Back to Dexter Wansel with some more from 1977, 1978

I spoke too soon in giving up on his discography, as it seems the next year after Life on Mars he made What the World is Coming To (with its somewhat unpromising cover), which featured at least a few quite impressive compositions, in particular consider the vocals track called Dreams of Tomorrow: 

which is followed by the very George Duke-like Prelude #1 closing out the album:

He wrote the majority of stuff on here, and in particular he wrote those last 2, pretty impressive.

In the 1978 follow up Voyager there are a couple of nice songs, but nothing quite as striking as on the prior two.

George Garvarentz's OST Killer Force, from 1976

 

From discogs:

Armenian-French composer and arranger.

Best know for his works with Charles Aznavour,

whose sister Aïda Aznavour he married in 1965.

Born: April 1, 1932 in Athens, Greece

Died: March 9, 1993 in Paris, France

This record from 1976 is typical, wonderful OST stuff.

The Chase:

I will love you till I die almost approaches the Teo Macero level of complex orchestral composition:

Fabiano Orchestra's Butterfly Island, from 1978

 

Some lovely instrumental funky fusion from this outfit led by percussionist Jean-Francois Fabiano who only together only produced this one late-70s album.  Perhaps similar to the gorgeous contemporaneous Chute Libre, but without the delicatesse of the latter.

Title track:

Dexter Wansel - Life On Mars from 1976

His first album, from 1976, was such a wonderful funky fusion thing, with some great songwriting and some wonderful ideas.  It reminds me a little of the Space Traveller James Vincent, but without as much crazy creativity.

One million miles from the ground with its lovely vocals:

As usual, I love the space themes.  I don't think the remainder of his discography is worth hearing since he veered off into disco subsequently. At any rate I threw in a couple more albums for you to listen to.

Noel Mc Ghie & Space Spies, ST 1975

A few pretty unknown fusion albums, all from the mid-70s for the next little while.

First up, these folks made one beautiful fusion album in 1975, databased here. Noel's page is here.

Dancer: