germany, 1980

The music here is almost library-like in its lack of ambition or intellectuality nonetheless we get a nice basis of classic electric guitar-based instrumental fusion.  The minor second chord change of Coffee Cup had by this time been heard many times before, e.g. French Asia Minor who mastered the style in copying their predecessors like the great Mclaughlin's Mahavishnu, but still can be enjoyed agreeably:

US Jester, 1978, more US magnificence

Yet another in the long line of beautifully warm progressive rock albums from the back of the seventies which should have charted as mega-hits as far as I can opine, but clearly weren't-- who has even heard about this one?

Listen to the penultimate track fusion masterpiece, very similar to Luna Sea's but clearly better:




The first song brings out that glorious synthed hard-AOR US sound we are already so familiar with:




Can anybody get tired of that sound?  I never will.

Claude Barthélémy returns by request with Moderne (1983) and Forest One (1981) with Real-Politik from 1986 [unrequested]

His first album was Jaune et Encore, presented in glorious lossless before.  In 1981 he came back with Forest One and two years later, Moderne.  Both are similar to the first, and at the same time, not quite as strong compositionally.  But with its very slight nod towards commerciality, I really love the later opus, check out the highly Robert Wyatt-like track called Late:





I am presuming it was Claude himself doing the honour of singing here (as he wrote the lyrics).  And look at what our friend apps had to say about this record on rateyourmusic:

For third time in a row Barthélémy invites a completely new core to help with the recordings of his third allbum ''Moderne'' (1983, Owl Records), captured in December '82: Bassist Jean Luc Ponthieux (also the boss of Owl Records), drummer Jacques Mahieux, saxophonist Jean-Marc Padovania and Gérard Buquet on trombone and tuba with guest appearances by Philippe Deschepper on guitar and Manuel Denizet, drummer on ''Jaune et encore ''. The interest of Barthélémy has turned over the years to a smooth and gentle Jazz Rock with a few quirky Fusion instrumentals thrown in for good measure. Still he insists on composing tight and consistent material instead of spending his time on long, directionless improvisations and ''Moderne'' shows his good skills both as a composer and guitarist. There a couple of pieces with a Blues background and vocals, rather out of time and place, sounding too soft for an otherwise technical album. This one ends up to be the most guitar-centered work of Barthélémy, you have the feeling that accompanying musicians get out of sight quite often to offer Barthélémy complete space for his guitar ideas. So it left me complaining about a more solid teamwork, but again the style is fairly intricate for an 1983 album.

Really, I've posted so many similar guitar-driven eighties fusion albums from France before, such as Jean-Luc Chevalier of course, Traitement Special, Oz Quartet, Philippe Caillat, Eric Tocanne, etc., etc.  They seemed to have had quite a predilection for this style.

Bonus, the distinctly more disappointing later album called Real-Politik recorded here in sidelong mono mp3 rip.