Little known Canadian fuzak band ZAK from 1979

What a brilliant scifi cover, a collage done by one Jacques Cleroux.  A man in a rowboat in the sand dunes of a desert is shocked by the animal-like presence of two burned out hulls of blue fiats or minis with, in the background, some kind of alien planet living space dome...  What do you make of that one, October Country?

Most of this album, unfortunately, given the hope of the cover, is generic light fuzak style jazz-rock, entirely instrumental.  The idiotic (and idiotically named) Spiro Agnew made (in)famous the line Nattering Nabobs of Negativity which here is applied to a very interesting, experimental and condensed short piece, unfortunately far too short:





I'll quote from wikipedia the sad story of the so-called "worst vice-president in the history of America:"

Addressing the California Republican Convention in San Diego, Agnew targeted "the nattering nabobs of negativism. They have formed their own 4-H Club—the 'Hopeless, Hysterical, Hypochondriacs of History'." 

This in reference to the anti-war demonstrators. To the contrary, those who were frothing at the mouth in support of Vietnam, turgid, even erect, with their missiles and assault rifles, today we can unanimously say were the ones who were on the wrong side of history.  But a bunch of hysterical thesaurus pages spoken from a middle-aged white man in a suit and tie with the mathematical absolute value of arrogance can seem oh so right sometimes.  Let's think about it for a bit.  After the (American) war of course Vietnam 'fell' to the communist forces, despite the millions killed and bombed all over Southeast Asia (don't forget the 'collateral damage' of destruction of Cambodia leading to Pol Pot and the genocide there) and in fact, to this day, if you go visit the country, you will see that nominally it still is governed by the communist party, so, historically, the whole war was hopeless-- more than that-- useless.  On the other hand Spiro resigned in disgrace over a bribery scandal, having accomplished nothing, then remained hidden away and ashamed to be seen in public.  Yet to this day we still hear the same words from the same sorts of people, usually white ones like Mitch McConnell, words to the same effect deriding all those demonstrators even though by and large they are ordinary people like you and me stating the majority opinion quite plainly.  A good recent example is Theresa May's comment about the children's protest against political inaction on the climate change front: 'they should go back to school to find the solution to the problem.'  Or, you could do your job, Theresa May, and implement those solutions (which are obvious).  At least the kids weren't called "some very bad, very very bad people, who did some very very bad things..."

But millions of them versus one lobbyist with millions of dollars to share?  That's truly hopeless, folks.  Think back to the hurricane that hit Puerto Rico.  Were the thousands of 'extra deaths' following also a case of  'hysterical hypochondria'?  Certainly not to the families of the dead.  Human society is a bitch.  There are too many of us, the situation is getting untenable.  As Sartre said so well, 'L'enfer c'est les autres' i.e., hell is the others.  At least if you're not getting a bomb or napalm dropped on your head, in which case, hell is a bomb being dropped on your head.

The last track closes out this interesting yet utterly unknown LP with some nifty fusionary ideas, and it's called Galactic:

Pit Budde in Saitensprünge (1978) and Der Puma Zieht Nach Norden (1983)

A member of the dreadful German ethno-political band Cochise, who if you don't yet know I recommend you continue in that general direction, Pit Budde's two solo works are worth hearing for their delicacy and meditative atmosphere.  Note the shockingly large discography on wikipedia.

The first album from 1978 is actually quite disappointing, surprisingly for something rooted in the seventies, but he achieved masterpiece level by the time of Der Puma, despite the overamplified 80s over-stringy sound of his acoustic guitarwork.  As a first example, the title track:





Some quite surprising diminished chords appear in there, augmented by the addition of chamber instruments and, unusually for this kind of new agey guitar album, electric guitar solos and percussion.  The track called Saimaa is blissfully reminiscent of the above image of rowing a boat down a beautiful calm river full of fish (and free of pollution):




Made all the more interesting by the addition of the woodsy oboe and flute.  I love the way the chords slowly move upwards over the sustained tonal bass until towards the end when, as if hitting turbulence in an eddy, the guitar assertively makes an alternative statement.  So evocative.

Ar-Folk: Armorika and Skillevejen

Painting on the top record is just beautiful...

The kind of heart-felt gorgeous and pure acoustic folk, very professionally played (so unlike DIY Orval), that I know others just die for but I am more picky with due to the frequent simplicity of the chords and music.  This is a hugely rare Danish group that made two albums spanning 1979 and 1984.  From the first album the lovely composed opening Gavotte:





While the title track just fills me with that profound love for music those around me seem to have so much trouble understanding (I'm thinking of you, my dear), from the warm acoustic guitar strumming a C minor chord:





Though their hesitation, lasting all song long, in leaving the key leaves me a little bit disappointed by the end.

Sadly subsequently they ditched the acoustic and went all-in with electric instruments a la literature laureate Bob Dylan, complete with a more poppy sound that is occasionally touched with the ridiculous 80s jumping-drums style (thankfully, mercifully little).

Thus, the first track from the 1984 LP, info here:





You will notice they still do those silly jigs and folk dance-type numbers which absolutely drive me crazy due to their repetitive simplicity especially when I start to imagine Euro-folk dancing in traditional costumes to the music.  Anyways, none of that in the title track of their second, with the wonderful electric guitar intro:





Klagesang is a beautifully composed song using that same traditional folk to very good effect, I'm sure you'd agree, note the intro flute playing on top of the clavinet electric piano sound:





Quite a bit of good in here altogether, completely unknown so far.

Paul Esslinger in Ancora (1983)

The perfect album for anyone who really needs sleep, this guitarist made, so far as the database knows, two album in the 80s which could be perhaps described as new age.  Longstanding readers of this blog would be reminded of the wonderful German Trial in Art's Fairy Tales.
Two tastes to give you an idea of the contents, A1 (Es Hat Aufgehört Zu Regnen):





B4 (Blätterregen Um Halb Vier):

Neo Museum Volume 1 Nouvelles ethnologiques de l' obscur Museum (1986)

Some crazy RIO material here for a complete change in direction on this post. I'm pretty sure this is the least popular style of progressive music out there, though one can never fault them for the creative stretching incorporating atonal elements and absurdly odd melodies or chords.
This band made only one LP.  It's very similar to all other chamber-prog angular, quasi-atonal music from the era that I've posted before on these pages, and I suppose that's one drawback of the style, particularly when you get to the aleatory true atonal music of Berg or Schoenberg, creations begin to sound quite boring when there is no tonic to hang on to through the temporal progression of the musical work.  So I would say that for that reason atonal is truly a dead end, with the best works staying on the edge of that chaos and not going overboard, similar to the way scientists will speak of the functioning of consciousness as on the very edge of chaos (compared to complete order, which would be over-simplistic).  Without a tonic key certainly it becomes hard to get any kind of dramatic movement in a piece.  Nonetheless, some artists are really successful at it, I think particularly of the composition Igor's Ascension done by Japanese outfit Azabu etc.   Therein the drama came from the way dissonances kept moving around the scale and the originality of the arrangement of musical instruments.  Perhaps the closest similar artist would be famed French nutheads Etron Fou Leloublan, if you know them.  They sang on their works, but this is all instrumental.  At times, there's enough drama in the music to evoke classic instrumental King Crimson (Lark's Tongue).

Track B1, Premier Element: