Schicke Führs Fröhling – Symphonic Pictures
Truth be told, and I’m never one to do otherwise, I tend to approach solely instrumental albums with a certain degree of dread. This may, or may not, stem from a particularly bad experience had while listening to Camel’s The Snow Goose. The fact I very nearly slipped into a coma is neither here nor there; the fact I could’ve been doing something more constructive for its 45 minute duration, such as watching a recently painted door dry, is what really rankles.
However, Schicke Führs Fröhling’s 1976 album Symphonic Pictures, takes a decent swing at curing me of this irrational phobia. Not that it succeeds completely but I’m a little less anti-blah blah as a result.
In fact, if the truth really be told, I actually tell a lie at the beginning of this review when I say “truth be told”, as my aversion to instrumental albums isn’t strictly wholesale. For instance, I’m a sucker for Spaghetti Western soundtracks, as also the actual films, and could quite happily listen to a spot of Bacalov, Brunai, Ortolani, Morricone, et al, without fear of winding up face down in my bowl of soup.
It’s to the credit of the three German symphonic progsters gathered here, that they made this debut album sound like the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, while achieving a sound that belied their slim membership.
Now it must be said that my objection to solely instrumental albums is absolutely to do with the fact I like a story. Similarly, anything sung in a dialect other than the queen’s own English also leaves me cold. After all, what’s the point of a story if you no comprende the lingo?
Schicke Führs Fröhling differ in that, for me, they manage to keep Symphonic Pictures interesting and well above the boredom threshold for the duration of its 36 minutes.
The musicianship is faultless, with each member playing a wide variety of instruments, and in the case of Führs and Fröhling, a Mellotron each. Heinz Fröhling was also the man who overcame the band’s lack of resident bassist by splicing together a guitar and a Rickenbacker bass and playing this hybrid bastard child of all that’s musical in the studio and on the stage.
Electronic noises fuse seamlessly with symphonic extravagance throughout, ably fired along by the breathless rock drumming of Eduard Schicke. This is what gives Symphonic Pictures the edge over other instrumental prog albums. It remains diverse, painting dramatic, multi-hued soundscapes that work equally well as individual tracks as the album does an epic whole.
Pointless mentioning titles here, so instead we’ll move swiftly onto the bonus disc which comes with the 2010 Reactive reissue.
Recorded live in Papenburg, Germany 1975, the seven tracks successfully capture what would become the band’s complex, yet melodic sound. There are versions of three of the pieces from Symphonic Pictures, including an epically extended 28 minute take of that album’s closer, ‘Pictures’. The disarmingly well-mannered audience (a mainstay of a certain type of “high-brow” 1970′s prog) clap politely at the end of each song and I echo their sentiment, although the occasional unruly element getting marginally overzealous would assure us at home that they were playing to more than three old duffers in cloth caps and a whippet.
All in all, Symphonic Pictures proves to be a pleasant surprise. Whereas I’d expected tediously narrow brushstrokes of grey, I got something a little more polychromatic, painted Rolf Harris-style with a bloody great broom head. If you like your progressive rock German and instrumental, then this is one picture worth hanging on your wall… Oh dear, a creaky metaphor too far? I’ll get my coat.
Symphonic Pictures by Schicke Führs Fröhling is reissued by Reactive and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk
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