Batdorf and Rodney, part 1

 

Well the hippie hair is absolutely unbelievable...

These guys get my vote for the most underrated composers of the early 70s, second perhaps to the Sand band from long ago here.  They played country rock all acoustic with some steps into commercial pop in the last album, before they broke up, but the quality of the songwriting is really high, as high as someone like James Taylor for ex. who became so successful in that decade.  So I went back to see if there was more in the discography such as unreleased material and found out there was indeed some, but first I'll post their 3 official albums with a flac of the last one Life is You which to me is their masterpiece.  They are discogged here.

Ain't it like home, should've been a number one hit back then in 1975, and why it wasn't, I just don't get it, I really don't. 

Penguin Cafe Orchestra, first 3 albums

Really beautiful cover art here.

I'm a little bit shocked I never heard these guys before, given how completely 'up my alley' this music is with the chamber classical elements combined with electric guitar, Heldon/Richard Pinhas-like electronic music, etc.  

A track called Hugebaby like, really really sounds like mid-70s Heldon:

Unfortunately their brilliant first album was as far as I am concerned the only truly progressive work, since thereafter the music descends into the kind of jumpy minimal music that features one chord or one repeated figure played over and over again until patience is completely worn out, and every composition sounds the same like something Philip Glass did in his unconscious hours...

New rip of Fondation's Le Vaisseau Blanc, 1983 [flac limited time only]

Many are familiar with this work thanks to the mutant sounds blog, like myself.  At that time I was as thrilled by this work, combining the recitation in beautiful French of Lovecraft's short story 'The White Ship' with electronic music, as I was put off by the poor quality of the cassette ripping job.  Luckily it was rereleased in 2017 and now can be heard the way it was meant to be (note cover with te surrealistic  images just above).

You can see mutant posted it in 2010, so long ago now, long before there was every any gen z or anything as stupid and tyrannical as twitter... and in those days, believe it or not, Elon kept quiet...  

As usual for the mutantsounds blog the review is completely tangential with barely any recognizable description of the music, which I will tell you right now is quite basic electronic, relatively simply composed in the French style, along the lines of so many others like Heldon or Richard Pinhas, and what I always hated about that blog was he was always making it sound far more exciting than it really is, like a constant record store promotional ad:

The final installment of my Fondation posts and the last musical release of both Ivan Coaquette (formerly of Spacecraft and Musica Elettronica Viva), who'd cease musical activities thereafter and return to his visual art pursuits and Annanka Raghel, whose trail after Fondation simply evaporates. Issued on Pascal Bussy's amazing Tago Mago imprint in a retooled giant matchbox, this is purely of a piece with their previous releases, Le Vaisseau Blanc in some respects representing a last hurrah for this aesthetic dimension of the French underground scene, with hallucinogenic webs of delayed electronics and wetly effected guitars weaving vapor trails around one another in a manner directly descended from the Heldon/Lard Free school of dystopian cosmic rock.

Having said that, the combination of the crystalline and ethereal recitation of the story in that perfect French enunciation with the dreamy and spacey musical passages, is for me at least, pure gold.  For once I think the words actually augment the music instead of just distracting from its enjoyment (eg, the recent Jean Vasca).  Just so atmospherically superb.  I thought it was a science fiction type of spaceworld so reading the actual story (which is highly generic, and ends with him waking from a dream) was a surprise.

From discogs, a description of the rerelease:

music_emporium Nov 22, 2017

First official vinyl reissue of original cassette ' Fondation - Le Vaisseau Blanc '.

 https://www.discogs.com/release/456195-Fondation-Le-Vaisseau-Blanc

Fantastic cosmic, space, ambient and experimental music from mysterious French duo Annanka Raghel and Ivan Coaquette (formerly of Spacecraft and Musica Elettronica Viva). Originally released in 1983 as a limited edition cassette of only 500 copies on Camouflage label; this ranks up there with anything by Ash Ra Tempel, Agitation Free, Heldon or Richard Pinhas. Incredibly evocative and highly recommended.

Historic moment - a lost piece of the puzzle of the wondrous french avant-garde. This official reissue comes in a double album gatefold sleeve with archives from Ivan Coaquette collages.

Limited to 500 copies.

Bonus : comes also with an insert with trippy photo by France Annanka Raghel herself and brief description of Fondation band.

saucer-people Jan 26, 2023

The entire album sounds like something the Ghost Box label would have created had it been born in the early 1980s. The truly stand out tracks are all on the b-side, namely the far too short Magic Box, Macumba and Temple. Clearly this was too future sounding at the time and finally it has a wider audience who can grok it.

Note that the original cassette was also limited edition, unbelievably, considering the highly professional and gorgeous quality of the music-- is this not the tragedy of beautiful art??

My favourite piece is called Derive: (there is no English word for this, a ship that is aimless, powerlessly floating on the waves of a sea)

Those who still have their old mp3 copies from mutantsounds days should upgrade to this one.

I'll put all 3 albums in mp3 and the flac for Le Vaisseau (which imho is their best)

Botkyrka Big Band from Sweden 1978

 

This group appeared in the Fraykers Schoolhouse compilation, posted here earlier.

The track they took from this album is not Select Notes which is a vocal big band number, but instead part of What's That, written by Lennie Sjögren and it's a great composition indeed. As a result, I'll post the whole thing for your sampling pleasure just below.  I'm surprised there are no more credits for this gentleman.

The LP is divided between fusiony big band and more trad. vocal big band such as might have been written / played in the 1950s, oddly.  It starts, even more incongruously, with some Swedish folk music, such as maybe Berndt Egerbladh might have played on his records, remember him?  (Oddly enough one of the tracks is by him.) 

The singing is from Irene Sjogren. (Bio: Swedish physicist and jazz singer, born 10 May 1953 in Stockholm.)  Love it-- "physicist and jazz singer."

This is their only release.  Here's the masterpiece fusion track, which sounds almost like a funk symphony in 4 (short) movements:

Obviously the whole thing is well worth hearing, I love in the 3rd movement (the compiled part in Frayker) how there is that transition chord change passage with just wonderful piano riffing plus bass accompaniment.

There are a couple more tracks worth hearing, but too much of the silly jazz throwaway stuff. It's an odd mix to be sure.

Juraj Galan, Norbert Dömling, Billy Cobham – Cargo

Saw this one of course in connection with trying to complete the Billy Cobham discography, which is extensive.  One of those fusioneers who made so many amazing albums of high-energy stuff through the 70s it's almost embarassing.  I posted the Glass Menagerie stuff back here.

If anything, I just wish these guys, like Larry Coryell, Alphone Mouzon, Billy C., Al Di Meola, etc., had made even more albums back in the 70s for us to enjoy now, so many years later.  Why couldn't you have produced more music guys???

Anyways, this particular release is mostly written by Juraj Galan, Czech guitarist.  Not sure that other than this one his discography looks overly interesting.  The style of the music is typical guitar-based contemporary jazz/fusion, like we've heard before from Zoller, or Dudas. Not electrified or fuzzy enough, basically.

Title track: