Stark Reality - Now (Discovers Hoagy Carmichael’s Music Shop)
This is the kind of obscurity that makes one happy to be a music fan. A US group coming from the jazz scene making a progressive/psychedelic rock record that would have been comfortable coming out of early 70s Germany or Denmark. Electric piano, fuzz guitar, vibes (also fuzzed quite often), occasional vocals, drums, bass and a little sax and flute. The sound is like a cross between Soft Machine Volume Two, Wolfgang Dauner/Et Cetera and the Dave Pike Set with a zany side more akin to artists like Supersister, Zappa, and Coma. This is just freak out all the way, I think the guitarist doesn’t let up on the fuzz pedal the whole album. The compositional work is bizarre and challenging. Minimum 11. [Tom, this is your next 12+.]