Rainbow Generator, Australia

Rainbow Generator - Dance of the Spheres. 1978 Fission Chips.

Well, I'm finally back here. Seems spending time with the stereo is getting harder and harder to do. Unfortunately my job is highly transactional and social, and when not onsite, is entirely conducted by phone. Not a conducive environment to solo pursuits like listening to music that's for sure. I try to reserve evenings for a little solitude and music. The wife has other ideas sometimes.

The other day I mentioned 3 unknown monsters and one goodie to report. This is the goodie. I've heard about Rainbow Generator for years, but somewhere along the line I either read or understood that they were a mechanical Systems styled electronic band. That peculiar genre of minimalistic sound sculpturing is way too static for me. However, Rainbow Generator is no such thing. They are in fact a highly inventive electronic meets space rock band. In some ways, they're like fellow countrymen Cybotron, though Rainbow Generator do not pursue the obvious Tangerine Dream temptations. With the electric guitar explosions, female and male semi-singing/narrations, didgeridoo, and synthesizer solos - Rainbow Generator conjure up images closer to that of the Cosmic Courier clan. They do use a very primitive drum machine, but it oddly recalls Klaus Schulze's "Picture Music" than anything associated with the cheesy 1980s experiments that were to be hoisted on us. Really swell stuff here for old school space rock heads like me.

See the comments for updates from the band!

Priority: 2

Bahamas, France

Bahamas – Le Voyageur Immobile. 1976 Motors.

Song based progressive pop music sung in French. Relatively harmless, but does feature a few truly inspired progressions hidden within the commercial attempts. Nice organ and bluesy guitar leads are interspersed throughout. Not dissimilar to how the US groups operated in the mid to late 70s. Or perhaps one can be forgiven thinking of this album as a French Alan Parsons Project. Features a beautiful gatefold cover.

Priority: 3

Stefan Zauner, Germany

Stefan Zauner - Narziss. 1976 Ariola.
Stefan Zauner - Prisms and Views. 1978 Teldec.

So now I have 3 monsters to tell you about (coming soon!), plus one goodie I heard last night that I should be able to post about tomorrow (I need to hear it one more time). Anyway, let's continue the clearing house of the main list. I really don't care for these Zauner albums much, but I don't think they're worthless either.

Zauner was a figure involved with the late 70's Amon Duul II albums, and that's clearly not at their best stage. With that in mind, Zauner's own solo albums show enormous potential but fall considerably short. Narziss is the more interesting, as it features German lyrics and more quality synthesizer solos ala Banks. The tone of his voice and the overall structure of some of the compositions point to a love of the early 70s Genesis albums. But there are far too many other elements at play here to call this a progressive rock album - mostly it's straight ahead vocal rock. Prisms and Views falls further down the drain, now singing in English and pretty much tossing all progressive ambitions out the window. I owned this record many years ago, and sold it as quickly as I bought it. This revisit proved that was not a mistake.

Priority: none

A Paradise is Born, Germany

A Paradise is Born - s/t. 1978 TTS Records.

Following on my lead yesterday with Sustain, I'm going to start featuring albums from the main list that never received their own post. I will use these as "gap fillers" while I await some free time to checkout the great music already sent in from The AC, MM, SF and others.

Most of these albums are in the folk or fusion category, styles I didn't feature exclusively in the past. While still not my personal favorite genres, I know many of my audience here are dedicated fans. As hinted at prior, we still have 2 monsters to inform you all of, that I'm very excited about.

I first heard A Paradise is Born back in my cassette tape trading days of the early to mid 1990s. Below are my notes from the last listen back in 2007 or so:

German folky with dual male/female vocals, that sounds more English in execution (and language of course). Parallels to Carol Of Harvest can be found, but without the progressive elements. Some nice electric guitar leads. File next to Stone Angel.

You will sometimes find this album under the name Richard Abt. This album is still largely unknown and very obscure.

Priority: none

News: The Laser's Edge to reissue Hermann Szobel!

The news continues to fly in this January. Ken has officially announced the reissue of this rare title from Arista. We featured this album long ago. You have to love an album that features the Flatiron building (maybe my favorite skyscraper architecture ever).

Ken is still determining if best fit is on his flagship TLE label or the fusion oriented Free Electric Sound. This will not be a Modulus release.

Excellent news!

Hermann Szobel, USA-New York *** REISSUED ***

Szobel. 1976 Arista

***Reissued by The Laser's Edge 2012

Moved to UMR

Priority: 3

10/28/09 (new entry); 1/26/12 (complete)

Sustain, Netherlands

Sustain - s/t. 1978 private.

As mentioned on the Rhea spot, I realized I never posted about Sustain. It's definitely not a big deal, but given its rarity, I should at least put the word out. I first heard the album about 7 years ago, and had it buried in the main list.

Sustain's debut is one of those big time rarities that have collectors turning every stone over for. And when you finally here it, you go "What? That's it?" Sustain are about as generic as it gets. Slow to mid tempo rock/jazz tracks, amateur thin production, slightly spacey textures, poorly executed accented English vocals, some mild sax and guitar leads. I suppose if you listen to some other Dutch/Flemish albums from the era, like Flyte and Isopoda perhaps, you can get an idea of their sound, though not as professional as either. It's not that it is terrible or anything, but it's hard to imagine ANYONE getting too worked up about it. It's just so... so.... so....

Plain.

Priority: none

Matao (with Atilla Engin), Denmark

Matao (with Atilla Engin) - Turkish Delight. 1980 Ra Records RALP-6046

Another insane obscurity from The Alaskan Connection. As noted by the AC, Atilla Engin is a Turkish percussionist who landed in Denmark and formed a fusion group. My first thought was this is Engin's response to Oriental Wind (who were based in Sweden)! But Matao are a more fiery bunch with a strong rock component (especially in the guitar work), verse the more decidedly jazz direction of Okay Temiz's group. As if a Turkish drummer suddenly took over Secret Oyster. Not surprisingly, there's a strong slant towards Middle Eastern melodies and scales. The AC's observation about the Rock Andaluz scene in Spain is very astute as well. Another excellent discovery and well worth a CD.

The AC says: "Atilla Engin is a Turkish drummer/percussionist who emigrated to Denmark in the 1970s and formed the band Matao with local Danish musicians. It seems they only stayed together long enough to record this one LP, but what an LP it is! This actually has some similarities with the Louis Banks/Sangam record I covered recently, in that it's an intense sort of ethnic jazz-rock fusion with a strong percussive drive, but obviously in this case with Turkish influences rather than Indian. But what really sets Matao apart and pushes this album over the top is the heavy dose of complex instrumental progressive rock that they throw into the mix, often achieving a sound that bears striking resemblance to some of the classic "Rock Andaluz" groups from Spain. In fact, one of the tracks here is actually named "Rain In Spain", so that style may have been a real influence on them rather than just a strange coincidence. In any case, this is a truly choice blend here. The musicianship and production are superb, and on top of that it's a fairly lengthy LP (over 45 minutes), but remains entirely consistent all the way through, with nary a dull moment or duff track to be heard. A real gem in my opinion, that unfortunately seems almost completely unknown. After Matao broke up, Engin formed a new band (still in Denmark) called the Atilla Engin Group. Their first album, "Nazar" (1982), while not nearly at the level of this one, is also worth tracking down."

Another serious rarity. Not listed in RYM(our friend Isabel has now added it!). As with many of these titles from the AC, I personally added this to our Gnosis database.

Priority: 3 (borderline 2 - probably a couple of more listens and I'll be there!)

News: Aztec working on Jackie Orszáczky's "Beramiada" album

Like the Steven Maxwell Von Braund, here's another one that Aztec is working on!

We featured this former Syrius and Bakery bass player's sole album here.

News: Musicbazz to reissue both Pete & Royce albums

And here's the first announcement from Musicbazz. I haven't heard the Pete & Royce (Greece) albums in ages, so I had them in the main list for a revisit. But I'll just buy the CD now! Spyros tells us: "The debut release, already pressed with only covers still pending, is the first two PETE & ROYCE albums on a single disk. Licensed directly from the band’s leader Panos Tsiros and mastered by their original keyboardist Nick Ghinos who is a professional studio owner."

Suffering of Tomorrow (1980)
Days of Destruction (1981)

News: Two new reissue labels launching soon!

I first got wind of this news from a regular reader on Saturday morning. By Sunday, I had full details. This is the most exciting industry news for the CDRWL since Ken started the Modulus label!

Long time friend and charter Gnosis member Spyros is involved with the new venture and he elaborates further: "A parent label baring the “Musicbazz” title and logo that will be dedicated to reissuing progressive, psych, folk, electronic stuff from 1965-1979. So as you can understand the musical style of the label will be somewhat multi-selective, covering a wide range of subgenres. The criteria will be simply “the greatest “unsung” albums from the aforementioned period still not on any CD or LP format”.

"A sub-label called “Cosmic Eye” focusing on post 80s stuff in the acid folk, cosmic electronics, psych doom, neokraut, avant ambient, retro progressive & space rock fields. The scope is reissues/resurrection of very rare material (previously issued only on cassettes or CDrs with minuscule original distribution) or new and promising bands."

Wow! He shared with me some of the newer bands they are seeking out, and they're exactly the type of music I love most, and are featured prominently on my Under the Radar CD blog. I'm not sure where all of the albums he mentioned to me (reissues and new) stand contract-wise, so I will refrain from posting about them just yet.

In the next post, MusicBazz has announced a couple of titles from our main list!

Very exciting!

News: Rictus debut to come out on Strawberry Rain!

Here's one that comes out of left field! Rictus band member Roland Brultey wrote in yesterday to let me know about this exciting development. I wasn't familiar with the Strawberry Rain label prior, and one look at their website showed a few other interesting releases, mostly from Indonesia. Apparently they are based in Canada, and it looks like a label worth following.

I asked Rol if the album was from the master tapes. His response: "No original tape, but a very good transfer and a restoring job which is made by one of the people restoring the Virgin and Atlantic catalogs. And on the CD, there will be bonus songs, and many photo's and an insert with the history of Rictus. I think that makes you happy guy!". And indeed it does makes me happy guy!

Thanks again to Rol for this exciting news. And to Carlos for the introduction!

We featured Rictus a little over 2 years ago.

November 2, 2012 update: From the label: "Reissue of a rare, 250 copy private press progressive rock album from France.  Recorded on a 4 track Akai in the small town of Luxueil-les-Bains, this album was only sold at a few shows and in one local shop.  Pressed at the small Le Kiosque D’Orphee pressing plant, this was truly a private offering with the band having made and glued the covers themselves.  A long album, including the 14+ minute Theme Guerre, the music spans from lo-fi fuzz laden garage sounding numbers to strong progressive songs with numerous bridges and changes. Conceptually a Rock Opera, but plays like a full length progressive album that could rival anything from France at the time.  Remastered with wonderful sound quality, this is sure to open the ears of many who’ve overlooked the band until now.  Limited edition one time pressing in heavy paste-on sleeves, including insert full of photos and history of the band as told by Rol Brultey himself.  LP limited to 550 copies, CD limited to 1000 and includes bonus songs not included on the original album.  Shipping late this month, in shops by November 2012."

Rictus, France ***REISSUED***

Rictus - Christelle ou la Decouverte du Mal. 1981 Le Kiosque D'Orphee

***Reissued by Strawberry Rain, Nov 2012

Moved to UMR

Priority: 2

12/16/09 (new entry); 1/23/12 (complete)

News: Caldera's Sky Islands reissued in Japan

Been meaning to post this for a couple of days. Out of the same series (EMI Japan) that sees the reissues of The Fourth Way albums, comes the second Caldera album. The first album was reissued years ago in Europe on EMI (2004). I haven't gotten around to writing about any of these yet, though I put a placeholder in the main list last year (which is more than I did for The Fourth Way).

News: Esoteric February and March reissues

Nothing here caught my eye from my list, but I'm sure many of you will be interested in these titles. Esoteric always does a first class job and these will most likely be the best reissues to date.

"These are as follows

Terry Riley-A Rainbow in Curved Air
Terry Riley-In C
Jan Akkerman-Talent for sale
Gary Boyle-Electric Glide
Gary Boyle-The Dancer
Touch-Touch
Dave Brock-memos and demos
Hawkwind-It is the Business of the Future to be Dangerous

Februarys titles are
Matching Mole-s/t 2cd expanded
Matching Mole-Little Red Record-2cd expanded
Lindisfarne-Back and Forth
Lindisfarne-Magic in the Air
Bill Nelson -Luminous
Omnia Opera (Delerium)--Omnia Opera/Red Shift
Colosseum 11-Strange New Flesh
Tangerine Dream-Live Miles


March titles are
Sanguine Hum---Diving Bell with 3 bonus tracks--
Tangerine Dream-Electronic meditation
Tangerine Dream-Pergamon
Decameron-Say Hello to the Band
Todd Rundgren and Utopia--Disco Jets (first Cd release outside of japan)
David Bedford-Stars End
Jim Capaldi-Whale Meat Again
Jim Capaldi-Oh How we danced"

News: P-Vine (Japan) to release Marc Moulin; Plus

Perhaps not surprising news, given that the Placebo albums have recently been given the royal treatment from P-Vine. March 14th is the projected release date for Moulin's 1975 album "Sam Suffy". Personally I think the album is a slight step down from the Placebo albums, but still quite good.

As well, P-Vine will be releasing a very rare 1972 album by the Belgian group Plus. I haven't heard this album, though it appears to be in a similar vein - and there is some cross-pollination between the groups. Plus is also scheduled to be released on 3/14.

News: Creole Stream (Japan) reissues Svenska Löd AB!

This is the second album we've run across from the mysterious Japanese label Creole Stream (the other was the German jazz rock obscurity Namaz). Since Heavyrock owns that CD I was able to review it, and it looks entirely legit. Still, I was hesitant to rush this news off until I checked with a music industry friend in Japan. He said he wasn't sure about Creole Stream. So I think we'll consider them legit until we hear otherwise.

Reader Bacoso also wrote in to let us know about this reissue. I'm definitely going to pick it up for myself.

We featured this album nearly two years ago when I thought the name of the band was Horselmat.

News: EMI Japan reissues 2 of the 3 Fourth Way albums

That header sounds like a math formula doesn't it? This news comes courtesy of Mike M. via Laser Ken. I'm not sure why I never put The Fourth Way into the CDRWL - as I own the vinyl of Werwolf and it definitely fits our scope. Fourth Way are yet another band who were really jazzers but experimented with rock textures and instrumentation.

So the debut and the third album "Werwolf" have been reissued. No word on the live album "The Sun and Moon Have Come Together" which was recorded in 1968, but not released until 1970 (and according to a comment below - was reissued in 2010 on a label called Take 5 - thanks for the info!).

Svenska Lod AB, Sweden ***REISSUED***

Hörselmat. 1971 private

***Reissued by Creole Stream, Dec 2011

Moved to UMR

Priority: 3

2/5/10 (new entry); 1/16/12 (complete)

News: Vadim to release CCPP and Janko Nilovic CDs

Happy New Year everyone!

This year we open with a news item, which had slowed considerably in the last couple of months.

Before going to the announcement, let's recap some of what we can expect in 2012: 1) The first reissues from Modulus in March (Het Pandorra Ensemble, Randy Roos); 2) the remainder of the Sunbirds and Missus Beastly CDs from Garden of Delights; 3) and finally the much anticipated Laurence Vanay albums from Lion Productions. There are others of course in the hopper. 2011 was a great year for obscure progressive rock CDs, especially from Japan, so the bar has been set high for 2012.

Today's announcement comes from the hipster French label Vadim. Their label output crosses into CDRWL territory on occasion, generally in the areas of early/mid 70s jazz rock. Their best reissue to date, for me anyway, is Laurent Petitgerard's "Pop Instrumental de France".

For my tastes, neither CCPP nor the Nilovic are essential, but I know many who revere these records highly. We never featured the Nilovic and we have the CCPP only in the main list, where I had this thumbnail sketch: "Ceccarelli / Chantereau / Padovan / Pezin - C.C.P.P. (France) 1975 Flamophone. Typical funky fusion, though the guitar solos have more bite to them than usual, thus adding more to the score." Believe it or not, that's actually more informative than the label's description, which says: "Vadim brings you a shining example of 70s European jazz funk with this legendary and unique album from French supergroup C.C.P.P."

Just a quick note to state we still have plenty of rarities to talk about here. A large amount of albums came in from The Alaskan Connection that I still need to absorb. As well we have a couple left from the Midwest Mike stack, including one I think many of you will want to seek out instantly. And finally, StrawbsFan has sent in a nice batch of progressive folk and electronic rarities. Time is my eternal enemy, and the new year promises to be very busy from a career perspective - so we'll see how it goes. The more I can get done in the next couple of weeks, the better....