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.