One Shot - Ewaz Vader
One Shot is about half of Magma taking a vacation. As a secondary band, you get the impression they’re never going for broke on their albums, and I remember even thinking their second album, from 2001, was a step down from the first. Not sure if I would have even gone for this had it not been hyped extensively, but I’m glad I did. For one thing, constantly playing and touring with Magma is starting to mature the players. Bassist Bussonnet’s opening piece kind of sets the stage, you get a strong De Futura influence in a much more improvisational environment, but the track blows out of the gate and leaves one impressed, perhaps too impressed, for what is to come. I hear Miles Davis quoted a lot with One Shot, and I don’t really hear it so much, in fact this has the strongest Magma vibe of the three releases from the title on down. As with any first listen where the tracks/jams are long, it was a bit difficult to keep attention all the way, but there’s much more coherence here than there has been in the past, better structure for the jamming and quite a bit more confidence from the players.
Pienza Ethnorkester - Indiens d’Europe
Remove the guitarist and keys player from One Shot and replace with a hurdy gurdy player (at least that’s how I think the instrument whose name I can’t spell without the disc in front of me “translates” over here) and you’ve got the trio, err, Ethnorkester. Anyway the instrument has a pretty huge sound and I adore it from lots of various musical recordings, mostly folk and apparently it won out over my trepidation that this was a trio recording. It’s an awful lot to take in over a single listen, everyone using more or less the same tones all the way through. At first one is attracted by some of the tricky rhythmic changes and pell-mell pace, but I started to kind of nod out by the end. Thinking they should have dragged along the keys and guitar as well.
Pure Reason Revolution - The Dark Third
This is the sort of mainstream friendly type of progressive rock sound that tends to be populist. From the opening notes of the CD and the quasi-David Gilmour lead guitar you’re reminded of Dark Side and later Pink Floyd. The twist is in the vocals, which oddly enough remind me of the Blue Oyster Cult harmonies you might find on “Golden Age of Leather” from Spectres. They’re very low key and at times Beach Boy-ish, but are generally very pleasant. They remind me a lot of some Porcupine Tree as well, perhaps not in the most flattering way in that while you find it all pretty nice, there aren’t any sharp edges. I’m holding out mostly for the songcraft, which may indeed grab me after a few listens. It’s all pretty nice, if rather generic and derivative.
Missus Beastly - Missus Beastly
Second album, hell second s/t album, by this German band that, from what the liner notes, actually spawned an impostor band whose music was actually bonus tracks on the old Germanofon boot of the disc. Well Garden of Delights is fixing the problem, starting with the album itself, making it sound so much better and shinier than I remember. Missus Beastly are one of the rare German rock-jazz groups and I reverse the familiar term to separate the Schneeball/Munju-ish bands from the MPS and Dauner stables. I really enjoy remasters of albums like this, to hear something seemingly old in a fresh context and I’d forgotten this is quite the gem and bumped it to an 11. Hopefully more revisits will give this the push.
High Tide - Sea Shanties
Admittedly, I listened to this on a small portable I use at work, not a place I tend to try out new remasters, but I was a bit disappointed with this. For the most part, it wasn’t a well-produced album in the first place, probably due to all the instrumental distortion and heaviness. So I didn’t notice much of a difference between it and the previous Repertoire version in the sound, although at times I thought it might be remixed with the difference in vocals and instruments making me strain to listen. However, Eclectic have sweetened the deal with a bunch of bonus tracks, including a very long piece never released at the time (and a secondary version of this is on the s/t remaster). Anyway I love the album, it’s an early goodie, but I’m more looking forward to the second album, one of my all-timers.