Kenneth Knudsen and Anima, 5 albums: Pictures (76), Anima (79), Kilgore (80), Songs (82), and Shanghai Circus (86) [LIMITED TIME ONLY]

Recall I posted once his Anima work in lossless, and a beautiful work that was and is, eternally.  The number of visits to and downloads on that post (numbering in the kilos) testify to its (killer) popularity.  But in my opinion his masterpiece was its predecessor called Pictures, from 1976.  And of course to be complete one would have to include the more experimental material he did in Coronarias Dans (two albums, both recommended).

Moving on to the 80s from Anima the album, the band with the same name and led by him is interesting at least in part for the progressive quality of Kilgore, with its fusion elements, and occasional (late) Genesis sound, plus the prog-pop of Songs.  I think someone once asked for a rip of that one too and it was posted in comments somewhere, but here it is again.   And then after that, of course, by the year 1986, we take a nosedive into silly 80s rock, with portentous talk and reggae, inevitably.

The track called Signal from his first record just blows me away, esp. with its hearkening back to the electric piano work of Coronarias:





What's especially remarkable to me though is how far he advanced since the Coronarias album that just preceded, in terms of inventiveness and variety, it's as if we are on a different planet here.

Just to give you an idea, from 1980's Kilgore, the following interesting track called Circles is clearly beholden to Peter Gabriel:

(Kyriakos Sfetsas in) Greek Fusion Orchestra's Without Boundaries from 1980

Some might already be quite familiar with this, but I never heard of it until very recently.

The masterpiece of Kyrias Sftesas, who composed quite a bit of music, I would bet this was the only progressive album he made, and it's quite the impressive work.  It features four long tracks, all equally wonderful in some way or another, perhaps similar a bit to Vanessa's Black and White masterpiece though with less of the intense electric fusion, more classical and acoustic piano passages.

My favourite in terms of sheer unbridled creativity is the Ballad for John:





The university composition education really shines through here.

Does anyone know if he did anything else worth hearing?

Honma Express in You See I from 1980 Japan

A fantastic cover again.  Clean, inventive and modern.  Love it.

This album is mostly light fusion, electronic elements, pop songs, some library aspects to it, and some simplicity that is a bit gratuitous, however, there are also strong and well-written songs here and there.  The tracklist gives you an idea of the craziness on tap from this one-off band, named after Kenji Honma (is it a one-man band work too?)

Unit Cohesion Index
What The Magic Is To Try
Casaba
Fata Morgana
Spasmodical
Crazy Dream
Child Of Fortune
Idle Curiosity (with the voice synthesizer or vocoder was it called)


Notice the National Health-like introduction to Crazy Dream which unfortunately quickly reverts to straightforward library synth-fusion:





A really nice record, enjoyable for a few listens, and I'm very grateful for this discovery to my friend...

More Jun and possibly the last to post here: Paris Story, with Takashi Sato in 1985

Old as I am, I miss so much the kind of true art featured on this cover that was such a wonderful added feature of records from back in the day.  Many times I've mentioned how due to the constraints of the small size of CD covers and the plastic jewel cases, so much less amenable to creativity today's album covers are-- they have to be. (Then again, you could also make the case that the sixties and seventies were a golden age of creativity like the renaissance.)  I love the kind of scratchy impressionism the artist used to depict the cafe scene, like a Matisse interpreted by a somewhat depressed graffiti artist (e.g. Basquiat).  (So I went searching through the paperwork and found the artist's name: Yuzo Saeki, an early 20th century fauvist artist.  Beautiful stuff.)

This album features an instrumental (duh-?) program of compositions by Takashi Sato, a singer songwriter, played with orchestral accompaniment by Jun.  To be honest, some wordless vocals by both human males and females here.  The second track is exemplary:





Btw note the presence of Roland Romanelli, shockingly I might add, as arranger in the credits. He is responsible for some really great French library material, mostly in the electronic keyboards dept., you might recall him on these pages from some April Orchestras, numbers 38 (brilliant, with Jannick Top), and 43 (a more generic and forgettable one, if I recall).  I believe he has added a French soundtrack-like dimension to this record, reflecting the title of the album, which really pushes it over the edge for me.  You'll notice that for example on a track called Mr Blues which sounds like it came from one of those French movies in which, you know, all the actresses take all their clothes off at least once before the end credits.  Sometimes several times, each time going further, until not even a beret is left on.

Enjoy it!  And let's give thanks for the genius of Jun, whose albums have been just a never-ending series of riches and delights.

Heads up for a(nother) masterpiece; In Flight : Imagine a Music, USA 1987

Another surprise out of left field (how many curve balls could still be out there in the hinterlands waiting to be caught?)  Though you might from the title be expecting some fusion, this is a gorgeous mix of earliest Shadowfax-style acoustic guitar and keyboards chamber-jazz intellectual inventiveness, mostly instrumental, and it's as rare as it comes, with no mention in discogs or rateyourmusic (so far as I can tell).  I hear influences of Chick Corea in his acoustic moments, or perhaps the law-abiding classical thought patterns of someone like Matthias Frey.

Reading off the back, we learn it's a West Coast band and we have Robi Johns on guitars, and the brothers Lee Kohler and Rob Kohler on pianos and drums.  No mention of anything else from these artists on discogs, again, so far as I can tell.  All three perform for the vocal number which I included below.






Does it sound influenced by Yes, particularly in the lyrics dept.?  Definitely, if Yes decided to do unplugged.

Be sure to take a closer look at the photos of the members on the back too, showing how far into the 80s, anachronistically for the style of music, we are here.

Really can't believe that after all this time and effort in finding the hidden music from the past, all over the world I might add, that we can still mine these gems out of the ground of the past and add to the treasure trove, wherever you might be digitally keeping it safe....