User (Goetz Steeger) - Kurmuschels Verwandlung (12 Variationen) from 2013

 

Here's a remarkable so-called RIO or perhaps chamber progressive album that I'm sure no one out there has ever heard or heard about, but with superbly well composed music.  The artist in question is Goetz Steeger who is 'hiding' behind the name User for this one-off cd. Confusingly there is also an album by him whose title is User which is different.  In the database this album is listed here.  I have his 2019 album called Ende der Parade which is distinctly inferior, well I should say it's more popular music than this one.

Consider the classical composition Uberwulf mit cello:

The Tarantella:

Then you get an idea of the great composition.

Gunther Fischer Band's amazing Nightkill OST, 1984

Gunther Fischer has been posted here before of course as a result of his backing of Uschi Bruning, and the remarkable fusion album Kombination there as a quintet.  There are other albums hidden in his discography as bandleader or just as solo artist, for example the often requested album with Solo Sunny which is listed here as ST, from 1979, but I think it's a soundtrack.  In the late year of 1984 he made this other OST which is really remarkable with its mix of funk and fusion, the information is here this time under the GF Band. 

For Example track 5, Phoenix:

Italian Composer Maurizio Fabrizio in 4 (Azzurri, Movimenti, Primo, Personaggi)

It's worth looking at the second album cover with its gorgeous surreal painting of the dove being pulled by levers.

From discogs (this is with reference to his masterpiece, the second album Movimenti del Cielo)

Very few people know Maurizio Fabrizio, a character who has almost always acted in the shadows, in the service of the likes of Angelo Branduardi, Renato Zero, Patty Pravo and many more famous Italian music figures. A multifaceted composer and arranger, also an author of musicals and soundtracks, who took his first steps with project Le Particelle and the duo Maurizio & Fabrizio, before devoting himself to the aforementioned musicians during almost the entire '70s decade.

In 1978 he released his second solo album, "Movimenti nel cielo", an entirely instrumental LP where symphonic scores blend with rock music, especially with the longer tracks, which are separated by shorter intervals fulfilled with strings and keyboards. There are also acoustic sections ("Episodio Lunare"), funk-ish moments ("Sputnik Suite") and atmospheres recalling the early Alan Parsons Project in the two pieces of the same name ("Danza delle stelle") located in the opening and closing parts of the album.

This is an LP released out of time compared to the golden years of progressive rock, but it nevertheless manages to retrieve its aura, and is therefore worthy of attention by all fans of the genre.

Listening to the other 3 albums he was intimately involved in it seems he eschewed the progressive spirit for the most part, saving it all for this one magically wonderful progressive album that as mentioned above combines everything we love in one miraculous whole.  Most similar maybe to Claudio Dentes' Panterei album, assuming you know that one.

On the track called Sputnik Suite I think just everything I love turn up including the electric guitar riffing funk and orchestral elements:

Il Sole is equally a perfect composition:

The Neglected Hudson Brothers

 

If you know these guys at all it would be thanks to their 'megahit' So you are a Star, seemingly self-referencing in a totally non-ironic way, typically enough for the seventies, in fact you could even say it's a little charmingly boastful. Discography here, and that song came out in 1974.  There are those who find that song annoyingly too Beatles-like, which is for sure a strike against them, but then again who wasn't in that period in time. Hopefully this youtube link works for that song.  Reading into their story which you can do on wikipedia in an exhaustive article, it's clear they were 'teenybopper' type artists, but I figured I should at least do the honour of listening to all their songs to see if there were more gems like their big hit in there, and sure enough, in their first album there were quite a few. Thereafter though it really tails off quickly as they seem to go through one phase after another like a pinball machine, from Beatles-influence, well earlier it seems they were influenced by America (the band), then soul and then disco of course. Each style they're able to imitate perfectly which adds to the cloyingness of course. I hate to get negative because you never know when an artist might read a review like this but for example in the second album they imitate John Lennon in solo career (e.g. Plastic Ono Band) and elsewhere Beatles circa 1965 like Drive my Car style and that really is annoying, since this is almost a decade later.

Back to that first album though, regarding which wiki has little to say:

On Decca Records they changed their name to Everyday Hudson in early 1970, releasing "Love Is the Word" (#32634). For the release in spring 1971 of "Love Nobody" on Lionel Records (L-3211), their name was shortened to Hudson. This name was also used in 1972 after switching to the newly re-activated Playboy Records, with the release of "Leavin' It's Over" (originally "Leave and It's Over", the song was mislabeled by Playboy, and it has never been corrected) (P-50001), Billboard Bubbling Under Chart #110. The group's self-titled debut album was released in 1972.[5]

Someday

Little Old Man

The other thing I found highly amusing about these guys is the way their album covers are like a photo-summary of the chapters of the seventies from start to finish as you can tell from their hairstyles, a phenomenon we've seen so many times before here on these pages with the long hippie hair giving way to short cuts, even mustaches, passing through that three-piece suit Bonnie and Clyde / Great Gatsby trend:

Check out those hippies...

Is that a kkk guy in there??? wow

They seem to have predicted the Saturday Night Fever craze.

Anybody remember 'The Sting' movie?

Oh, Mr. Kotter! Mr. Kotter!

 Welcome back, Horschach, right?

Wow it seemed like the good times would never end... but they did, right in 1980.

wait, who is the 4th guy?

Coyote 1972, lossless

Similar to Truck posted earlier, or the great Dr. Music in its earlier vocal period, wonderful songwriting plus some progressive touches, or the other great point of reference for me is the US Sand band, which I love so so much. Info here, samples:

Fly:

Musicians: