In the second of this week’s “two-for-one” review slots, Esoteric graces us with two more reissues, set for release at the end of the month. This time around it’s Isotope guitarist and constant factor, Gary Boyle, with his two solo albums, The Dancer and Electric Glide, which first saw the light of day in 1977 and 1978 respectively.
Now, if you’d visited HFoS a year or so back, you would’ve found a place of seething hostility, so far as the the jazz-rock was concerned. It was a musical pariah, persecuted by the very same pen that writes these words now. A lot can happen in a year though, and whereas at one time, anything hitting the HFoS Towers’ doormat intent on jazz-fusion would’ve received short shrift and a thorough kicking on the car park, nowadays the sinewy grooves of bands such as Soft Machine, Mahavishnu Orchestra and the aforementioned Isotope have been welcomed into our collective bosom, nurtured and – dare I say it – thoroughly enjoyed.
The Dancer fits into this newfound appreciation of all things fusion, somewhat perfectly.
With the help of an assorted band of musicians, including Zoe Kronberger, who also appeared on the final Isotope album, Deep End, Gary Boyle delivers a sultry collection of sounds that, as Sid Smith notes in the accompanying booklet, could easily be a continuation of that record. Nice!
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album reviews, jazz rock, prog rock
It’s been such a long time since I last reviewed anything at HFoS, I think I’ve forgotten how to do it. Hold on, it’s coming back to me… Listen to album. Write some words. Get drunk. That sounds about right. I don’t think I even have to do it in that order.
So first up for 2012 and, incidentally, the 300th post on Head Full of Snow, are these soon to be released Terry Riley reissues from Esoteric.
Not to be mistaken with sugar-coated R&B producer Teddy Ruxpin, the albums In C and A Rainbow in Curved Air, are the fruits of the American composer, who, while sporting a Mick Miller haircut, championed, influenced and became a fundamental part of the – then burgeoning – minimalist music scene. Think of a bunch of Beatniks sat around in a New York basement, smoking the contents of a herbal teabag and trying to get a tune out of a chair leg. That’s (possibly) how this movement started.
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album reviews, avant-garde, prog rock
Back again. Yes, despite the best efforts of an aircraft hangar’s worth of booze and a blossoming addiction to Mike Oldfield’s ‘On Horseback’, HFoS has made it through yet another Christmas.
King Crimson react to the news HFoS survived another Christmas
This year I’ve resolved to beat the post-seasonal hangover by remaining drunk, which, thus far, has proved to be an agreeable tactic… Pay no heed if my eyes glaze over or I lose my train of thought mid
As is customary this time of year, I will be making one or two rash promises, none of which I have any intention of adhering to. So we might as well get those out of the way first.
2012 will see a new look website and a raft of new features, as well as the return of some old ones.
There, pretty much the same as last year, minus the enthusiasm.
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music vid, news, prog rock, progressive folk
Hell’s teeth! It’s that time of year again. When I make a host of rash promises for what the new year at HFoS may bring, before buggering off to imbibe the Christmas spirit for a month or so.
This year, I’ll dispense with anything that could be held against me at a later date and, instead, leave you with the latest mixtape: The HFoS Prog Rock Xmas Stocking Filler.
Granted, it’s not particularly festive, nor exclusively prog-orientated, but it’s the best you’ll get from me this side of 2012.
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mixtapes, prog rock, progressive folk, psych-pop, psychedelic rock
The constraints of time have decreed that there will only be the one HFoS Selection Pack this year; an amalgamation of three as opposed to the usual singular entities. Time has also put paid to the promised King Crimson reviews, but fear not, they will arrive – like a forgetful Santa – in the new year.
So what festive fare have I picked randomly from the ether for you spend your Our Price vouchers on this year? Read on, my fine fellows and fellowettes:
Rick Wakeman – Journey to the Centre of the Earth
As it’s Christmas, something supremely daft is in order and they don’t come much dafter than this live recording. A man in a cape, with enough electric pianos, organs, Moogs, Mellotrons and what-have-yous to cause an energy crisis on a small Mediterranean island. The London Symphony Orchestra. The English Chamber Choir. Narration from the preposterously eyebrowed David Hemmings (following Billy Dainty’s scheduling conflict). An audience anticipating something with the subtlety of a broken bottle to the throat… What the deuce were they all thinking?
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album reviews, folk rock, prog rock, psych-folk, psych-pop, psychedelic rock
Although it’s widely accepted that Billy Dainty invented prog rock in 1968, while on a works beano to Cleethorpes, there were many bands around at the time that also played their part in authoring the blueprint for what would later become this much derided genre.
One such purveyor of proto-prog goodness was keyboardist and singer, Norman Haines, who fronted Birmingham band Locomotive – which, following his departure, became The Dog That Bit People – and went on to form The Norman Haines Band. As was often the case with bands from my hometown (for every Move or Traffic, there’s twenty Worlds of Oz) none of these incarnations found the success they sought and were pretty much forgotten to the purple haze of time. Good news for rare vinyl collectors, bad news for the rest of us.
Fortunately, Esoteric has completed the harvesting of these three lost gems, with the recent reissue of the Haines Band’s Den of Iniquity. First up though, is Locomotive’s 1970 album, We Are Everything You See.
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album reviews, prog rock, psychedelic rock
Out-bloody-rageous! Not only the title of a track on Soft Machine’s Third album, but also a fair summation of Jon Anderson’s 1976 solo excursion to the inner reaches of his own mind, Olias of Sunhillow. In both concept and execution it layers on the degrees of ostentatiousness with a whopping great trowel, the size of which would’ve given Percy Thrower a crippling hernia had he attempted to brandish it.
If it’s subtlety you’re after, look elsewhere.
But then, nobody’s ever going to arrive at a mid-seventies album from the lead singer of Yes, expecting restraint and delicately nuanced, musical refinement. Nor would you want such a thing. It’s 1976. It’s Jon Anderson. It’s out-bloody-rageous!
Not outrageously good, nor, thankfully, outrageously bad. Olias of Sunhillow is just… outrageous. It’s also rather enjoyable, so long as the dosage is prescribed with a generous pinch of salt. Indeed, one might think that this album is a carefully constructed piss-take of the progressive rock genre. But it’s not. It’s 1976. It’s Jon Anderson. The man largely responsible for 1973′s Tales from Topographic Oceans, which is as daft as it is dull.
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album reviews, prog rock
I was nowt but a month old when Jack Bruce took his short-lived band of musical desperadoes to the Manchester Trade Hall for the recording of Live ’75.
Formed to tour the 1974 album Out of the Storm, the Jack Bruce Band dig a little deeper for this particular show, incorporating, not only, that record, but also material from Song for a Tailor, Harmony Row and Cream’s Disraeli Gears.
Featuring jazz keyboardist Carla Bley; journeyman keyboardist Ronnie Leahy; late drummer with The Knack, Bruce Gary; and a post-Rolling Stones Mick Taylor, the Jack Bruce Band was a formidable assembly of musical talent, spearheaded by one of most respected bassists of the 60s and 70s. And the calibre of musicianship on display is more than evident throughout this superior live document of a troupe whose musical alignment was all too brief.
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album reviews, jazz rock, prog rock
Remarkably for a man who, to this day, is considered by many to be little more than a one hit wonder, by 1977 Arthur Brown had recorded his sixth album (seventh if you count the “lost” Strangelands); the enigmatically titled Chisholm in my Bosom.
Now this isn’t, as you would be forgiven for thinking, a concept piece based around the character of Albert “Cheerful Charlie” Chisholm, malodorous Detective Sergeant and bane of Arthur Daley’s life. The title, in fact, is an arcane reference to the home of some “spiritual guru” type, with whom Brown was involved at the time of recording. As was the done thing in the 1970s.
While the UK music scene was being rent asunder by the amphetamine-fuelled fury of a legion of bronchial ‘erberts, the original shaman of overcooked shock had mellowed a tad, and whereas brief blasts of three-chord anarchy were all the rage, Arthur wasn’t about to be swayed by the musical disposition of a new generation of acne-festooned upstarts.
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album reviews, prog rock
Between now and Christmas, HFoS intends to feature all seven King Crimson studio albums from the 1969-1974 period. A classic era for a band that, from day one, existed in a state of flux; the single constant being, of course, the thinking man’s guitar legend (and occasional Mellotron maestro) Robert Fripp.
With a timorous and unassuming bearing, it’s difficult to equate his appearance with the fearsome sound that King Crimson produced, beginning with the heart-stopping opening to ’21st Century Schizoid Man’, right through to the closer of 1974′s Red, the wonderfully eclectic and moving ‘Starless’.
1968′s The Cheerful Insanity of Giles, Giles & Fripp, featuring Mike and Peter Giles – both of who would feature at some point or another in the ever-changing King Crimson line-up – came out a year before In the Court of the Crimson King, the KC debut, and couldn’t sound any more different to that album if it tried. What a difference a year makes, eh?
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album reviews, prog rock, psych-pop
Call me a tenuous bandwagon-jumper, if you like. I readily hold my hands up.
Well, it is Halloween, so what better than a horrifying mix of prog, psych and folk to blow the cobwebs from your proverbial tombstones?
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folk, mixtapes, prog rock, psychedelic rock
Take one sound engineer and producer, who had worked with not only The Beatles but also twiddled the nobs on Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon. Add a songwriter and manager who’d provided words and music for the likes of Marianne Faithfull, The Tremeloes and Marmalade, as well as handling Kung-fu fighting one hit wonder, Carl Douglas. Give them a stir with whatever’s at hand, be it spoon, pen or screwdriver, and what have you got?
I’ll tell thee. The Alan Parsons Project is what you’ve got; a collaboration between the aforementioned sound engineer, Alan Parsons, and Eric Woolfson. Together, they would release 10 albums between 1976 and 1987 under the TAPP banner, the first of which, Tales of Mystery and Imagination: Edgar Allen Poe, is without a doubt the finest.
Created in conjunction with an army of session musicians and guest vocalists – Parsons and Woolfson pitching in where necessary – the 1976 debut is a masterly example of the much-derided concept album in action. Each track takes one of Edgar Allen Poe’s tales of the macabre and adapts it to a piece of prog rock loveliness. Granted, it loses something in its translation, ensuring little of the suspense or, indeed, the mystery that its source material provides, but who cares when there’s such a cracking selection of tunes on offer?
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album reviews, prog rock
In 1966, before the term jazz-rock/fusion had been coined, you had your jazz camp and your rock camp; rarely did the twain meet, let alone sit around in a circle, crack open the super-strength chamomile tea and indulge in a full-on jam session.
Unless, of course, you were New York’s own The Free Spirits, whose sole album, Out of Sight and Sound, is widely regarded as one of the first jazz-rock excursions. Live at the Scene captures the band in February 1967, tearing up the then legendary NYC venue, Steve Paul’s The Scene. Well, perhaps not “tearing up”, but giving it a jolly good seeing to, nonetheless.
Fronted by jazz-rock stalwart and veteran guitarist, Larry Coryell (responsible for pushing the embryonic Spirits in a rock direction), the band was a celebrated live phenomenon, some of the unbridled energy and passion of which Live at the Scene attempts to convey. And if it’s a raw, Mr. Sheen-free document you’re after, of possibly the first fusion band engaging in some psychedelically-charged, sonic livestock-worrying, then this release could be right up your jazz-rock boulevard.
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album reviews, jazz rock, psychedelic rock
In general Toytown songs should be at least one of the following: light, bouncy, jangly, slightly off-key or slightly out of whack – Marmalade Skies
Indeed, and although some of the songs on HFoS Goes to Toytown may stretch the boundaries of what the purist might define as “Toytown Psychedelia”, I believe the term “slightly out of whack” can be applied to all.
They also demonstrate, in varying degrees, a jaunty childlike innocence; a harking back to an imagined, rose-tinted past; and an occasional darkness associated with things lurking under the bed. All characteristics that further define the paisley-patterned pathways of Toytown.
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mixtapes, psych-pop, psychedelic rock
As England shivers beneath an onslaught of unseasonably harsh weather, Sunbeam Records continues its ongoing mission to explore strange new (old) sounds, to seek out new (old) music and artistes, to boldly go where no reissue label has gone before. And with the autumnal battering the country is presently undergoing*, what better time to take a listen to this latest reissue, Bruce Janaway’s Puritanical Odes; what is a prime example of the miserable-bastard fest and musical sub-genre nowadays referred to as ‘downer folk’.
They don’t come much more arcane than this slice of 1977 acid folk. It began life as a private pressing of just 200 vinyl copies, which was then circulated among a selective audience. Far out!
Shot through with a lyrical bitterness that underlines Janaway’s apparent disgust with this mess of a world, through painfully crafted metaphor and the minimalist acid folk sound he employs, Puritanical Odes is six acoustic songs (entitled ‘Odes’ A to E and ‘Labour Pains’) performed on the 12-string guitar. There is no accompaniment other than the occasional haunting choral shriek and disconcerting bursts of erratic feedback.
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acid-folk, album reviews, folk
For their second album, 1971′s Moving Waves, barmy Dutch proggers Focus decided to open the proceedings with a barnstorming festival of foolishness entitled ‘Hocus Pocus’. The rest, as they say, is history, with the aforementioned opener going on to be their most recognisable tune (though ‘House of the King’ and ‘Sylvia’ run it a close second and third), still gaining recognition as recently as 2010, when it popped up as the soundtrack to Nike’s World Cup ads.
Rightfully so too, as it’s a splendid seven minutes of Netherlandic nonsense, with a tongue lodged so firmly in its cheek, there’s a very real danger it might starve to death. The fact it’s a cracking good tune, to boot, only increases its appeal onehundredfold. If you’re reading this now – and how else would you know I just said that? – then there’s every chance you’re already acquainted with the rare delight that is ‘Hocus Pocus’; if not take a look at this bastard.
But that’s just one song on an album of six. Is this sum part greater than its whole? Is the brilliance bound to the buffoonery of one track? Does anybody actually care?
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album reviews, prog rock
A sharp-dressed, clean-cut and fragrantly scented Tangerine Dream release is always a reason for celebration at HFoS. Reactive’s tasty, sleeve-bound reissue of 1973′s Atem, in a double-disc format, proves to be no exception.
Featuring what legendary bumbler John Peel would make his 1973 album of year on disc 1, remastered and given a thorough seeing to with the feather duster, as well as a previously unreleased live recording – the excellent ‘the deutschlandhalle perfomance’ – on disc 2, Atem provides a cornucopia of ambient wonders for the kosmische musik devotee.
The last album recorded for the influential Krautrock label, Ohr, prior to TD jumping ship to bearded twat Richard Branson’s embryonic Virgin, Atem comprises of four tracks: ‘atem’, ‘fauni-gena’, ‘circulation of events’ and ‘wahn’. A searching journey across the sonically-crafted landscapes of the German trio’s minds, moods and tone, dictated via the considerable Mellotron, organ and synthesiser rigs that the band employed.
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album reviews, krautrock, prog rock
Truth be told, no album is ever going to match the expectations kindled by a cover like the one that graces Andrew Leigh’s Magician (Bo Hansson’s Magician’s Hat and Heron’s Twice as Nice & Half the Price being two other salient examples).
That said, this 1970 release by the sometime Spooky Tooth bassist and future Matthews’ Southern Comfort member, does attempt to scale the heights of anticipation its somewhat wonderful artwork inspires… for the first two tracks anyway.
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album reviews, blues rock, country rock, prog rock, psych-folk
In the pantheon of cult bands, the liturgical devotion that surrounds The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (or WCPAEB, as we’ll refer to them from now on, to save on both space and my fingertips) is up there with the likes of Tomorrow, the 13th Floor Elevators, July and The Barron Knights.
Releasing four, increasingly creepy albums between 1967 and 1969, the band has its place cemented in the annals of psychedelic folklore, via the personal tragedies of its individual members and the sleazy predilections of its vaguely sinister frontman, Bob Markley.
Nevertheless, those four albums live on as a testament to what was going on in the sun-soaked Californian psychedelic pop/folk scene of the late 60s, which beggars the question, what does one buy the WCPAEB fan who has it all? Well, you could do worse than Companion, a compilation of rare recordings made by the band members before, during and after the WCPAEB’s moment in the spotlight.
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album reviews, psych-pop, psychedelic rock
Thankfully – for miserable old barks such as my good self, anyway – the summer is all but over and a respite from all this sunshine and happiness beckons, with several months’ worth of grey skies, torrential rain, high winds and the occasional blizzard to look forward to. Granted, not the most dramatic departure from the weather we British types have already enjoyed this summer, but at least it gets dark earlier.
Heralding this imminent change of season is the reissue of Jack Bruce’s 1974 album, the aptly titled Out of the Storm.
A formidable offering, it captures the prolific bassist and vocalist (perhaps most famous for making up one third of psychedelic supergroup Cream) during a particularly fruitful period of his solo years. Kicking off with the stately ‘Peaces of Mind’, a progressive piece demonstrating some fine piano-work (which also featured on last month’s ‘Prog Rock Mixtape‘), Out of the Storm maintains a strong pace throughout, never once blowing anything across the threshold akin to a dud.
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album reviews, jazz rock, prog rock
Did you think I would leave you crying, when there’s room on me hoss for two? So said Rolf Harris to a small boy and it’s with a nod to this spirit of benevolence that I’ve put together a summer treat for both of my loyal readers. The one’s that put up with this nonsense week in, week out.
Yes, the first – and quite possibly last – ever Head Full of Snow progressive rock mix is here to tickle your royal earholes (track listing below).
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acid-folk, mixtapes, prog rock, progressive folk, psychedelic rock
HFoS is presently on summer holiday, hence the lackadaisical approach to posting over the past week, this week and, indeed, the next. Never fear, we were allowed to bring our games in on the last day of term and even wear our own clothes, which is always a bonus. I, myself, chose Game of Dracula and proceeded to thrash all comers. The soundtrack to this final day of inertia at HFoS Towers happened to be this rare beauty: Tudor Lodge, a fine old dose of progressive folk rock, by the band of the same name.
Originally released in 1971, Tudor Lodge is as pleasant as an English pasture. A testament to inoffensive, folkie fun by a trio of lovely people, sporting lovely tunes.
A foul night on the beer could find a mid-morning salve from a listen to the 13 tracks that sit innocuously on this splendid reissue. Largely acoustic, this is what it sounded like in certain quarters of England during the late 60s and early 70s. Hell’s teeth! One wishes it was still the same – long hair, flutes, the occasional piano and a soft voice guiding you onto the jagged rocks, courtesy of the ethereal timbre Ann Steuart traded in.
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album reviews, folk, folk rock, progressive folk
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