Level F - A Stitch in Time (recorded 1975-1980) [no download]

Without a doubt the best classic progressive rock I've heard in some years, surpassing even the Zopp from last post, this is easily available here on bandcamp and I urge everyone to download it.  It was never released back in the day (composed in the late 70s).  Sounds like anything from the past among the best we've ever heard, such as instrumental ELP, late-stage King Crimson, the exceptional Romanian band Ex Q, on these pages, I brought to light the very similar Radio Piece III, or, moving to the French zeuhl dept., the amazing Xalph record.

We're talking the real deal here, including bizarre chord changes, dissonances galore, tritones and minor seconds, strange instrumentation, strange melodies, etc., all the hallmarks of this utterly unique genre.  From their page:

A Stitch in Time is a set of recordings by Level F, a Prog Rock band that was active between 1975 and 1980 in Oxford. The line up was

Malcolm Levitt - guitar
Phil Bastow - keyboards
Simon Thorpe - bass
Mark Pilkington - drums

The recordings were made by Simon's cousin, Chris Thorpe, in a home studio at the top of his parents house - Whitegates, Sparken Hill, Worksop, UK. We think it was in the spring of 1979.

The album also includes three other bonus tracks that were recorded earlier at the Oxford University Recording Society's premises in North Oxford - probably in 1976. At that point, the band's keyboard player was Marc Sheffner who was replaced by Phil Bastow in 1977.
credits
released April 1, 1989

Malcolm Levitt - guitar
Phil Bastow - keyboards (tracks 1-13)
Simon Thorpe - bass
Mark Pilkington - drums
Marc Sheffner - keyboards (tracks 14-16)

Samples
Codifier, a near-perfect musical track for me, starts with a beautiful dissonant electric piano arpeggio atop of which a reverb-laden fuzzy electric guitar plays an angry melody, a third through, the tempo changes, the music accelerates, then, typical of our favourite prog, two-thirds through another complete change in direction with a very Canterbury-like, Mike Ratledge-like, more jazzy organ / synth soloing passage:





The following track called Caroline shows a phenomenal skill at original songwriting, and melodically is not only one of the best songs I've heard in a more library genre, but stands as a simply beautiful track on its own odd-chord-change terms:






What's more amazing still is that almost every one of the 16 tracks is very strong and original.
Not only a remarkable set of classic prog, but a wonderful discovery seemingly unadvertised and unknown even among those who collect this style.  Deserves to be well-known without a doubt.  Thank you to everyone who helps bring this music to the attention of humanity.

Zopp, limited time only

From the opening bell it's clear we have a pretty near-perfect replica of classic Hatfield, complete with the luscious female vocals:



Hard to believe this could have been released so recently, but at the same time it's clearly 'just' an imitation of the classic Canterbury style.  Of course I wouldn't complain if there was an infinity of music in that style to explore, but unfortunately, only a few dozen albums exist. 
From discogs:

Canterbury Scene, United Kingdom.
Zopp is the brainchild of composer and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Stevenson, with collaborations from Andy Tillison of prog legends The Tangent and drummer Andrea Moneta (Leviathan).

I can't tell if there's anything else from this amazing composer.
Note that because this is so easily available I can't really post for long, I encourage everyone to purchase the CD.

Dave Grusin (the famous guy) in a rare jazz album Don't Touch (1977)

A really really odd drawing for the cover, quite bizarre and perhaps attempting to be erotic, but to me it doesn't work.
Information here.  The contents are bizarre too, since I assumed they would be fusion given all the other material he was putting out in the mid to late seventies. But I was wrong, it's just trio format acoustic piano jazz covers of standards--the bane of my early jazz days.

There's a lot of really good music though in his fusioneer explorations, particularly in the 1976 Discovered Again album, which has plenty of wonderful compositions, the Sun Song with its nice Keith Jarrett-like piano chords plus vibes covers a lot of new and interesting compositional territory, I think:




Like with Jun Fukamachi, I put all the stuff together into one large file for limited time only use.
The albums are as follows: 1969 Winning (OST), 1975 Eric (OST), 1976 Discovered Again, 1977 One of a kind, 1977 Don't Touch, 1980 Live in Japan, 1980 Mountain Dance, 1982 LA dream band, 1982 Out of the shadows, 1984 Night Lines, 1989 Fabulous Baker Boys (OST) both album and movie which I really loved back in the day, 11 in total. 1.1 GB coincidentally.
Obviously I left out the execrable Tootsie.  The early soundtracks are really good though, with some well-composed music, sometimes very generic.  The Live in Japan and LA dream band are definitely worth hearing too.  Not the Theme from St. Elsewhere-- boy does that one make me want to puke. Takes you right back, doesn't it?  Chariots of Fire, Theme from St. Elsewhere, Theme from On Golden Pond...

Back to Hawkshaw in Themes, Rock Machine

While we're on the subject of library records, here's another little gem that took me completely by surprise.  In the database there are artists with releases all over the place and hard to search out due to the fact they are combined in VA albums.  I should've found this one before, but thanks to my friends who bring these out to the light, again.  Hawkshaw has been mentioned here many times before most recently in connection with occasional coconspirators Mansfield and Bennett.  As well the early year 1973 surprises in that highly progressive, funky or fusion elements usually appeared in these after the midpoint of the decade in general. The portion written by Alan Parker (all of the second side plus one track on the first) is also markedly inferior, kind of what you might, a priori, expect, consisting of pretty generic electric guitar riffs.  However the 5 Hawkshaw tracks are phenomenal through and through, just listen to that opening:

Another remarkable library series with Rocchi, The New Sound Quartet, with Crazy Colours & Disco Way

Here's something I know will make a lot of people happy.
When I heard Crazy Colours by this group which made 3 records, I went crazy of course knowing this was partly written by Rocchi, who we've posted many times before here in the past.  Consider the Tender Melody by him:



And the progressive and really quite remarkable chord changes on Dreams:





You can see the compositional credits for this record here.  Note that this track was written by guitarist Ernesto Verardi, who appeared in the Modern Sound Quartet, whose three records I posted on this blog here, here.  I wish someone had told me about the New SQ at the time!  There are so many people out there familiar with these Italian libraries in enormous depth, which never ceases to amaze me.  Notice that the discography of Verardi, also a composer, is absolutely huge.  Or rather, ginormous.  Who knows how many lost treasures in there too.

Anyways, I then had to buy the other albums from these guys. The album called Disco Way which I would bet any amount of money came out in 1981 or within one or two years surrounding, has nothing to do with disco but rather is quite funked up, a sure crowd-pleaser I know for those who love to sample.  Notice that for this release Oscar Rocchi wrote all the music.  The track called Divina with the shimmering synthesizer chords and melody played by the spacey digital woodwind really nails it for me:




This sounds like it should have been the soundtrack--and maybe it was-- for one of those sexy Italian movies where a teenaged girl spends most of the second part of the film in countryside milieus naked or half-naked making out with different older men until a younger guy finally has unconsensual sex with her and takes away her virginity (they did stuff like that back 40 years ago-- today, you go to jail for all that).  And that's it, that's my summation of all Italian cinema of the nineteen seventies.

Altogether a very strong library album, full of pleasant songs, not a single throwaway, though perhaps lacking the angular originality of some of Crazy Colours or perhaps the combinatorial creativity of a foursome of composers.

More to come, of course, stay tuned....