Back to an earlier Sadao Watanabe with 1969's Pastoral [FLAC limited time only]

 

This one is very light listening, especially given the pared-down simplicity of the band, please refer to information databased here.  

I've posted a lot from him before, here in one big package, and here (Birds of Passage) and he's definitely a perennial favorite given the number of times I've reuploaded the package.  I guess he only got into fusion later in the seventies and definitely after this album.

I thought the Tokyo Suite would've been a huge standout given the excitement, variety, and massiveness of the city but it's surprisingly indolent and somniferous in sound.  It could've used a fusionary treatment with more a fleshed-out orchestral arrangement, for sure.  The most beautiful composition is definitely 

Someday in Suburbs:

A note regarding the record:

Recorded June 24 and July 9, 1969 at Toshi Center Hall, Akasaka, Tokyo, Japan.

Mad Sheer Khan's Talisman 1996 by request, FLAC limited time

 

The guitarist and composer for well known one-off French prog band Rahmann, an absolute genius mixed fusion/zeuhl work, is name is Mahamad Hadi.  Under the alias Mad Sheer Kahn:

Born in Algiers in 1955, of mixed Persian and Arabic origin, resides in France. Formed his first group in 1975. In 1981, he formed a duo and adopted an image that was quite rare for the time: he spent the 1980s swathed in a turban, deliberately going against what was then the normal practice. His unconventional appearance did not deter the critics, who responded enthusiastically to his playings.

In 1982 the well-known English magazine New Musical Express listed him among the ten best guitarists in the world. During this period he was in fact living in London, where he worked with Velvet Underground's muse, Nico, on the albums Drama of Exile 1 &2, and was acclaimed for his virtuosity.

You can also see on that page, as well as under Hadi, he has quite a discography.

This album is a mixture of ethnic folk with electronic and a lot of sitars.  Very little info on the database page here.

Sample, Angel in the Bath:

Osamu Shoji's Jataka from 1978 [FLACs]

 

Osamu Shoji:

Japanese composer, arranger and synthesizer player. Born September 6, 1932. Died April 30, 2018.

Related entity: Shoji Studio.

With regards to Jataka released in 1978 you can observe from this page it seems to be all composed and played by him, similar to artists like Wendy Carlos.  So far as I can tell it's also different from the remainder of his output in that it's not made up of cover songs.

Overall it's similar to my beloved Fumitaka Anzai work posted back here, but not as creative and progressive, more of the standard electronic synthesizer fiddling.  Title track gives you an idea:

British Riff Raff in 3

 

It's so rare for me to not have heard something really genuinely prog rock at this late stage in the game, but here's a band I was completely unaware of, so far as I know.  Of course, I'm old enough that memory is starting to become a problem (starting? my wife would say).

Info here.

Riff Raff was a British progressive rock band formed by keyboardist Tommy Eyre in 1972. The band was a continuation on the back of drummers (and Harrow School of Art friends) Rod Coombes and Joe Czarnecki's (aka Joe Peter)'s project originally called 'Crikey' which started in 1969 and completed in 1970, when Coombes had to accept growing tour commitments with Juicy Lucy. These sessions comprised half of the Riff Raff album Outside Looking In, in which Coombes wrote half the songs.

Riff Raff later went on to release two albums to lukewarm response; however, their use of jazz and hard-edged rock garnered them a large underground following. Riff Raff also released the single "Copper Kettle".

PS I'm missing Copper Kettle, if anyone has it to share?  Also not available on youtube, surprisingly.

From the first ST album, Dreaming with its unusual chords as might be expected from the title:

The magically beautiful and mysterious Tom's Song from Original Man, which reminds me a lot of the utterly ethereal weirdness of Fred Israel's Fashions of the Moon:

It absolutely shocked me the way he mixes the piano chords on their own not so strange with the keyboard strings playing completely inappropriate chords in the background-- completely bizarre, but compellingly beautiful in that typically intellectually advanced progressive way.

The other compelling thing about this album, released 1974, is that it's strong from beginning to end, there is no filler, no pandering to commercial tastes, everything purely progressive.  I love the standard description above 'released to lukewarm response...' when in reality the creative spirit for me is so compelling here.

As usual I have to mention the gorgeous cover painting of the Original Man album.  Wow!!  The artwork is from Dick Whitbread, who I note made a bunch of other beautiful covers, like Julie Tippetts Sunset Glow and Elton Dean Ninesense Oh for the edge which you can see here.

German Odin with new (old) material [flacs limited time]

 

I've always loved this band who sadly only put out one great prog album full of wonderful compositions and a marvelous cover, in 1972.  It was nice to see there is more to listen to, though it's the typical 'unreleased' live material with a lot of cover songs (Neil Young's Ohio, Peaches en Regalia, 20th c. Schizoid) and poor quality recordings.  Nonetheless, well worth exploring I think, with flacs available for us, to boot.

From SWF Sessions, [Frank Zappa's] Oh No:

Patty Pravo from 1976

Patty Pavro:

Real Name: Nicoletta Strambelli

Profile: Italian singer born 9 April 1948 in Venice, Italy.

Diva, counted since the sixties as one of the greatest interpreters of Italian music, boasts a chameleon-like career that has seen her go through various musical styles, continually reinventing her image: from idol beat to sophisticated interpreter of Italian and French songwriters, then experimenter of rock in its various forms. The album "Biafra" (1976) brought unknown genres to Italy such as the Funk and the new wave. Successes like La bambola (1968), Pazza idea (1973), Pensiero stupendo (1978) and ... E dimmi che non vuoi morire (1997) have marked the history of European pop.

The contrast between the peculiar low and sensual timbre and the filiform beauty, the imperious force of the personality, the provocations and the excesses have made her an icon of elegance and transgression, which has contributed to the evolution of the costume by distorting every canon linked to the figure of the female interpreter in Italy.

I am not so sure there is much for the prog rock fan to cling to here, as her output seems to me to be mostly basic singer songwriter stuff.  Perhaps the 1976 album is the most proggy, consider Sconosciuti Cieli:

Note the highly emotional songwriting, with the 'trappings' of a prog basis, eg synths + allied instrumentation, etc. but lacking a bit of the complexity.

Leo Nero's Vero from 1977 [flac limited time only]

Info on this dude here.  Note he had a follow up album in 1980, described as new wave.

It was recommended by a commenter and I finally got a chance to listen, definitely I would recommend hearing it.  Most of it is straightforward late 1970s singer songwriter stuff very emotional, piano based, along the lines of David Bowie circa. Young Americans, but without the guitar and funk, or Lou Reed as on the Berlin album, some of it quite ordinary.

A lovely instrumental called La Bambola Rota:

Some lovely Gentle Giant style dissonance in the Tastiere Isteriche:

Multiple Chikara Ueda albums [17 total]

 

Many thanks to the commenter who uploaded all these.  Of the ones that I recognize as not available before there's the Funk Beethoven, the Disco ones, Mellow Wonder, and Funpico, but I'm not a Chikara Ueda expert and I wouldn't know if these were common or rare.  I think there have been multiple posts on him on this blog before as well (4 before this one).

Anyways, thanks a million for assembling these and sharing them!  I will listen to them a few at a time, or even fewer, because I find it a bit generic and therefore exhausting but I know there are plenty of fans out there.

The link will probably expire quickly, go ahead and request reups.

Obviously, I didn't bother to post all the album covers since there are 17 in total in the package.

More of the crazy Tie Break from 1995, with Jorgos Skolias, cassette

 

I posted their stuff in 3 separate installments, here with 1989, here with 1990's cassette Duch, here with 1991's Gin Gi Lob.  They never strayed from the wild progressive mixture of uptempo nuttiness vocals plus angular dissonant music.  I think this one completes their 1990s oeuvre, assuming the Retrospective is a compilation.

A track called odszukany w cieniu gives you a clear idea of the totality, and note that the music accompanies spoken poetry from Polish poet / priest Jan Twardowski:

A track called Telefon milczy sounds like the Super Freego from recently:

Shockingly uncompromising music for 1995, I'd say.

Richard Hill's Chanctonbury Ring, from 1978 by request, FLAC limited time only

 

Richard Hill made quite a bit of library music back in the day, I would love to know the quality of that material.  This LP is from 1978 and is not really library, being more concept album I would presume.

It's a bit of an odd mix of classical composition plus orchestral plus commercial songs plus Mike Oldfield type instrumentals.  Despite the cover and the impression you might get, it's definitely NOT Oldfield-style progressive music.

The track called Sisters of the Moon gives you a reasonable idea of the contents, note the mix of orchestra and simple melody with bizarre background (orgiastic?) chanting:

Arousing Polaris, Archives 1974-1975, by request, FLAC limited time only sorry

Unfortunately the sound quality is poorly recorded, and for me that's a huge detraction, but for others maybe not.  From what we can discern the music is solidly in the prog rock mold though with the chord changes, dissonances, irregular rhythms, etc. Info on this release here.  Note the odd song names, reminding us of famed US band Yezda Urfa.

Opening track, Girl Friday gets her shoes caught in the revolving door:

Arousing Polaris was a creative rock band whose influences were the late psychedelic era and early British and European art-rock scenes. It brought together four musicians unified by a passion for creative expression and the cutting edge sounds of the times. Although trapped by the American commercial scene, they managed to have a solid following, despite their failure to have out any recordings, until now.

This documentation represents the groups earliest musical statement. At this stage they were purely instrumental, adding vocals about a year later.

Rehse and Frankovic were neighbors and played in several projects before. Demichei and Rehse were school mates, and Krueger met Rehse at technical school. Rehearsal was at Frankovic's basement. Ages ranged from 17 to 22.

In March of 1974 Rehse bought a Hammond organ, which marked the beginning of rehearsal with Frankovic. Initially they jammed with a drummer from their "William The Conqueror" days, but Demichei was far more suited for the position. Krueger would join a short time later. The line up on these recordings would last until August of 1976, when Krueger decided to leave. After his departure the group became a trio, expanding it's sound with electronics and various ethnic instruments. In June of 1979 they disbanded for 10 months before re-emerging as the psychedelic pop group "Plasticland."

Glenn Rehse.

A review of this release by local media Shepherd Express:

https://shepherdexpress.com/music/album-reviews/archives-74-75-by-arousing-polaris-rockhaus/

A lost CD, Australian Justin Humphries' Mind Funk from 1997

 

An album that to my surprise was not databased on discogs, although likely to be this artist.  However if searched online it can be found for sale in some rare places, for example here.

The opening track called Cloud shocked me when I first heard it, because it so closely resembles my favourite library album the Ozone one from back here, by Phil Moon.  The ingenious chord changes and movements, stately and cloudlike of course, stunned me:

Title track is more typical of the rest of the instrumental fusion:

But there's a whole bunch of great music in there, you'll see what I mean, electric guitar-based fusion but quite original and quite excellent, esp. when you consider the multitudes of songs and albums we've already heard in that sphere of life ("are you sure you're not collecting the same album over and over again?" in my wife's immortal words).

Maybe after listening you'll agree with me that it's tragic this CD didn't survive the 'test of time' --  but so much garbage pop culture did.

Picnic at Hanging Rock OST 1975 with the Ascent Theme

 

I was surprised to find out there is no actual soundtrack for this lovely, deservedly famous movie, despite the beauty of the theme music which was written by Bruce Smeaton.  In a way it makes sense, kind of, since the remainder of the tracks are the abhorrent Zamfir pipes of pan folk songs we all grew up with, sadly, and very well known and tiresome classical pieces.   Presumably the detestable nature of the Zamfir stuff was enough reason to avoid forcing any human to listen to more of it.  But it's tragic the ascent theme wasn't released.

I hadn't noticed the music at all actually when I saw the movie, but I was a kid at the time, what I remember is being highly impressed with the extreme beauty of the cinematography (and the girls) as well as the depth of the emotional themes and the mysterious story which I thought was based on a true story, but today in the age of wikipedia we can learn it was purely fictional from the beginning.  

People have put together unofficial soundtracks it seems with the different pieces, and these are what I uploaded.  But it's obviously beholden to the progressive music of the 70s, eg early Genesis or Pink Floyd with the varying minor chords, classical-derived, the very odd time signature which I think is said to be in 17/8, and the beautiful spacey synth sound, as I call it.  If you haven't heard the Ascent Theme before, you'll see what I mean, it's really quite stunning, too bad we can't have a full album's worth of this stuff, I suppose we did back when Pink Floyd made Meddle and Echoes, etc.: