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.