Magma - Kobaïa (1970 Prog-Rock)

Led by classically trained drummer Christian Vander, the Paris-based Magma have been, in their way, perhaps the ultimate progressive rock group; while other artists have achieved greater commercial success and critical acclaim, Magma have typified the many ambitions and excesses of the genre that won them as many detractors as fans, even going so far as to invent their own lyrical and musical language in order to bring their unique vision to life. The son of a jazz pianist, Vander initially followed in his father's footsteps, modeling his technique on the work of John Coltrane alum Elvin Jones and starting his career with a number of jazz and R&B outfits. While in Paris in 1969, however, he was struck by a vision of Earth's spiritual and ecological future so disturbing to him that he decided to explore his fears by musical means, assembling Magma with the aid of wife and vocalist Stella, singer Klaus Blasquiz, and fusion bassists Francis Moze and Jannick Top.
Magma (reissued under the name Kobaïa) is the debut album by zeuhl artists Magma, which was released as a double-LP in 1970. In the course of this album, the band tells the story of a group of people fleeing a doomed Earth to settle on the fictional planet Kobaïa.

AMG Review by Jason Ankeny

Jane - III (Hard-Rock, Germany 1974)

While it would be easy to tag German chooglers Jane with the often overused Krautrock label, the band have far more in common with the bongwater-soaked riffage of Deep Purple and Grand Funk Railroad, than the more academic, experimentally minded sounds of Can, Neu! and even Amon Duul II. This album--the band's third and released in 1974--is easily their high-water mark. Epic guitar solos collide with space-boogie grooves, white blues vocals, and Age-of-Aquarius mysticism to create what is certainly a forgotten classic. That Jane were bona fide rock stars in their native land makes the album all the more interesting. Originally released on the German psych/prog label Head, Britain's SPV reissued it in 2007 with informative liner notes.

AMG Review by Rovi

Two more from JANE here

Faust - Faust (1971 Krautrock)

"There is no group more mythical than Faust," wrote Julian Cope in his book Krautrocksampler, which detailed the pivotal influence the German band exerted over the development of ambient and industrial textures. Producer/overseer Uwe Nettelbeck, a onetime music journalist, formed Faust in Wumme, Germany, in 1971 with founding members Hans Joachim Irmler, Jean Hervé Péron, Werner "Zappi" Diermaier, Rudolf Sosna, Gunther Wusthoff, and Armulf Meifert. Upon receiving advance money from their label, Nettelbeck converted an old schoolhouse into a recording studio, where the group spent the first several months of its existence in almost total isolation, honing its unique cacophonous sound with the aid of occasional guests like minimalist composer Tony Conrad and members of Slapp Happy.
The impact of Faust cannot be overstated; their debut album was truly a revolutionary step forward in the progress of "rock music". It was pressed on clear vinyl, packaged in a clear sleeve, with a clear plastic lyric insert. The black X-ray of a fist on the cover graphically illustrates the hard core music contained in the grooves, an amalgamation of electronics, rock, tape edits, acoustic guitars, musique concrete, and industrial angst. The level of imagination is staggering, the concept is totally unique and it's fun to listen to as well.

AMG Review by Jason Ankeny and Archie Patterson

Merkin Manor - Music From Merkin Manor (1972 Hard Rock from Utah)

In most corners of America in late 1960s, youth were growing their hair long and partaking in the cultural explosion of the times. Utah, on the other hand, remained staunchly Mormon and conservative. Amid that atmosphere, Merkin sprang out of the small town of Orem, Utah. Rocky Baum and Ralph Hemingway were high school friends, and occasionally Hemingway would sing along with Baum's guitar playing as something of a lark. By the summer of 1969, after a few years of playing together, the duo felt the absence of a backbeat, so they set out to make the twosome a rock band. Drummer Alan Newell, bassist Kent Balog, and guitarist Doug Hinkins were added to fill out the combo, and they came up with the odd name Merkin derived either from the dictionary or from an obscure b-movie, Can Huronymous Merkin Succeed with Mercy Hump?.

The band rehearsed at Hinkins' house, playing cover versions of popular songs. Soon they were writing original material, most of it composed by Baum, and with the addition of schoolmate Rod Olsen as manager, the band began attaining gigs at local high schools, colleges, and other assorted youth hangouts. Newell was replaced by Balog's twin brother Gary in 1970, and Robert Barney replaced Hinkins as lead guitarist. Richard Leavitt was also added on keyboards to round out the Merkin sound. In 1971 the band recorded a live demo that caught the attention of Gay Young of Kommittee Productions, and a recording session was arranged for the band in Los Angeles in 1972.

The subsequent album, Music From Merkin Manor, was recorded in four days and gained some airplay in San Francisco, enabling the band to tour Colorado, but the album was not officially released (in a pressing of only 200) until early 1973, by which time Merkin had returned to Utah, and any commercial momentum was stifled. In addition, Baum had received sole songwriting credit on the album, infuriating the rest of the band. He was asked to leave, and Merkin limped on, finally calling it quits in 1974.

01) Ruby
02) Take Some Time
03) Todaze
04) Sweet Country
05) Goodbye
06) Watching You
07) Kind Of Down
08) The Right One
09) Here Together
10) Walkin'
11) Maybe Someday+
12) Cry On My Shoulder
13) A Father's Song

Post by CGR

[something cool for the summer] - Middle of the Road (Bubblegum Pop from the 70's)

One of those uniquely '70s groups, Middle of the Road were a Scottish pop vocal group whose singles "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep," "Tweedle Dee Tweedle Dum," and "Soley Soley" were huge European hits, selling in the tens of millions. Formed by Sally Carr (vocals), Ian McCredie (guitar), Eric McCredie (bass), and drummer Ken Andrew in 1970 (the group had been playing together since 1967, but under the moniker of "Part Three") Middle of the Road had trouble finding success until they uprooted from the United Kingdom and settled in Italy. There they met famed producer Giacomo Tosti, who revamped the group, and molded them in the sound and image that would take them to pop heights. 1971 would see the release of their first single, the mega hit "Chirp Chirp Cheep Cheep," as well as an album of the same name. The song would reach the upper echelons of charts all over the continent and propel the once unknown Scots into the pop consciousness almost overnight. More singles followed, as well as a handful of albums, but by 1976 the musical landscape had changed and Middle of the Road eventually called it a day. The band would make a return on the retro circuit performing well into the 21st century, albeit under the aegis of Middle of the Road featuring Sally Carr.

AMG Review by Chris True

Lazy Smoke - Corridor of Faces (1968 US Psychedelia)

Like the Velvet Underground and Big Star, Lazy Smoke has become more famous in death than life. Basically a local phenomenon during its existence, the Massachusetts band's Corridor of Faces LP has become one of the most revered collectables among '60s enthusiasts. Included on this CD are 12 previously unheard demos produced a few months prior to the recording of the album. All music has been transferred from the original mastertapes.

In Vernon Joynson's book "Fuzz, Acid, & Flowers", he states that Massachusetts band, Lazy Smoke's ultra rare album "Corridor of Faces" is to some the ultimate psychedelic album ever recorded. With so many classic psych recordings out there begging for that very title this is quite the statement. However, psychedelic music is certainly not a dead genre, it is alive and well and the very fact that these ultra rare 60ís albums are being reissued proves my point.
No more than 500 copies of the Lazy Smoke album were originally released back in late '68. Original vinyl copies of "Corridor" can fetch somewhat near $1,500! Now, some 35+ years later, the Arf Arf label has presented us with this golden nugget plus numerous unreleased demos from 1967. "Corridor of Faces" is a superb period piece with fantastic, and at times beautiful guitar work, and flowing Beatles-esque harmonies (that even come with affected English accents). From the backward guitars of the luscious opening track "All These Years", to the poignant lyrics and tight orchestration of ìThere Was A Timeî, this is clearly a classic undiscovered work of beauty.

The demo half of this CD actually reminds me a bit of the Skip Spence album "Oar" or, better yet, of the more gentler songs by the contemporary lo-fi band, Sparklehorse.
Thank you Arf Arf for making this gem available again!

01. All These Years
02. How Was Your Day Last Night
03. Come With the Day
04. Salty People
05. Jackie-Marie
06. Under Skys
07. Sarah Saturday
08. There Was a Time
09. Am I Wrong?
10. How Did You Die?
11. I Don't Need the Sun [Unplugged Demo]
12. Changing the Time [Unplugged Demo]
13. I Could Fall Asleep [Unplugged Demo]
14. Wait Till You See [Unplugged Demo]
15. Scarecrow [Unplugged Demo]
16. All These Years [Unplugged Demo]
17. Come With the Day [Unplugged Demo]
18. Salty People [Unplugged Demo]
19. Jackie-Marie [Unplugged Demo]
20. There Was a Time [Unplugged Demo]
21. Sarah Saturday [Unplugged Demo]
22. Am I Wrong? [Unplugged Demo]

Post by CGR

Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Works, Vol. 1 (1977 double LP)

Though no one talked about it at the time of its release, this album reflected a growing split within the group. Originally, the trio's members, tired of sublimating their musical identities within the context of ELP, each intended to do a solo album of his own. Reason prevailed, however, probably aided by the group's awareness that the combined sales of the solo albums issued by the five members of Yes the previous year were a fraction of the sales of Yes' most recent records. The result was this double LP; essentially three solo sides and one group side, it is the most complex and demanding of the group's albums. Keith Emerson's "Piano Concerto" is on the level of a good music-student piece, without much original language. Where Emerson, in conjunction with his conductor and co-orchestrator, John Mayer, succeeds admirably is in writing beautiful virtuoso passages for the piano. Greg Lake's romantic songs mark the final flowering of his work in this vein -- and perhaps its going to seed, since "C'est la Vie," the featured single, says little that "Still...You Turn Me On," from their previous album, didn't say better and shorter. Carl Palmer's side is the most accessible of the three solo sides for casual rock listeners, rocking hard on the classical adaptations and featuring Joe Walsh on lead guitar for one song. The group's two tracks, "Fanfare for the Common Man" and "Pirates," cover a lot of old ground, albeit in ornate and stylish fashion. Having used Copland's "Hoedown" as a concert showstopper for four years, the trio takes "Fanfare" to new heights of indulgence, and it actually works, up to a point -- like CCR's extended version of "Heard It Through the Grapevine," this is just a little too much of a good thing.

AMG Review by Bruce Eder

Embryo - Embryo's Reise (Germany [ΟΚ είσασταν καλύτεροι] 1979)

Reise is an audio documentary of Embryo's end of the '70s "Journey" through the Middle East, a musical diary of their various experiences with master musicians and street players alike, from Bombay to the docks of Calcutta and beyond. No clinical exercise in musicology or studio session, it lives and breathes with the sounds and smells of music created from the creative flow of life in progress. Ethnic instruments, jazz, rock and chants combine to create a vibrant tapestry of sound on this magnificent double album.

AMG Review by Archie Patterson

Savoy Brown - Blue Matter (Fabulous Blues-Rock 1969)

The third release by Kim Simmonds and company, but the first to feature the most memorable lineup of the group: Simmonds, "Lonesome" Dave Peverett, Tony "Tone" Stevens, Roger Earl, and charismatic singer Chris Youlden. This one serves up a nice mixture of blues covers and originals, with the first side devoted to studio cuts and the second a live club date recording. Certainly the standout track, indeed a signature song by the band, is the tour de force "Train to Nowhere," with its patient, insistent buildup and pounding train-whistle climax. Additionally, David Anstey's detailed, imaginative sleeve art further boosts this a notch above most other British blues efforts.

AMG Review by Peter Kurtz

New York Rock & Roll Ensemble - Faithful Friends (Great 1969 Psychedelic Pop)

The second release from this rock-classical fusion act is a highly enjoyable, albeit forgotten, album from the 1960s. One of the first major bands to mix classical music with rock, the New York Rock & Roll Ensemble also included future pop composer Michael Kamen. The ensemble's 1969 sophomore album continues where their debut left off, with pop/rock numbers like "I'm So Busy" and a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Wait Until Tomorrow" interspersed with straight classical pieces such as Bach's "Trio Sonata No. 2 in G Major." The album's highlight is the acoustic-based original "Kite Song"; a song featuring falsetto vocals from ensemble member Brian Corrigan and a very pretty cello melody. Most of the songs sound influenced by Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, as well as late-'60s pop/rock harmony-based groups such as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. Kamen lends his dramatized vocals to most of the tunes on the album in pure Broadway meets '60s rock fashion; other members of the ensemble sing as well. While heralded at the time for their courageous musical explorations, the New York Rock & Roll Ensemble peaked with this and their follow-up album, Reflections, failing to capture the same magic on their subsequent releases.

AMG Review by Jeff Schwachter

Philamore Lincoln - The North Wind Blew South (1970 Folk-Psych)

Philamore Lincoln has always been something of a shadowy figure in the psych pop universe, even among hardcore collectors. His lone album, originally released by Epic in 1970, never saw a legitimate CD reissue until 2010, and he seemed to have been swallowed up by the earth shortly after its initial unveiling. Helping to make the legend more tantalizing over the years were the rumors of Yardbirds members' involvement, partly spurred by Yardbirds bassist Chris Dreja's photo credit, but as it turns out, Jimmy Page did indeed add some guitar to the sessions. Given its release date, The North Wind Blew South sounds like it could have been sitting on the shelf for a couple of years, as the wispy, Donovan-like psych pop that takes up much of the album feels more like 1968 than 1970. The album is heavily front-loaded, opening with the dreamy but majestic title track before moving into the bouncy, orchestral psych pop of "You're the One" (with some tasty Page licks) and the good-timey, Small Faces-like "Lazy Good for Nothin'." Despite the anomalous greasy rocker "County Jail Band," North Wind stays largely on the soft side of psych pop, with "Early Sherwood" sounding like a Sunshine Superman outtake and "Temma Harbour" (later a British hit for Mary Hopkin) even dipping into a mellow bossa nova feel. The album ends on a curious note with the somewhat throwaway-sounding brassy blues instrumental "Blew Through," but overall, Lincoln's gentle vocals and breezy delivery perfectly suit his songwriting (he penned every tune here himself) and producer James Wilder finds just the right arrangement for each track, making this a bit of a lost classic of the U.K. soft-psych world.

AMG Review by James Allen

Jane - Here We Are (Fabulous Hard-Rock, Germany 1973)

The second long-player from German band Jane, HERE WE ARE was recorded under very strained circumstances. Their lead singer had just passed away, their bass player was very sick, and the band was so broke they had to borrow all the instruments they played on the recording. Still, a tasty prog-hard-rock album ensued, following on the promise of their debut if not winning over the fickle music press of the era. This 1973 album was remastered and reissued on CD by Brain in 2007, with informative bilingual liner notes.

AMG Review by Rovi

Cosmic Jokers - Cosmic Jokers (1974 Great Kraut-Rock)

One day in 1974, Manuel Göttsching, guitarist for the legendary Krautrock band Ash Ra Tempel, walked into a Berlin record store and heard some wildly cosmic guitar sounds blasting from the speakers. He was shocked to discover that he was listening to a new Krautrock supergroup, and that he in fact was the guitarist. The Cosmic Jokers were the greatest Krautrock supergroup that never was, a cosmic joke even on most of the musicians who played on the sessions, unbeknownst they were members of this new "group." Over several months in early 1973, producer Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser organized several wild acid parties at Dieter Dierks' sound studio, where the musicians played in exchange for a small fee and all the hallucinogens they could ingest. These musicians included Göttsching and Klaus Schulze of Ash Ra Tempel, Jurgen Dollase and Harald Grosskopf of Wallenstein, and Dierks himself. They had all been part of the Cosmic Couriers, a loose group that had musically backed Kaiser-produced records by Swiss artist/poet Sergius Golowin, gypsy Tarot-reader Walter Wegmuller, and even acid guru Timothy Leary the year before.
From these 1973 sessions, The Cosmic Jokers were born, as Kaiser and Dierks edited and mixed the material and slapped it out on vinyl on Kaiser's Kosmiche Musik label without the other musicians knowing anything about it until the records appeared in stores, even as their pictures were posted prominently on the covers. The self-titled first album followed in rapid succession by Galactic Supermarket (which actually wasn't credited to The Cosmic Jokers when it originally came out) and Planeten Sit-In, all released in 1974. In that same year came out two other records later credited to The Cosmic Jokers, the Kosmische Musik label sampler Sci-Fi Party, and Gilles Zeitschiff (or "Jill's Timeship"). This last album featured Gille Lettmann, Kaiser's girlfriend at the time, also known as Sternenmadchen, narrating over music plundered from various earlier Kosmische Musik releases. By now the unpaid musicians were quite resentful, and Zeitschiff, where they play second fiddle to Kaiser's girlfriend, was the last straw for Klaus Schulze, who soon took legal action against the increasingly megalomaniac Kaiser. By 1975, all the albums were withdrawn until the musicians rights could be sorted out and Kaiser was run out of the country by the authorities, his record empire destroyed. Though some people at the time disparaged these records as a bad gimmick and one of the worst examples of blatant artist rip-off, and Schulze still reviles them, the fact can't be denied that these are some of the best records of utterly tripped-out German cosmic space rock ever made.
The first of Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser's exploitive cosmic space rock albums is also the best, and certainly kicks the seat out of the many jam bands that arose in the '90s. Unlike most "super groups" who collapse under the weight of their own hubris, the Cosmic Jokers, who were never really a proper group anyway, almost improve upon the sound of their precursors, namely Manuel Göttsching and Klaus Schulze from acid-jam-supreme Ash Ra Tempel, and Jurgen Dollase and Harald Grosskopf from blitzkrieg psychedelic Wallenstein. Structurally, the record is similar to those vintage Ash Ra Tempel albums, with two sidelong suites, the first side representing the peak of the acid freakout and the second side more relaxed, acting as the chill out later in the trip. Thus, the first side, "&Galactic Joke," has more emphasis on Gottsching's freaked-out guitar, as the music slowly builds to full phased-out fury and then subsides and builds again. The flip side, "Cosmic Joke," is mellower, though no less improvised as it travels with Schulze's keyboard washes at the forefront into deepest space on a similarly slow ebb and flow. The effects are laid on much thicker than on a normal Ash Ra effort, especially on this second track, enhancing the sci-fi aspects as the mixing board of Dieter Dierks adds another dimension to the sound. Unlike later Cosmic Jokers records, where vocals were added in, this album is completely instrumental, letting the music stand by itself.

AMG Review by Rolf Semprebon

Organisation - Tone Float (pre-Kraftwerk release 1970)

Though only a footnote in the history of pop music, Organisation was the actual germ of Kraftwerk. In 1968, students Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider met at Art Academy Remscheid and decided to take new musical ways. Both classically trained on piano and flute, they had already played in blues and jazz bands. Together with three other musicians, who played bass and various percussion instruments, Organisation managed to release an album on RCA/U.K. It was quite unusual for a British company to sign a German band at this time, especially with that experimental sound. Sometime later the decision was questioned for sure, since the sales of Tone Float fell short of expectations. This was not very amazing, as Organisation mixed some half way conventional passages with wild percussion and alienated sounds. With this album, the band was far ahead of the time and created a new sound. They got to know that this was not everybody's cup of tea indeed, as there were vegetables thrown at the band at a concert in Berlin. Also a TV appearance at the Beatclub, German equivalent to British Ready Steady Go, produced discrepant reactions. One part of the studio audience seemed somewhat consternated, the other enthusiastic. A recording of this gig later was included on a bootleg reissue. In 1970, Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider had already released Kraftwerk 1 without the rest of the band. The once normal band relation got cooler with time and broke down gradually, "The Robots" created their "Man Machine"-image. Organisation disbanded in 1971 because of the well-known musical differences. Kraftwerk drove the "Autobahn" to international success when time was right, while none of the other musicians ever appeared as recording artists again.

Tone Float is a very unusual record for 1970. There is no blues-rock, no guitar solo, and no catchy single hit at all. Though it contains some familiar parts, it is not easy to classify. The organ suggests early Pink Floyd, perhaps from the Piper at the Gates of Dawn album. And there is some flute and violin, sometimes played in a jazzy way. But suddenly the music leads into a percussion inferno, where the drum set sounds like kettledrums, with heavy gongs echoing, bells tinkling, and instruments altered past recognition. There are no common song structures; the tracks develop slowly and this can last even 20 minutes. The music is partly free in rhythm, as a title like "Rhythm Salad" already suggests. Sometimes there is an indication of the sound that Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider would develop later on the first Kraftwerk albums, but here there was no synthesizer.

AMG Review by Klaus Kehrle

 

Jack Bruce - Songs for a Tailor (1969)

With a live version of "Crossroads" going Top 30 for Cream, Songs for a Tailor was released in 1969, showing many more sides of Jack Bruce. George Harrison (again using his L'Angelo Misterioso moniker) appears on the first track, "Never Tell Your Mother She's Out of Tune," though his guitar is not as prominent as the performance on "Badge." The song is bass heavy with Colosseum members Dick Heckstall-Smith and Jon Hiseman providing a different flavor to what Bruce fans had become accustomed to. Hiseman drums on eight of the ten compositions, including "Theme From an Imaginary Western," the second track, and Jack Bruce's greatest hit that never charted. With "just" Chris Spedding on guitar and Jon Hiseman on drums, Bruce paints a masterpiece performing the bass, piano, organ, and vocals. The song is so significant it was covered by Mountain, Colosseum, and a Colosseum spin-off, Greenslade. One has to keep in mind that the influential Blind Faith album was being recorded this same year (and according to the late Jimmy Miller, producer of that disc, Jack Bruce filled in for Rick Grech on some of the Blind Faith material). Bruce's omnipresence on the charts and in the studio gives the diversity on Songs for a Tailor that much more intrigue. "Tickets to Water Falls" and "Weird of Hermiston" feature the Hiseman/Spedding/Bruce trio, and though the wild abandon of Ginger Baker is replaced by Hiseman's jazz undercurrents, these are still basically two- to three-and-a-half-minute songs, not as extended as the material on Bruce's work on his John McLaughlin/Heckstall-Smith/Hiseman disc Things We Like recorded a year before this, but released two years after Songs for a Tailor in 1971. The history is important because this album is one of the most unique fusions of jazz with pop and contains less emphasis on the blues, a genre so essential to Bruce's career. Indeed, "Theme From an Imaginary Western" is total pop. It is to Jack Bruce what "Midnight Rider" is to Greg Allman, a real defining moment. "Rope Ladder to the Moon" has that refreshing sparkle found on "Tickets to Water Falls" and "Weird of Hermiston," but Bruce has only John Marshall on drums and producer Felix Pappalardi adding some vocals while he provides cellos, vocals, guitar, piano, and bass. Side two goes back to the thick progressive sound of the first track on side one, and has a lot in common with another important album from this year, Janis Joplin's I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama! Jack Bruce and Janis Joplin were two of the most familiar superstar voices on radio performing hard blues-pop. Joplin added horns to augment her expression the same time Jack Bruce was mixing saxes and trumpets to three tracks of this jazz/pop exploration. "He the Richmond" deviates from that, throwing a curve with Bruce on acoustic guitar, Pappalardi on percussion, and Marshall slipping in again on drums. But the short one minute and 44 second "Boston Ball Game, 1967" proves the point about the pop/jazz fusion succinctly and is a nice little burst of creativity. "To Isengard" has Chris Spedding, Felix Pappalardi, and Jack Bruce on acoustic guitars, a dreamy folk tune until Hiseman's drums kick in on some freeform journey, Spedding's guitar sounding more like the group Roxy Music, which he would eventually join as a sideman, over the total jazz of the bass and drums. "The Clearout" has Spedding, Hiseman, and Bruce end the album with progressive pop slightly different from the other recordings here. As with 1971's Harmony Row, Peter Brown composed all the lyrics on Songs for a Tailor with Jack Bruce writing the music. A lyric sheet is enclosed and displays the serious nature of this project. It is picture perfect in construction, performance, and presentation.

AMG Review by Joe Viglione