Well-known Italian composer Pepe Maina, Part 1 [Canto dell'arpa, Scerizza, Winged Fever, Pagan Night]

It's likely everyone knows him well.  One of those multi-instrumentalists who plays just about everything on his releases, and quite beautifully and flawlessly too. It's instrumental and electronic keys based so you could say it leans into the new age territory. When I recently checked the discography though I was surprised to see he released dozens and dozens of albums after his auspicious 1970s start.  These never really strayed from the prog electronic style that he began with, which is a good thing, and here and there are well worth hearing, not that I've explored even the majority by this time, though I hope to go through all of them. The music was not too much diluted down by the new age simplicity spirit that took over in the post70s decades.

Another version, less complete perhaps, of his discography is listed on progarchives here.

We can start with the first two wonderful albums, the first (Song of the harp and flute) of course, marred by the ridiculous cover photo of the teeth being brushed-- like, what was he thinking?? 

I 'll post flacs for the first 2.

From that one, Spring Song:

If you haven't heard the Canto dell arpa, you can here the sumptuous beginning of it on youtube here.

From the beautiful follow up called Scerizza (cannot find meaning of that word online, someone can assist?) La Danza del Pulcini, youtubed here:

From Winged Fever, 2003, the title track, which is definitely a little new agey but beautifully arranged, alternatively on youtube here.

From Pagan Night (2010), the oddly titled Tunes from Idetunes:

This one is on youtube here for your listening pleasure. The 12 string guitar and the intro sound eerily like something by Anthony Phillips on one of his beautiful solo albums--god how I love those to death.

As long as internet archive is down I'll post youtube links as well.

Pocket Orchestra Pheonix

 

Here's an American group that did just a wonderful RIO style, discogged here, going over all the craziness you'd expect from say Rascal Reporters or Samla M. Manna or somesuch, in the classic angular, jagged, dissonant, but approachable manner, all of it recorded in the glory days, late 70s to early 80s. A review from rym for ex.:

This musicians had a lot of surprises to offer! Knebnagäuje is not the title of the album, it's the name of the band before they called themselves Pocket Orchestra. Both bands (same musicians) didn't release any LP. What a shame! The label MIO released this CD 2005 from old demo-tapes with a very good sound. The original tapes date from 1978/1979 (Knebnagäuje) and 1983 (Pocket Orchestra). But on CD you will find the titles in an unusual order. It starts with the tape from 1983 (1-4), before you will hear the tape from 1978/1979 (5-8).

The biggest surprise is the wonderful weird music which is difficult to describe. Imagine very talented and fun spirited musicians mix in their own way something that sounds like Henry Cow, Univers Zero, National Health, Matching Mole, Von Zamla, Soft Machine, musique concrete, a big portion of madness and unpredictability and in smaller doses Zappa, Gentle Giant. This complex madness with a method is in my eyes and ears an extravagant and beautiful planet everybody should discover in the widths of the avant-prog universe.

So I was surprised to see there was another release simply called Phoenix from more recently, I guess a kind of compilation detailing their evolution from 1978 onwards, with a live recordings from the early 80s.

I absolutely adore the well-composed track called RV that permutes in so many ways through so many different musical styles:

While the internet arch. is down, for now on youtube you can hear it here.

Back to David Diggs with Love Song Strings from 1975

Information discogged here.  I had to get this for completion on the seventies output from this wonderful composer, arranger, keyboardist, etc. I ripped two others recently back here, but earlier, the formidable Elusion album wowed us back here.  As usual, you live and learn. And thank the commenter who suggested the artist!

This one is criminally short, only 24 minutes long, and features composition by others, mostly a Chuck Girard, arranged for easy listening orchestra by Diggs. It's not straight out schmaltz, but close. The compositions are quite generic, but at least there are no cover versions or standards. Now that internet archive is down (shut down by Elon's drive for free speech, no doubt), can't put up samples, any suggestions? For once, youtube is shooting blanks here.

Recent info on the internet archive being down:

On Tuesday, October 8th, the Internet Archive began experiencing a multi-approach cyberattack across several fronts, which interrupted access to our digital library.

Our main priority is keeping our archived data safe, though at the expense of service availability. As a result, we took archive.org and openlibrary.org offline over the past few days to examine and strengthen our services—the Wayback Machine is now back online in a read-only view, and our blog and Mastodon have returned. We are increasing security measures and conducting additional checks on our infrastructure to ensure our archives remain secure.

An attack on our resources is not just an attack on the Internet Archive but a blow to millions of digital learners worldwide who depend on our services. We are committed to strengthening our defenses and constantly improving our security.

We apologize for the impact this caused on you, our valued users. The support of our community is deeply appreciated, and your generosity and assistance can help us during this time. Please consider donating to support continued access to knowledge for all who seek it. We understand if you cannot contribute, but any assistance is greatly appreciated.

Well, would be great if they get back up so we can hear those samples again!

Peter Hammill and Guy Evans in 1988's Spur of the Moment [flac temporary]

 

Well, here's a guy who needs no introduction as they love to introduce the famous...

This is I suppose improvised given the title, but the music is really truly interesting, not too abstract, with enough to hold on to make it well worth listening to. It's such a surprised given it came out in the year 1988. You can see that in addition to the VDGG people, a composer called Paul Ridout contributed compositions. Since the super useful internet archive is down for the moment, hopefully not permanently (shut down by one of our billionaire overlord kings, perhaps Elon himself personally ordered it?), I'll like youtube which has everything almost anyways but less accessible in general, link for this one here. I love the dramatic sound to it.

This album for sure takes over from The Long Hello, Vol. 4 stuff but is far far more thoughtfully complex. At times, like the description, it is indeed experimental, information here.

Another track I appreciated, called An Imagined Brother youtubed in link.

Nic Potter from The Long Hello, VDGG

 

From discogs:

Profile: Bassist, composer and painter. 

Born on October 18, 1951, in Wiltshire, England.

Died on January 16, 2013 in London, England.

Nic was in the Vol. 2 which was perhaps the least successful of the series, setting aside the last one-- sorry to put it that way straight off.

The music on these post-1970s albums is quite libraryish. There are keyboards, little of any other instruments, no guitarwork, and most compositions seem a little underdeveloped.

From Mountain Music, 1984, the Morning Suite:

Sketches in Sound (1986) and Self-Contained (1987) follow along the same lines basically. So it's like the Long Hello stuff from later but more monochromatic.