[US] Chameleon - Rising, from1973 to 1978 [limited time only with flacs]

 

A wonderful rerelease of material from the 1970s in the hard prog vein, like Magik Dayze, ultimately not quite as good (but then how many are as good as them?), still hugely enjoyable.  These guys hailed from Houston, Texas. Of course the only release from them. I love that they have enormous energy on these mostly vocal tracks, but also they have lots of keyboards and hammond all over the place giving it that classic early 70s hard prog sound. There are times, here and there, where they might be caught copying such classic American bands as Kansas and there are even touches of Cathedral 'Stained Glass Stories' in there. More likely it's Yes-influence that I'm hearing.

Mirkwood Forest:

And I love the tritonal riff on the guitars on Saturate:

Crossing's Air Balloon from Germany, 1983

 

Contemporary jazz instrumental tracks with loads of improvising by this one-off German group that included Florian Poser on vibes and marimbas, whose stuff was posted earlier of course here recently, and in other places remotely. The title track as sample:

US Castle Canyon in 2 (Gods of 1973, Criteria Obsession) flacs limited time only

First album was a masterpiece no matter how you want to present it. When I first heard this I thought for sure this is the best recently released true progressive music, with the synths, dissonances, etc. you could ever hope for, but then it turns out the music actually did come, as the title suggests, from the 70s. So a little less impressive in that sense, but still shocking it wasn't heard back in that era when the music could've been better appreciated.  Like others though they came back in recent times to put out an album that is just as good, kudos to them, called Criteria Obsession. Of course it's a little bit simpler, but you couldn't not expect that.

From 1973, Canoeing on the River Styx:

By far the best track off the more recent release is one called Disaster with its classical grand piano intro (similar to the US band Cathexis I extensively reported on back here) that segues so marvelously and classic-proggishly into a fusionary synthesized madness and every time I hear those smashing dissonances I just want to cry with absolute joy:

 

Back to David Diggs with Out on a Limb from 1976

Information is here. Note Diggs is playing drums, guitars, and keys on this release. Actually when he ditched the big band, the arrangements got better, more in the fusiony direction which makes sense given how hugely popular it became in the mid-70s (big sigh)... 

The string arrangements which appear here and there are not synthesized, but an actual string section arranged by Diggs himself, and it's nice to hear those too. 

Music consists of instrumental smooth fusion throughout, some lovely hooks and melodies usually played by his George Benson-style electric guitar, note some songs are repeated from earlier and from his later albums-- which is OK, as those tend to be the better compositions.  One that only appears here, though, is the Seventh Seal:

Instant Joy is such a lovely and marvelous composition, albeit simple.

David Diggs' Supercook! 1974

More big band in general than most of the other stuff he did and previously posted here and before, with a definitely (unpleasant, at least for us?) more jazzy feel and even scarier: some outright 12-bar blues stuff. Nonetheless, it's important to hear, and to add to the rest we have from him.

It closes out with a nice Reiteration:

 

But thanks again for requesting this--marvelous stuff and so much to explore. More coming soon!