Paula Gills, 1978's Made It This Far

While we're on the subject of gentle seventies folky-female singer-songwriters, here's this one I neglected from before.  The first track is the best, and it recalls the somewhat musical-song-influenced items we heard before from my favourite Melisma and even the Street and The Sea, which I was told to remove due to a near future cd release (which apparently has still not happened)):





The remainder slowly goes down the very gently inclined slope of appreciation however.

Sunleif Rasmussen, Karsten Vogel, Jóhannus Á Rógvu Joensen, Aage Tanggaard in 1984

This is the last album in Karsten the bird of beauty's discography I was curious to hear and it comes in the year 1984, just after the remarkable Signature album.  Unfortunately in the credits you can see he wasn't involved as composer, despite the fact the music sounds like a more acoustic and stripped down version of his own works.  Specifically the composers are Johannus Á Rógvu Joensen (tracks: B1, B3) and Sunleif Rasmussen (tracks: A1, A2, B2).

Here's the first track:






Later on side b some very advanced music, almost atonal, appears on the part of Rasmussen on electric organ, with the album closing out in a very melancholy manner, not so surprisingly.

More Karen Lafferty with Life Pages from 1980

The next album after Sweet Communion sadly was a bit disappointing, as we get closer to the 80s, a frequent experience in the English countries (oddly enough not usually in continental Europa).
A blurb poem on the top of the back:


Every Life's a Story, every life's a song.
Some will end in glory, some never belong.
Everyone could write a book others could learn from
So won't you please listen to the stories in life's songs.


Here the music is just a little bit more generic and average to the point where we have little to hang on to most of the time throughout this 240 degrees rotation of an hour.  Perhaps, though arguably, the best song is called Aegean, and recalls the title track of the 1978 record:






And with that, we will close the good book on Karen and her kin...

Karen Lafferty's Bird in a Golden Sky from 1973

I introduced you to this Christian Singer Songwriter earlier with the great Sweet Communion record, this is the first solo album she made way back in 1973.  You get a good feel for the 70's-indebtedness of her songwriting style here, with all those beautiful 70s pop cliches we have heard so many times before.  But they are incredibly well done.  As might be expected this album is a bit more raw than Sweet Communion but still benefits from a remarkably adept production and arrangement.

The stunning song for Bobbi:






It's so nice how those strings carry the chords through, like big beautiful clouds following you down the countryside as you walk in a spirit full of joy.

Plenty of other goodies in here, in my opinion.
What a talented songwriter she was!  And such a beautiful voice.

Back to the great guitarist Christian Escoudé with Gipsys' [sic] Morning from 1981

Just to quickly review, Escoude played with the cellist Capon (4 Elements, Gousti) who I covered extensively in the past.  Originally I got into him due to his involvement in the highly intellectual French chamber prog band Confluence, still one of my favourites.  In addition, Escoude made other records with other artists, obviously, as can be seen in the database.  Again mention should be made of the 1983 trio combo with Lockwood and Catherine, which I recently posted.  This record came just before, and features a lot of Philippe Catherine-like invention on that gypsyish basis advertised in the title.  He's playing with Olivier Hutman, Nicolas Fiszman, and famed drummer Jean-My Truong (Ergo Sum, Perception, Tangerine, Yochk'o Seffer, etc., did they have a shortage of percussionists back then in France?).

So this one is not quite as good in my opinion as the 1983 work but it's still at a very high level of musical quality, thankfully.  Needless to say it's all instrumental.  What I enjoy most about Christian is when he gets into his very introspective phases, thinking deeply about a particular jazz phrase or unusual chord and expanding it into its possibilities, meditating almost, mulling over this or that pretty turn, I guess similar to Catherine but unlike the latter's exploding amp, more inward-looking.

For example in his witness to Place Victor Hugo (16e arrondissement in Paris, look out for the dog poop as you circle the Egyptian obelisk carefully, and don't do it for too long, or some crabby old lady carrying a baguette invariably will yell at you for spending too much time staring at their stolen monuments, usually from Napoleon, as if Paris isn't 100% economically propped up by money coming in from incessant tourists and other naive visitors, believe me, I promised my wife I would never go back there, how romantic that experience was almost getting run over by zooming cars spewing out diesel exhaust in our faces as we step on their precious pavement, but how romantic can you be in a city in which restaurants treat like you a family of rabid hyena made of rotting meat:

Ah oui, la France: it's a love-hate relationship, just like Italy, isn't it?  There is one thing I will say with no guilt or compunction whatsoever though, I've tried wines from all over the world, some of the best ever in days past, and I can honestly say French wine is crap for the price you have to pay.  And the vintage system!  I am not going to try to nail down in which year you have to buy a certain wine, it's too much work, too unreliable, too randomly arbitrary, and give the French way too much allowance for being hard to please.  Oui, bring me to the guillotine, guys!  And drop it as I smash a bottle of your Bordeaux on my chopped off head!  I understand those blind taste tests in which oenophiles pick Chilean, Aussie, or US wines over the 'famous' French Chateaux...  I totally understand.  You can't argue with that kind of scientific objectivity.   Et s'il vous plait n'ejacule pas dans mon vin, garcon!  Ou pas de pourboire pour toi!!! Merci!  What? Tip is already included here?  Yeah no wonder, with service like this!! You know what, we'd never put up with this back home!  Vous etes un fromage, vous-meme!

Sorry if I offended anyone.  Returning to the record, I'll show you another fromage oops I mean track called Bibillou--

I like this of course because it reminds me of those 1976 glory days: Elements, with the great Capon...  A little bit of that 70s magic beauty.

Both samples by Christian incidentally though not all the music is.  Lucky for us French music is far superior to the wines.