La Zombie Et Ses Bizons - Herbe de bizon (2004)

Coming from different musical ways, several French musicians eventually met and formed LA ZOMBIE ET SES BIZONS. Climates, landscapes, colours are the lines of force of their music, that can be described as "Alice In Wonderland" played in the MAGMA way. "Herbe De Bison" (2004) is a happy instrumental celebration of Progressive rock, jazz, oriental music and a bit of trance, melting sounds of vibraphone, flute, guitar, bass and drums. It will lead you from the softiest of melodies, through long hypnotic ascendant lines to a climax of pure savage energy. That musical journey is a constant zapping from the candy sweetness of delusive ads to the acid truth of news reports. Never extremely violent or excessively naive, each piece is a wave that takes you and leaves you on foreign shores. Not to be missed !

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Agapanthos - Agapanthos (1976)

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Fantasia - Fantasia (1975)

Finnish prog

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Travelling - Voici la nuit tombée (1973)

Travelling are a French band playing in the trio format (keyboards, bass, drums). Musically they have links to Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt and ELP. Keyboard player Yves Hasslemann has a fairly varied playing style, incorporating classical, blues and jazz elements. In contrast to Soft Machine's Mike Ratledge, Hasselmann plays piano more frequently, but occasionally fuzz organ can be heard as well. Nice album with some excellent piano and organ playing.
In the mid- to late 60s, free jazz was a prominent feature in the Parisian nightclubs and overall had a strong foothold throughout France. On the vanguard for this movement of jazz was the Futura label. Today the label has attained a mythical stature; 1) because of the consistent high quality music the label produced and 2) the scarcity of the product. In the early 70s, the Futura label expanded its scope to include new and exciting experimental avant rock music which seemed to mesh well with the style of jazz the label portrayed. These albums were designated as the RED series and debuted, naturally enough, with a band called Red Noise.

Perhaps the most accessible of these RED bands was Travelling, a keyboard-based trio that probably represented best what the label was about: Jazz, rock and an experimental inquisitiveness. Their sole album is a combination of the early Canterbury movement circa Soft Machine 2, the continental equivalent in Supersister, piano jazz and avant-garde classical/electronics. In fact, the 18-minute title track has all these elements which include Wyatt-esque vocals (however, here in French), fuzz bass, fuzz organ, piano jazz, complex meters and echoed early synthesizers/machines; a contrast in tight ensemble playing combined with loose free improvisation. The other five shorter tracks are really just the same though more contained within the environment of a small composition. The closer demonstrates a melancholic sadness not displayed elsewhere.

Originals of any Futura album run into the small fortune area. Travelling is no exception and was a staple $600+ LP. Fortunately within the last year 2001, Italian CD label Mellow Records released this so that everyone can hear this gem. Taken from Gnosis2000


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Docmec - Objet non identifié (1976)

Swiss prog private press

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Dr Tree - Dr Tree (1976)

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Tamalone - New Acres (1979)

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TOuCH - Traumwerk 1 (1980)

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Transit Express - Priglacit (1975)

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Gile's Farnaby's Dream Band - S/T (1971)

A UK project by Giles Farnaby, instigated in 1971, that aimed to create a wonderful broth of electric folk music with strong medieval influences. The music is played with a combination of early and modern instruments (primarily made up of flutes, violins and various horns). An entirely unique sound is conjured up using the diverse instrumentation available to a band of the 1970's and tunes originally written for country dances way back in 1651. An interesting find - for those brave enough to indulge - and much like early Gryphon. Freak Emporium

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Isis - Isis (1974)

This is an obscure gem. A pastiche of musical influences that defies categorization, which is probably the reason it was not a big seller.
Its got funk, r.& b. sensibilities, with tower of power horns but it is the sum of its parts that fascinates. ISIS is a crazed joyous prog-folk-soul hybrid. Fans of Jethro Tull, Spirit and Curtis Mayfield would certainly like this. A great collage of sounds, powerful vocals, and dynamic guitar runs. This is an all woman group. An all SILVER woman group to be precise. by phnuggle

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The Falcons - Fever (1970)

Progressive

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Tarántula - 2 (1978)

Spanish prog second album

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Tarántula - Tarántula (1976)

Spanish prog

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Prúdy - Zvoňte zvonky (1969)

Here is the first CD of music from Czechoslovakia, as current Slovakia and Czech republic used to be called back in 60-80s. It is one of the first and best pop/art/prog rock albums released in the late 60s (recorded in 1968). Zvonky Zvonte (Ring Bells, Ring) by Prudy (Currents) was a milestone in Slovak rock music. Personnel: Pavol Hammel - guitar, lead vocals; Marian Varga - piano, organ; Fedor Freso - bass, vocals; Peter Seller - guitar; Vlado Mally - drums.This is what "Scented Gardens of the Mind" has to say abount the album:"Prudy's album was a Slovakian response to Sgt. Pepper, an album full of charming pop songs with harmony vocals, lush orchestration and a hint of psychedelia. The best songs were written by Marian Varga who soon went on to form Colloseum Musicum. His characteristic keyboard ornaments are already recognisable at this early stage. A historic Czechoslovakian album full of period charm. Hammel later recorded many albums with new version of Prudy. This is rather forgetable pop. More interesting are the various Varga and Hammel collaborations".Not much to add to this review - this really is a charming, mellow, even poetic album. The atmosphere may be soft overall but there are some welcome fuzz guitar breaks and you have to love Varga's harpsichord. And the music and the lyrics are great.I disagree about the latter statements as Hammel's first few solo albums are actually pretty good; admittably with some more commercial fluff thrown in.

Enjoy,
Marian



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Egba

One of the first Swedish bands to fuse jazz and rock (and occasionally African and Latin-American music as well) was Egba (photo: Pawel Lucki), led by trumpeter Ulf Adåker (b. 1945) and saxophonist Ulf Andersson (b. 1940), two musicians with roots in the jazz of the 1960s. Several other musicians of that era also expanded their vocabulary to include the electronic sounds of the day, collaborating with younger musicians whose background was mainly in rock. One of the latter is pianist and keyboard-player Harald Svensson (b. 1954), who has also been involved in other groups, most notably Entra. Tenor saxophonist Ove Johansson (b. 1936) and keyboard-player Susanna Lindeborg (b. 1952) in the group Mwendo Dawa have combined acoustic instruments with electronic sounds since the 1970s, and there are several other groups which work with fusion types of jazz. Taken from Visarkiv



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Egba - Egba (1974)

















Egba - Jungle-Jam (1976)Part 1

Egba - Jungle-Jam (1976)Part 2

















Egba - Live At Montmartre (1977)

















Egba - Amigos Latinos (1978)

















Egba - Bryter Upp! (1979)

















Egba - Omen (1981)

















Egba - Electrobop (1985)


















Egba - Electronic Groove & Beat Academy (1989)

Munju

One could say that Munju was one of the most outstanding German Bands ever!
Munju can be described as a post "CAN' and "KRAFTWERK" generation band and played originals only.The core of the band -- Dieter Kaudel/guitars, oud and vibraphone, Wolfgang Salomon/bass and keyboards und Thomas Römer/drums and trumpet-- played and toured together for 10 years and led Munju through their journey of different musical inspirations and styles.
The journey began as an instrumental fusion rock band in 1976 and slowly crossed over towards highly advanced rock with some German vocals. In their later years a touch of avantgarde was added into their repertoire (i.e. on their last album "Le Perfectionniste") .
Let's start from the very beginning:
The first Munju team consisted of Jürgen Benz on saxophone/flute, Wolfgang on bass, Dieter on guitars and Thomas on drums.Jürgen had just quit his job with Missus Beasty and returned to his hometown Würzburg. He was looking to form a new band. Wolfgang and Thomas used to play together in the local rock band "Pozzokko" with guitarist Bernhard Potschka (later Nina Hagen Band and Spliff). Dieter played with "Neffe Bruno", an experimental band with Thomas' younger brother, percussionist Rainer Römer, who later persued a career in classical music and co-founded the renowned "Ensemble Modern". The newly formed Munju created an energy and sound the audience instantly loved. They became part of the independent musicians owned record label & distribution "Schneeball" together with Embryo, Missus Beastly, Ton Steine Scherben and many more. Munju was first and foremost a touring live band. They played way over 1000 gigs in the 10 + years of their existence. Most of the gigs took place all over Germany and the highlights were tours through Italy, Sicily, Sweden, Austria, France, Spain and Switzerland.
Munju recorded two albums with their original line-up, but shortly after the second album, "Moon You," (1978) Jürgen left the band. Alto Pappert (Kraan) on saxophone joint the group as a guest for one concert tour. After that, Munju developed their special sound and skills as a trio.In 1979, Saxophonist Fred Lamberson from San Francisco became the fourth man. The next project was Munju's 3rd and most successful album, "Brot + Spiele". With this line-up, Munju toured Italy and Sicily, gave lots of radio and television interviews and also teamed up with "ZAMLA," an independent band from Upsala, Sweden for two big concert tours all the way through
Germany and Sweden. Radio Malmoe broadcasted a Munju live concert. In 1982 Fred left the band and returned to San Francisco. Again, Munju performed as a trio until they met Peter Haas, a keyboarder from Berlin. Peter joined the band for about 9 months.
Within this time (1982-1984), Munju recorderd several videos in studioproduction and live. After Peter left, Eddie Rüdel, a young guitarist from Würzburg, became the 4th member. With this line-up, Munju recorded their 4th album, "Le Perfectionniste" in 1984.
In January 1986, Dieter left the band to focus on his new business K&K Sound.Later that year, Munju wrote and performed the music for the Faust ballet production at the Stadttheater Würzburg. For this project, Munju was joined by Burkard Schmidl on keyboard.For another tour through Germany and France, Wolfgang, Thomas and Eddie were joined by Klaus Englert on trumpet. Munju homepage

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Munju - Highspeed Kindergarten (1977)























Munju - Moon You (1979)























Munju - Brot & Spiele (1980)

Kindly shared by Mr. Ilya Kozlov

Música Urbana

It was long ago that a usually reliable written source made me aware of the past existence of a "left-of-center" Spanish rock group called Musica Urbana: a quartet, active in the second half of the 70s, whose musical language could maybe be defined as being contiguous to jazz-rock and whose best album was said to be the one bearing the same name, recorded and released in 1976. But I got there too late for vinyl, and I never heard about a CD re-release.
I'll immediately say that Musica Urbana is a very nice album for which it's extremely doubtful that a tag like "in the jazz-rock idiom" could be appropriate (besides its being counterproductive). I'd say there are more than a few similarities to Frank Zappa's "jazz-rock", when he was in his "funky" period (say, on albums like Roxy & Elsewhere or The Helsinki Concert: it's the line-up featuring George Duke and Ruth Underwood) - just listen to the jumpy theme of the first track here, Agost, where keyboards are doubled by castanets (!) whose timbre immediately brings to mind Zappa's use of marimba. But there are also traces of Hatfield And The North - in their jazz mode, and in their more intricate moments penned by Dave Stewart (here refer to tracks Font and Caramels De Mel). Funny to notice how a group so obviously influenced by Hatfield And The North appears in some moments to predate National Health.
(If I emphasize those similarities it's not in order to diminish Musica Urbana's achievements, but to avoid those exaggerated expectations originated by announcements such as "Here for you is the (re)discovery of a revolutionary idiom that had sadly been forgotten!", those kinds of expectations leading inevitably to a let-down. This is a very good record that doesn't need any hard sell.)
Complex music, yes, but never "difficult". Intricate development and orchestrations = we welcome the limpid recording. Most compositions are by Joan Albert Amargós, who's also at center stage instrumentally: many keyboards (Steinway acoustic piano, Fender electric piano, Hohner Clavinet, Mini-Moog) and wind instruments (soprano sax, clarinet, flute, trombone). (What's a "xoulet i violins Logan"? Maybe the "violin keyboard" once made by Logan?) We also have inventive and precise drummer and percussionist Salvador Font making a nice team with bass player Carles Benavent. Not too easy to notice at first, guitarist Lluís Cabanach's work is very good. We also have those castanets by Aurora Amargós and various keyboards by Lucky Guri.
Complex music, yes, the compositions being the fruit of a long work; intricate but extremely logical developments, many themes. All qualities that match very well with a kind of "simplicity" that sounds folk-related.
I really hope that, besides being a welcome addition to the record collections of those already aware, this album is a first step to the (re)discovery of a big slice of European Rock Music that's today totally forgotten (say, from ZNR's Barricade 3 to Face Aux Elements Dechaines by Etron Fou Leloublan). Beppe Colli Cloudsandclocks


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Música Urbana - Música Urbana (1976)





















Música Urbana - Iberia (1978)

Please help with their third Música Urbana - Tatuaje (1978)

Azahar - Azahar (1979)

Second album

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Azahar - Elixir (1977)

1977 debut album from this Spanish progressive rock band most notable for having no drums or percussion at all! The result is a rewarding blend of guitars, bass, keyboards with some vocals and tons of psychedelic effects. Freak Emporium

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