Quasar Light - Experience This! 1981

If you pay attention closely to this blog (about as likely as Hillary running again in the primaries), you might have noticed that Tom Hayes made some comments for the Rantz post referencing this album as similar with the odd mix of all-out progressive outlandish music and commercial songs some of which are sung by a female vocalist (like the first 2 tracks, throwaways for me).  For those who don't know, Tom has been in suspended animation for the last few years after being ordered to  shut down the cd reissue wishlist in preparation for a top-secret government mission to alpha centauri for a large multinational mining company.  It's expected that if all goes well he'll be in the same suspended animation for more than a hundred years for that trip powered by light sails and an ion drive to close to the speed of light.  When he's revived every few years, he reviews a few prog albums.  For this reason I thought it was appropriate to post this album with its multiple references to space travel.  Unfortunately these crazies only made this one album.  Another commenter pointed out that a band member remastered the record and posted it for everyone to download on archive, in one big file.  Thanks to my wonderful friends we chopped this into digestible tracks, found some decent scans online and reassembled this frankenstein robot for your enjoyment.  Note that the LP is not cheap, in the hundred dollar range usually.

Illusion Confusion always shocked me with its tritonal riff and the way they build it throughout the song--it takes real guts to make a rock song this bizarre:

In some ways it foreshadows the glorious death metal days of the later 1990s with bands like Pantera, Cannibal Corpse, who often used bizarre riffs to heighten the anger, the energy, and let's be honest the repulsiveness (to ordinary people) of their music.  In my younger days I really fell for those bands.  I'm not gonna make my usual comments about how appropriate the song is to today's world with social media and their self-created fake news phenomenon.  (Well, it was created by people with their own motives, so I guess it's more a sad indictment of how the high hopes (in the 90s) of a democratic internet have fallen to the bottom of a garbage dump pit.)

I'll quote Tom's review from 2011 (but not in full):

Quasar Light are from Red Lion, Pennsylvania, which sits in the southeast part of the state, in and around Amish country. This isolation in the middle of farm country may explain a few things, as these guys were tapped into something that has yet to be followed up with anywhere else.
...
The first 4 songs on the album sound like some kind of alien pop with nimble hard rock guitar picking and disembodied female vocals. There is no mistaking its 1980's heritage here. 'Don't Ever Leave Me' seems to be heading down a somewhat normal path, to the point of discouragement. Starting with 'Secret of  the Stars', Quasar Light begins to go completely off the rails. This sounds like a off-kilter version of this list Post psychedelic, proto progressive with female vocals. Then Side 2 all bets are off. They were in their own world. Not that it's avant noise or anything so overt as that. No, they're still going strong with actual composed songs. But they're strange, twisted, distorted, and downright complex at times. It's progressive rock from the 6th dimension. There is absolutely no reference here. Based on their location, one begins to wonder if they're Amish on a Rumspringa binge. The only reference I could find on this album was a stream of consciousness rant from the Quasar Light founder. Yea, a surprise that. Underground America at its weirdest right here. A must.

The usually spot-on Apps was not impressed though:

Uneven mix of plain Rock and high-gear Heavy Rock/Punk and Prog from this unknown quintet of double guitars, bass, drums and vocals out of the States.Things are pretty simple to my ears.Side A is the weakest of the two, reminds me of a poor man's Syn: lots of energy in Pop Rock arrangements with some sophisitication but no further surprising moments.Side B offers better conditions for a more enjoyable listening.Guitars offer some great rhythmic breaks, energy is the key factor here with dual leads and attacking vocals in an aggressive style with progressive values and some Crimson-ian extensions.Some sort of demanding Punk if you know what I mean.Approach with caution.

Back in high school when we were all so obsessed with our classic rock albums (at the time they were not called that) we argued forever over certain LPs; some people absolutely hated them and some people absolutely loved them.  I guess Genesis belonged to that category in those days, and I admit I hated them when I was a teenager.  Couldn't stand the pretentiousness, in those days.  Clearly this record belongs to that category.  At least give them credit for being so utterly original and uncommercial.

So thanks to everyone for bringing this one to us: Tom who reminded me, the commenter who found it online, remastered by the band, and my friends for reorganizing it for safe consumption... and as we used to say in high school, I don't give a sh** if you hate it, I love this record.  And see you all on the 'cybernetic killing floor' one day: