Sakre ~ Spain

Bizitako Gauzak. 1979 Elkar

I remember buying this album in the early 90s. It was hailed as super-rare (like many of the Basque albums), and I thought I really scored when I scooped it up for $75 (and believe me, that was a fortune for me back then). 30+ years later, it still goes for that - or maybe even a little less. Guess there was plenty of supply after all. No problem though with me. I'd never sell the LP - not with an amazing gatefold cover like that (a blind-folded naked Renaissance chick in her stocking feet, walking a pig - are you kidding me?)! Comes with a high quality insert that translates all the lyrics from Basque to Spanish. Like the Magdalena we featured not long ago, this is one of the few Basque albums not reissued by Lost Vinyl of Spain in the mid 90s.

It can be argued, like with most Basque albums, that Sakre isn't progressive rock at all. It's not terribly complex, or lyrically based in some high minded concept (well, I'm guessing on that last point - I'm hardly fluent in the Basque language). But no matter, as the music is clearly from the Basque underground, and Sakre has a sound of their own. The guitar work here is splendid, highly melodic with a cool acid tone. The rhythm section keeps everything hopping along, and there's a handful of meter changes. Though not as overtly psychedelic as fellow Basques' Lisker, there are some parallels with Sakre in the guitar work. A great album as far as I'm concerned - and one that is easy to listen to.

Priority: 2

2/28/11 (new entry)

Ping Pong ~ Italy

About Time. 1971 Emiliana

While almost all of the Italian progressive rock albums have been reissued by now, the debut by Ping Pong is still mysteriously missing. Their self-titled second album Ping Pong from 1973, was reissued by Mellow many years ago. 

One reason why Ping Pong's debut may have been ignored in the reissue market, is that it has very little to do with what we consider Italian Progressive Rock. It's sung in English, and the sound has a light jazzy feel, very much what one could find in the UK at this time (anywhere from Tonton Macoute to Nucleus' more accessible efforts). However, I personally think it's an exceptional example of this type of music. The flute in particular seems to foreshadow a signature sound from Italy - found in groups like Osanna, PFM, Delirium, Capitolo 6, Cervello and many others. And I would argue that these flautists' are not influenced by Ian Anderson / Jethro Tull, but rather American and UK jazz. It's a good little album, with a 1960s cool (though very fragile) cover.

Priority: 2

***Reissued on LP by Cinedelic (2021)

2/27/11 (new entry)

Orkiestra Osmego Dnia (Orchestra of the 8th Day) ~ Poland

Muzyka na Koniec. 1982 Savitor; Released in the US as Orchestra of the 8th Day - Music For the End. 1982 Flying Fish.

Poland seems to have cornered the market on moody, organic, ethnic psychedelic music. Osjan/Ossian were the first (though even local pop star Niemen explored a bit in this area). Orchestra of the 8th Day appeared next and years later both Atman and The Magic Carpathians followed this path. Multiple reed and string instruments create an otherworldly landscape. No doubt labeled New Age music in its day, I would be hard pressed to believe that fans of the genre would walk away with anything but being mentally disturbed. This is not soft, meditational and relaxing music. This is truly psychedelic music - not via drugs or overt lyrical references, but rather a timeless ritualistic sound. A very fascinating work.

The band has at least four other albums that I have not heard.

Flying Fish was a very interesting label from Chicago, and I suspect they may have more intriguing (and relevant) titles for the CDRWL. I know about Other Music, which we'll cover here shortly, but that's about it. I know they have a lot of pure folk music that falls outside of our scope.

Priority: 3

2/26/11 (new entry)

News: MPS reissue series starts back up

Thanks to a note from Laser Ken, the much loved German jazz label MPS is getting back to CD reissues, after a 2-3 year hiatus. Looks like Volker Kriegel's "Lift" and "Missing Link" are out and a couple of more are coming ("Octember Variations" and "Tropical Harvest").

Metabolist ~ England ***REISSUED***

Hansten Klork. 1982 Dromm

***Reissued by Vinyl Japan in 2007. Didn't realize that at the time.

I think it was Audion in the early 1990s that I first read about this album. I picked up the LP during that period, and since then it seems to have become quite the sought after item.

I can see why Audion recommended it, as it has a certain Krautrock feel to it. I always felt the UK underground favorite This Heat had a similar German vibe and there are parallels between the two groups' sound. Metabolist does possess a certain metronomic Can like undercurrent, along with chanted vocals - more Magma than Damo. Strangely enough the vocals remind me even more of a very obscure Mexican Zeuhl group called Vector Escoplo (from 1991), and one has to wonder if they were more influenced by Metabolist than Magma. As well, Metabolist seems to have a punk and industrial background. These latter two fields I'm much less familiar with, though I'm sure experts in those styles will recognize other patterns. A very intriguing album, and one that falls a bit out of my interest area. 

Priority: none

2/25/11 (new entry)

Id ~ USA

Where Are We Going. 1977 Aura

UMR review

Priority: 2

2/22/11 (new entry)

Jean Luc Hamonet and Algue ~ France

Mélodie, Mélodie ~ Rock. 1982 Le Kiosque d'Orphée

Man, more damn diacritics and tilde's than you can shake a stick at. Hamonet's sole album (the only one I know of anyway) is a pleasant instrumental romp focusing on our protagonist's guitar and flute work. Some of it is light tropical and breezy as is typical of the era. However, there are some fiery moments to behold, in particular the closer 'Masques' is right out of the Heldon playbook. I sure hope there's more like this sitting in a drawer somewhere. 

Priority: 3

2/21/11 (new entry)

The Michael Gordon Philharmonic ~ USA

The Michael Gordon Philharmonic. 1987 Neutral

On the Nishin post, I described my catalog trading days of 1991-1997. What came after that? Well, ebay of course. At first, I primarily bought original LPs that I had as a CD or LP reissue. Prices were pretty good back then (not cheap, but reasonable especially when compared against the catalogs of the day). But as the originals starting going through the stratosphere again, I began to focus on obscurities I never heard of. A big portion of this CD Reissue Wish List came courtesy of those experiments. Most paid off - some did not of course. Information was still pretty scarce, much more so than it is today. So sometimes it was purely on the faith of the ebay description. Like this one. And this little gem has to be one of the most obscure I found (though not expensive). 

Michael Gordon is a founding member of Bang on a Can, and also has a few albums under his name. This is the only LP, that I'm aware of, under the Michael Gordon Philharmonic moniker. It's also his first LP. This is the pure definition of what we now call Avant Progressive or what we used to call RIO influenced chamber rock. Gordon is the keyboardist, and you can tell his fondness / training for minimalism. The Philharmonic part is the classically oriented music, but there's a rock backbone, thus pushing the album into our scope. Recommended for fans of The Alain Eckert Quartet, Wittox O'Hara, and Chris Lemon. Neat WPA era artwork.

Priority: none

2/20/11 (new entry)

First Aid ~ England

Nostradamus. 1977 Decca

OK, I've looked all over my LP for evidence. The label says 1976 and the gatefold cover says 1977. It just can't be. It has to be 1971 right? Even the old style Decca label seems ancient. Everything about it looks and sounds from another era. Did Decca have this one sitting in the vaults - perhaps mislabeled, and decide to release it 6 years later? Nostradamus, as you can imagine, is a high minded concept album about the supposed fortune teller. Complete with orchestrations, narration - and long guitar / organ jams. Intertwined with melodic pop songs of course. Right on Brother! If this sounds like something out of the Moody Blues or Salamander playbook, well then, you win first prize in the name-that-band sweepstakes. Of course, given this kind of anachronistic behavior, I think it's great. 

Priority: 2

2/19/11 (new entry)

Circus Underwater ~ USA

Circus Underwater. 1984 Glass Wing

UMR review

Priority: none

***Reissued on LP by Soundway (UK) in 2023.

2/17/11 (new entry)

Aku Aku ~ Czech Republic ***REISSUED***

Humanquake. 1991 Pro Art

***Reissued by Guerilla in 2006 (unbeknownst to me at the time)

UMR review

Priority: 2

2/16/11 (new entry); 2006 (complete)

Saisei-Koubou ~ Japan

Saisei-Koubou. 1987 LLE Label

This is one I picked up from a well known Japanese dealer at the 1994 ProgFest record convention (of all places). It's a neat personal story, but I won't bore you all with it. I still have the wax paper that came with it which protected the homemade golden seal from the LP plastic sleeve.

A couple of days ago we featured an obscure Japanese group from 1987 (Nishin) who released an album heavily influenced by early 80's Belew era King Crimson. Here's another obscurity from 1987 Japan, also influenced by Crimson. This time we go back to the 1974 Starless and Bible Black era. A heavy psych guitar, woody bass, metallic percussion sound pervades, with some ominous male vocals (in Japanese) and tuneless keyboard sounds overlaid on top. It's a bit under produced and amateurish, but their hearts are in the right place, and frankly no one was doing music like this in the late 1980s. Probably the closest comparison here is the Michigan band Inserts from their first album (which was distributed in Japan, so I have to wonder if this band may have stumbled on the album) - which we featured a long while ago.

The AC adds more info: "It's actually not a private release, but on Pneuma's (Trembling Strain, Takami, etc.) LLE label, which also released the original Lacrymosa EP and a bunch of other underground stuff in the 80s, including those really cool Takami albums. In fact, the drummer in Saisei is the same guy from Lacrymosa, and I think the guitarist was in Golden Avant-Garde, so there's a definite connection with Chihiro S., even though he's not on the album himself." He also states regarding the Act Min Tanaka on the label: "Min Tanaka is a famous butoh dancer, and I remember learning that the band apparently had some kind of association with him, performing in one of his dance studios or something."

Priority: 3

2/13/11 (new entry)

Rozz ~ Germany

Prüfungsangst. 1980 Telefunken
Eisbrecher. 1981 Telefunken

UMR review

Priority: 3

2/12/11 (new entry)

Claude Perraudin ~ France

Mutation 24. 1977 RCA

Film library musician Claude Perraudin released only this one fully realized instrumental electronic album. Nicely done, with atmospheric wordless voices, acoustic / electric guitars, a pile of synthesizers and real drums. This is old school electronic music, where Perraudin plays all the instruments, lays down tons of tracks and assembles them later. 

Priority: 3

2/11/11 (new entry)

Nishin ~ Japan

Dai Dai. 1987 Panama

There was a period from 1991-1997 (that is, pre-marriage, haha) that yours truly spent every week at the post office. I was sending records to all corners of the Earth, and thus receiving some back in turn. My wheeler-dealer days as it were. Many of the albums in this list came from back then (though just as many have since been reissued and are not featured here). I can go on and on, but examples are Mirror, Lethe, Marakesh, Avalanche, Mad Curry, Kvartteten Som Sprangde, Saisai Koubou, (everything from Canada), Picaresque of Bremen, Orpheus, Osiris (Japan), Nattura, etc, etc... and many, many more (most I kept, some I sold). I'm forever grateful to those dealers from Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, England, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Czechoslovakia, even the good ole' USA. Those dealers that allowed me to sample great music from all over the world. They didn't have to trade with me. They could have insisted on cold hard cash which I didn't really have. But they did anyway, because they too were legitimate music fans, who had an interest in what I had to offer. I only mention this, since 1) I haven't done so before and 2) This Nishin has to be one of the most obscure I ever picked up. Not rare/expensive, but obscure for certain. And from a European dealer no less, not from Japan like you would expect. I thought I'd have to pull out the digital camera, but I found an auction buried in Google with a scanned cover (which is attached). The back cover is cool too, with textured lettering. Comes with a 2 page insert, and I don't think it was release with an obi. Either that, or mine is missing....

Musically there is no doubt of Nishin's influence - that of Adrian Belew-era King Crimson. Specifically the Discipline, Beat, and Three of a Perfect Pair albums. A 4 piece, with dual guitars (one known as a Carimbaguitar, which sounds somewhat like a violin), the lineup is exactly like Fripp's bunch from this time, minus the Stick bass. The production and vocal style are mid 1980s all the way. But there's no doubting the complexity and energy of the music, and the true spirit of progressive rock is alive here. A nice little album, that has few peers in terms of sound and composition.

Priority: 3

2/9/11 (new entry)

Metropolis ~ Germany

Metropolis. 1974 Pan

UMR review

Priority: 2

2/8/11 (new entry)

Emergency Exit ~ France

Sortie de Secours. 1976 Pole

Starting off with an acoustic vocal number almost identical to what is found on the Lourival Silvestre album we just spoke of yesterday, Emergency Exit then veers off into an aggressive progressive rock fusion hybrid, with compressed fuzzy guitars and wobbly bass. Like a cross between Plat du Jour and Coincidence. Overall more like the former. 

Priority: 2

2/6/11 (new entry)

Lourival Silvestre, France

Fiction Musicale. 1976 Disjuncta

A really nice hidden gem on Pinhas' Disjuncta label. And quite a bit different from anything on that label - or any label in fact. Silvestre plays guitar (primarily acoustic but some electric) and, on rare occasion, synthesizer. He also sings using a wordless method. Additional members provide flute and hand percussion. The overall result is haunting yet peaceful. A real underground vibe permeates. It fits the electronic genre, even though it's primarily all acoustic - in that way resembling Popol Vuh (though the music is quite different). A very fine album, that hopefully has more studio quality tracks sitting in the vault, as it's pretty short in length.

Priority: 2

2/5/11 (new entry)

Magdalena ~ Spain

Lanean Sartzen. 1981 IZ

UMR review

Priority: 2

There is a private 2008 CD reissue, but it's difficult to determine its validity.

2/4/11 (new entry)

P. F. Flyer ~ USA

P.F. Flyer Play Gianchetta Jazz. 1970 AVG

A short album, not even topping 26 minutes, P.F. Flyer produced this one instrumental psych blues LP. Loads of fuzz guitar and Hammond organ dominate. The AC says about one song: "The track "Rocks Off" in particular would probably make those hipster DJ crate-digger types' heads explode, with the heavy open drum breaks and wild Hendrix-style fuzz/wah guitar." Overall, the AC notes that the music can best be described as accidental library psych.

To explain further the accidental adjective, the AC explains: "They were apparently students at a San Francisco dance studio run by an aspiring choreographer named Anthony Gianchetta, circa '69-'70. He had some ideas about using "hip" rock music for his dance routines, so somehow a group of his pupils got a band together and took up the task. The problem is that they were stoner hippy kids and decided to basically ignore his instructions and jam out this mostly undanceable instrumental psych excursion instead! It seems that everyone was pretty upset with this, but they basically had no choice but to release it as is at that point. It must have been a tiny micro pressing, with most of them probably ending up destroyed or discarded. In any case, it apparently wasn't too big a career setback for Gianchetta, as he seems to still be quite active as a stage choreographer in California to this day, as you will see if you Google his name."

As for the rarity of the album, the AC adds: "It seems like this album has been on almost every collector's want list, but hardly anyone has heard it. Well, there's good reason for that, as there are no more than 10 or 12 copies known to exist. A handful of copies were initially discovered by a local Bay Area record dealer years back, but no others have ever turned up since then."

---

I noticed on Discogs somebody copying this review (from 2018). Oh well.

Priority: 3

2/3/11 (new entry)

Nightwings ~ Netherlands

Grande Randonnee… en de Reiziger Moet Verder. 1981 Crossroad

Nightwings are that very rare breed of a Netherlands group who actually sing in Dutch. While the album is clearly folk based, there are plenty of progressive rock elements especially in the keyboard department. What Nightwings are to The Netherlands is akin to what the early Anacrusa albums are to Argentina. If that makes sense. It's also one of the rare times when I see the description "folk psych", it actually lives up to the latter part of the name. And while not near enough psych for a freak like me, I think fans of the genre will indeed appreciate this effort.

Another rarity from the Midwest Mike stash!

Priority: none

2/2/11 (new entry)

Landress / Hart Group ~ USA

Dancing Moments. 1981 Shadow Light

UMR review

Priority: 3

2/1/11 (new entry); 9/15/19