Soviet era electronica, recorded 1978 to 1980. Shades of Edgar Froese, Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre. Music from Tallinn, Estonia on hand built synths...
Composed in the late 1970s and released in 1981, Hingus is a
fantastically grand album of astral pieces-for-synthesizer, created by
Estonian musician Sven Grünberg. The Talinn resident had previously led
prog outfit Mess, who were active in the late 1970s but, due to Soviet
censure, forbidden from actually releasing any recordings until many
years later. Mess’ music isn’t messy, per se, but it is haphazardly
structured and full of proggier-than-though flights of fancy. Hingus, though, is very different – an album of ecstatic cosmic dazzle.
Played on bespoke synthesisers (built by Mess member Härmo Härm), Hingus trades
mostly in mock-orchestral swells in a ‘Trans Europe Express’ mould,
decorated with chimes and harmonics. Pretty ambient passages,
reminiscent of Steve Hillage’s works for synthesizer, break up the
bombast, but the sense of high drama rarely lets up. The album is
effectively split down the middle: the A-side is a four-part suite,
whereas the flip centres around a long-form piece, ‘Valgusxis’. It’s
occasionally stern, but Grünberg plays with Riley-esque force and
exuberance throughout... Factmag
The nod to Mingus on "Green and Orange Night Park" is more than formal; it's an engagement with some of the same melodic constructs Mingus was working out in New Tijuana Moods.
In sum, this is an adventurous kind of jazz that still swings very hard
despite its dissonance and regards a written chart as something more
than a constraint to creative expression. Brilliant...
Norma Winstone : voice Mike Osborne : alto saxophone Art Themen : tenor saxophone Henry Lowther : flugelhorn Kenny Wheeler : trumpet Chris Pyne : trombone Malcolm Griffiths : trombone Paul Rutherford : euphonium John Taylor : piano Chris Laurence : bass Tony Levin : drums
Japanese New Wave techno-pop ...this was their first album release in the UK/US ...B52s meet Rezillos and Devo. This was a remake of their first album recorded for Island Records.
In the annals of Krautrock, Alcatraz's debut was one of the great
unknown classics. A sizzling hybrid of many influences all wrapped-up
into a unique style of their own. One part Faust (it is recorded at
Wümme by Faust's engineer after all), one part Frumpy, Nosferatu, Out Of
Focus, Xhol Caravan, and lots that is their own. There's also a jazz
standard adaptation thrown-in (also heard adapted by Nucleus on their
Elastic Rock album - so coincidental it's spooky), powerful white blues,
and some of the strongest hooks and grooves you could ever wish for,
plus tons of sizzling solos, great vocals, and more. What's not to like?
Or indeed be totally stunned by!
"Where The Wild Thing Are" may be the most cohesive piece here, in that
you've got a chunked and funked up Deep Purple-ish guitar and syncopated
sax chugging along for about a minute, before a swinging Jazzy build up
which goes back to the original rhythm with the guitar soloing to the
end!?
The title tune is a kinda mellow Jazz Funk thing for about
a minute, before a trippy synth and sax play over an almost Bolero
rhythm?! At 2 minutes the electric guitar and some seriously mind
blowing synth swoop in, which disappears in a flash about 45 seconds
later for a Jazz drum solo for about two and a half minutes. A new
section starts, made of a ghostly wind synthesizer and a twee guitar
lick, which leads to a most excellent section starting around 6:15 of
effected flute and cymbals for about a minute. This grows back into a
trippy lounge thing with vocals, and eventual flute and guitar solos
until 11:55, at which time we inexplicably return to the original Jazz
Funk thing?!... Discogs ...Alcatraz...
Dutch prog ... female lead from Jerney Kaagman and Mike Oldfield-ish fluid guitar from Chris Koerts, with symphonic mellotron backing... Interlude and Fanfare ...
The third Earth and Fire album "Atlantis" continued the symphonic
progressive rock style of the previous album. The title-track was
another side-long suite, but obviously pieced together from far more
bits, parts and different ideas than "Song of the Marching Children".
But it still hangs very well together, and the songwriting is just as
strong as we now could expect from the band. The Mellotron is always
present the whole way through, but a little bit more toned down and
better integrated along with the other instruments than on "Song of the
Marching Children". Side 2 is what makes the album in my opinion a tad
weaker than the previous one. Most because of the poppy "Maybe Tomorrow,
Maybe Tonight" (that was also the title of a German pressing of the
album that had side 1 and 2 exchanged) and the ballad "Love, Please
Close the Door". Both these tracks are good, but compared to their best
stuff they just don't quite hold up. But most of the rest of side 2 is
taken up by the excellent "Fanfare". This is a melodic symphonic track
in the vein of "Storm and Thunder". One of the themes from the
title-track is also repeated, giving the album a kind of a concept-album
feel. I think this is the Earth and Fire album to get after you've got
"Song of the Marching Children"... vintageprog.com
Jerney Kaagman - lead vocals Ton van de Kleij - drums, percussion Chris Koerts - acoustic & electric guitars, backing vocals Gerard Koerts - organ, piano, flute, Mellotron, synthesizers, virginal, backing vocals Hans Ziech - bass
Electronic suite by 'sound organiser' and electronic music composer Tod Dockstader. Originally released on Owl records in 1966, this is Dockstader's tour de force ...
The ultimate Tod Dockstader creation however was the monu-mental 46
minute opus Quatermass (1964). Too long for an album originally, two of
the surplus edited-out works made it onto the CD release as a bonus: Two
Moons of Quatermass, these two 4 minute pieces offer a taster to the
awesome power of Quatermass itself. To quote Tod himself 'Quatermass was
intended, from the start, to be a very dense, massive, even
threatening, work of high levels and energy' - it was pure coincidence
that in Britain at the time there was a sci-fi TV series called
"Quatermass", as this would have made the ideal soundtrack. It's
scarcely believable that virtually none of the sound sources are
electronic, many of the textures are created by unlikely things like
balloons, vacuum cleaner hoses, toys and the like, as well as the stable
selection of percussive devices. This is dark nightmarish music, of
great power and phenomenally dynamic execution, with astonishingly
complex rhythmic and sequential passages, crescendos of such vigour, and
use of stereo panning and bouncing that's far too dizzying to listen to
on headphones... Alan Freeman, Audion magazine ...Audion#32
Katie English has released several critically acclaimed albums including 2010’s Protective Displacement (Rural Colours) and Unstable Equilibrium
(Home Normal, 2009). She has appeared at venues such as the National
Portrait Gallery and Union Chapel in London and has received extensive
play on Radio 3’s Late Junction and BBC 6 Music. She is a classically
trained flautist and has studied electroacoustic music, alternative
tunings and Balinese gamelan. Working without laptop processing, Katie
English uses the pure tones of concert and bass flutes alongside home
made dulcimers and electronics to create immersive yet restrained
textures that weave in and out of each other. As well as her solo work
she also plays in LITTLEBOW and has collaborated live and on record with
ORLA WREN, KONNTINENT, HYBERNATION and THE OWL SERVICE…
