Back to Kyriakos Sfetsas (Greek Fusion Orchestra) in 2 from 1981, 1982

So I guess the lesson is we (I) have to look carefully at all the comments, because in my post of Greek Fusion Orchestra (which you may recall was led by composer Kyriakos Stefsas) apps mentioned two other works from him that came later which I at the time dismissed, but here they are.

The first of these appeared in 1981 and he provided backing music for Katarina Gogou's poetry, much like US poet Nikki Giovanni's album with backup music by legendary composer/arranger/record producer Arif Mardin.  You'll instantly get an idea of the overall feel for this unique album when you hear the first track:

Note how angular and modern classical this music is, especially when side by side with the Greek Fusion O. more jazzy material, displaying eminently his presumed university musical education.  This is one album I'll relish, exploring over a great deal of hours each of these ideas and their nuances.

Secondly we have the 1982 OST To Stigma which is made of many short instrumental tracks, again very much in the modern classical vein but set to soundtrack. First track:

Overall, it reminds me a bit of Austrian Michael Mantler's wonderful seventies modern classical, quasi-atonal music which he made esp. the ones with Wyatt doing the singing.  Btw, notice the very disturbing plot synopsis over on imdb for this movie. (Briefly, married couple kills their baby with Down's syndrome.) Oh, for those days of intelligent movie-making, before cartoons and Marvel comics took over...

I'm going to let apps take this one out with his great review on rym which I do recommend you read through:

''Sto dromo'' is one of the most unique albums in the history of Greek Music, released in 1981 on EMI.The soundtrack of the dramatic movie ''Paragelia'', directed by Pavlos Tassios, it features his wife Katerina Gogou on lyrics and narration, while the music was written and arranged by composer Kyriakos Sfetsas.  Gogou (born 1940) began her career as an actress, playing in plenty of 60's movies, before becoming a passionate poet with anti-political and anarchic activity.  Sfetsas (born 1945) was among the very talented composers of the time with a varied background on symphonic, Jazz, Chamber and Ethnic Music.  He conducted an orchestra of 10 musicians on this album.

You should have good knowledge of the Greek language to fully appreciate this album, because one of its most intense and deep extensions are Gogou's allegoric, social lyrics with certain attacks against the political system and very depressive texts, even the optimistic farewell message is narrated in such way that creates only melancholic, social-friendly feelings.  The music is an impressive blend of jazzy Progressive Rock and Greek Folk, featuring beautiful jazzy orchestrations and ethereal melodies, which often come with complex moves and flawless interplays.  The traditional violin, clarinet and santoor notes add to the album a great Mediterrenean touch with an atmospheric depth and the electric textures sound very tasteful with nice guitar/piano interactions.  ''Sto dromo'' has a strong Avant-Garde feel throughout because of Gogou's sinister vocal work and the R.I.O.-friendly sounds with the dominant piano and string sections.  Although Gogou appears in every corner of the album, the music is so dynamic and varied you can't simply pass by.  It gets very complicated in certain moments with big horns and string sounds, but on the next track the listener will meet with soft, jazzy arrangements and some amazing folky-tinged soundscapes.

Sfetsas remained in the forefront for some years after the album, his music has been heard worldwide for its impresive and cinematic edges.  Gogou's anxious spirit faded away in October 1993, when she commited suicide, struggling to keep up with her temperamental state of mind.

Fascinating mixture of Greek poetry and jazzy Prog Rock with nice folky touches.It is strongly recommended to find a translation of the lyrics, before purchasing the album.Highly recommended, no doubt Greek listeners should have this one in the top place of their collection.

Librarian Serge Bulot in 4 plus Pachacamac Contrastes

I just love that turkey album cover... it's priceless, eternal, just transcendent...

Serge Bulot played in the ordinary ethnic folk 'Incan' band Pachacamac throughout the seventies and reverted to library music (to make ends meet?) after 1980.  Described as a multi-instrumentalist, he presumably plays everything on those library albums which are by and large in the electronic vein, but quite accessibly so, being well thought-out songs.  

For me, he is most notable for the first of these, the 1980 Sanctuaire D'ecole, which is just stuffed with progressive compositions and ideas, for ex., behold the satanic tritones of Gnomus's Rock:

From 1981's Broceliande, the lovely, very gentle piece called Euryale:

After these I'll be honest, the quality of the creativity drops off a bit, or maybe not (a bit), as we have seen so many many times before...  The April Orch. (number 47, with Bernard Fevre) of course, appeared long ago in the collection for that series.

Yoshio "Chin" Suzuki ‎– Wings (1981), by request, + lossless limited time only

A nice smooth contemporary jazz album with touches of fusion, you can see it in the database here. At times it again reminds me of Art Lande's seventies stuff.

September Guest:

Back to Laurent Cokelaere with Minigruel en Concert (1984)

 

The album starts with a solo by Cokelaere supposedly played on the bass--though it sounds to me like a guitar, I never knew a bass could be so soprano, then inauspiciously the band plays the ancient and thus rotting, decomposing standard Night in Tunisia, and by now everyone knows what I think of those godawful rejecta, inexplicably long-lasting despite being usually not even the best of melodies, played over and over like The Beatles' Yesterday on classic radio to the point of Guantanamo-generated insanity or rather CIA-sanctioned torture.

Inevitably this follow up successor to the previous Coke Tales masterpiece is not as good, being more commercial-oriented and fuzacky  and live, to boot.  Most appropriately for these times, a track called Beach Break (everything written by Cokelaere except the aforementioned Tunisia):

Laurent Cokelaere in Coke Tales (1983) lossless limited time only

 

Bassist Laurent Cokelaere composed all the music for this record, except for the Weather Report (Jaco Pastorius) track called Havona and a fantastic track that is too.  It's a wonder he didn't write more before. I guess he played in the Yoch'ko Seffer group which explains the huge amount of progressive ideas. I looked through the bands in his discography, though that might not be complete, and there's not much else of interest other than the follow up live Minigruel en Concert album from 1985 (which will be here shortly). 

It's a beautiful album cover, you can see they collaged old engravings from 19th c. French artist Gustave Dore on an outer space background to wonderful effect. Very original too.  The title of the album must have been such a hilarious punnish joke to all those present, given the times, today, it just seems silly.

I think you can consider the music a cross between the funky guitar fusion of Alain Renaud recently compiled here and the Jeanneau big band jazzier style of fusion posted multiple times here in the past.  What's beautiful is the way he keeps the funk in the mix, front and centre, whilst using such a great band full of brassy arrangements in the background-- Cokelaere did the orchestrations and arrangements too.  It's a remarkable sound and hugely, highly enjoyable for myself, with the warmth from commercial-pop funk permeating through and through the more intellectual, jazzier elements. All instrumentals.  To my surprise the band, which is called Polygruel, has 21 members.

For ex. in the track called  Funky Pedulla, Groovy Orsini which was obviously built around a funky bass riff notice how the guitar brings in tritones after the opening, eventually developing with the synth a wonderful circular obligato kind of pattern:

 

An example of the progressive songwriting is part b of the delightful Don't Eat me Pacman! composition (I guess taking the video game from the point of view of the ghosts?) such a sign of the times too:

A bit surprising that it was never released to CD?