Birds of Beauty's [Karsten Vogel] Pelican from 1978

Many thanks to our friends for help with these posts, as always...

Oddly enough this album is totally different from the 1976 album of the same name under his soloist credit, despite the expectation that it would be an English 'translation' of the original Danish.  First of all recall he was in the supreme and unparalleled fusion band Secret Oyster.  And I posted his 1983 album, which was quite impressive indeed, in December 2014.

You can check the band lineups here, note they are different for each track.  Compositions by Karsten, obviously.  The gorgeous ECM-like Little Wren:





The Hungry Mother track, with its classic fusion minor seconds, opposite of what the back depicts of course (from Shakespeare we all know the old mythical belief the mother tore open her breast to feed her young, which logically raises the question why does her beak have a large pouch often full of fish):





What's interesting to me here is you can tell from the trademark musical sounds where he contributed to Secret Oyster, for example the Fender playing an upgoing chord progression (Butterfly Blossom), the abrupt change from a minor beginning to a purely major chord progression (same), the 'birdlike' soprano sax tweeting (Gong-Gong), the melancholy, sombre mood of the slow pieces (the above Wren), etc.  Unfortunately, we have to admit it's a slightly uneven album with here and there some Secret Oysters of shiny brilliance but a lot of tedious late-70s fuzak too.

And again many thanks to the generosity of my occasional contributors, wherever you are in the world, always at far-flung destinations from whoever might be reading this...