Outer Music Diary

Speed Limit - s/t (1974 France).
Speed Limit - s/t (1976 France). The debut is a loose, jazzy affair, with plenty of solo soprano sax, drums and some nice acid psych guitar. This latter element recalls that strange Hendrix meets Grant Green 1979 French album by Alpha du Centaure. Speed Limits debut is a fine album, though it seems to lack focus at times. The 1976 followup on RCA, also self-titled, is considerably more interesting and is at least two points better than the debut. Still based in jazz fusion, Speed Limit’s second album adds in Zeuhl elements, fuzzed out keys, guitar and trumpet, flute, orchestras, female operatic vocals, Asian chanting, and a host of other ideas. Not that dissimilar from George Jinda’s “Wheel of Love” (minus the funk bits), which makes sense since Jinda is the percussionist here (and his name is prominently featured on the cover). Both albums were reissued by Japan’s Belle Antique (in the mini LP format) in late 2007. The CDs were licensed directly from Yoch’Ko Seffer, though the source was taken from mint LP copies.

Anamorphose - Palimpseste (1986 France). An active jazz rock album. Reminds me some of Abus Dangereux’s first album as well as some of Yoch’ko Seffer’s 1970s works. Smoking rhythms! I prefer the flute lead material over the much more heavily used soprano sax. Some great use of violin as well. Good album for the date considering the wasteland that was 1986. No legit CD exists (there is a boot).

David Stoughton - Transformer (1968 USA). Way ahead of its time experimental psychedelic album. As adventurous as they come for such an early date, I was reminded of groups such as the United States of America, Friendsound, Music Emporium, Fifty Foot Hose and The Beat of the Earth. Have to wonder if Probe 10 didn’t stumble onto this one before cruising into the studio. It’s certainly possible given that Stoughton’s album was on the major label Elektra. Female vocals, trumpet, guitar, sound collages, and much more. Pure genius. Would make an excellent CD reissue for a label like Gear Fab or Sundazed.

Time - s/t (1975 England) On Buk (BULP 2005). I have the catalog number here so you, the reader, have a slight chance of finding this album (good luck in searching for Time and Buk). What a great album. Very complex for the time and place. Somewhat like Yes’ “Relayer” crossed with “Power and the Glory” Gentle Giant (you won’t see me use these type of mainstream comparisons much, because they rarely apply - but they do in this case!). And the vocalist reminds me a bit of Yezda Urfa (and the complexity of the music too). I also hear a little Fruupp and Jonesy here too. Time are one of the last great major label British albums not on CD (OK, maybe Buk wasn’t major, but they were definitely a AAA minor league label). Would be a perfect candidate for Esoteric to reissue.

Soffgruppen - Greatest Sits (aka Soffgruppen) (1975 Sweden). Splendid emotional heavy jazz rock album with trumpet, electric piano, organ and fuzz guitar highlighting the accent instruments. Somewhere between Ibis (Sweden), Berits Halsband and the French school of 1970s underground rock. Unfortunately there isn’t a CD.

Cane and Able - s/t (1972 USA). I’m always on the lookout for some good Afro-psych, and this is one of the better ones I’ve heard. Compares favorably to early Mandrill and Funkadelic, and the horns recall James Brown’s band at their funkiest. Some great fuzz and wah-wah to be heard here. Boogie-licious. There’s an LP reissue, but no legit CD from what I can tell.

Tangerine - The Peeling Of (1971 USA). Interesting private press from Pittsburgh, PA (CD available from Gear Fab). The first side of the album recalls the Allman Brothers, but stripped down to a guitar trio. The sound could benefit from a larger palette of colors, and even the guitar isn’t amped up, maintaining a mid 60s surf tone throughout. The other side does plug in, and is made up primarily of a heavy jam in the Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer mold. Unfortunately that means an OVERLY LONG drum solo that will certainly have you reaching for the fast forward button. Tangerine stands unique amongst private presses from the early 70s, but I found myself looking for meat on the bone.

Planes - s/t (aka I’ll Remember the Landscape on Your Face) (1974 Germany). Two long brooding electronic pieces that remind me of the two Kluster albums. Droning voices add some uniqueness on Side 1, while Side 2 has some nice touch guitar amongst the usual dark electronic moods. It took me well over 10 years to finally hear this LP after reading about it in an obscure German catalog. Not too many private presses have this type of sound and would make for an interesting CD, as one does not exist.

Hermann Szobel - Szobel (1976 USA). An album that is complex-as-all-get-out by 18 year old prodigy pianist. Album has a distinct RIO flavor to it, though I suspect there’s no intention of going for that sound, as it really didn’t exist as a genre by then. Instrumental Frank Zappa an obvious influence here, with some tight wind charts, and I’m betting that Szobel may have heard a Henry Cow album or two. On Arista, which started as a “progressive” label, much like Virgin did, but by 1978 they were already hopelessly signing commercial slop. Szobel’s sole album remains the most obscure on the label along with a later David Sancious LP. He’s pretty much disappeared into the ether, though there are rumors of a CD reissue possibly coming soon.

Sukellusvene - Vesi- Ja Lintumusiikkia (1979 Finland). Simply: A very nice fusion album. Primary instruments are sax, synthesizer and guitar. Sounds much more like an album from 1973/74 than anything as late as 1979. More of a gritty edge, and one track sounds like a lost organ freaky fusion number that would’ve shown up on the German MPS label (and naturally my favorite track). Another anachronism is the use of the wah wah pedal as a rhythm component. Not a totally breathtaking release, but executed perfectly for the 70s jazz fusion sound. Overall the album recalls early Weather Report and Bill Connors-era Return to Forever. File next to the also-rare Jupu Group album. Band translates to “Submarine” and the album to “Water- And Bird Music”. LP was originally on Finland’s biggest indie, Love Records. Unfortunately no CD exists.

El Trio (Lapouble / Lew / Cevasco) - Todo En Su Medida y Armoniosamente (1974 Argentina). Highly inventive, and primarily instrumental, guitar trio with fuzzy electric and some well placed acoustic bits. The two tracks with female vocals are the highlights, and add to the jazzy psych allure of the material. Like a looser, more improvisational take on the second El Reloj album. Very short album clocking in around 28 minutes. While most of the Music Hall albums have been reissued, this one has remained in the vaults.

From - Power On! (1972 Germany). Solid early 1970s jazz effort with rock overtones. On CBS, but more similar to many of the albums on the MPS label during this era (and, as Mike’s reviews attest below, many of the MPS albums are just now surfacing in the digital world), though a bit more towards traditional jazz than the Wolfgang Dauner’s and Association PC’s of this world. From is lead by an organist, but saxophone is the primary instrument. Pretty loose in the structure department, which allows room for many individual solos, including the drums. No CD for this one either.

Lindwurm - Im Windschatten (1981 Germany). High energy fusion album, with active percussion and some nice guitar. A light and breezy tropical flair can be found in the melodies and rhythms throughout. This one would be a big hit with the “rare groove” crowd, if a reissue ever surfaced. The album is pretty one-dimensional, with all the tracks possessing the same qualities. Even the synthesizer they use seems to have only one sound. Like a monophonic Moog with one switch and knob. File next to the French group Spheroe and the To Be album on Brain. No CD exists.

Arpaderba - L’Aleph (1981 Italy). I had first heard this album on a visit to Rome some 15 years ago, and haven’t seen it since. So it was nice to get ahold of a copy after all these years, and the album didn’t disappoint. Arpa Derba are an instrumental medieval folk rock lead by the former guitarist from Raccomandata Ricevuta Ritorno and Samadhi. Reminds me of some of the bands coming out of Brittany during this time like Avel Nevez or an instrumental Malicorne. Very nicely played (especially the violin), with a little bit too much gloss in the production to have any impact. Minimum Vital would later take the same approach and apply much more firepower. Still a very worthy piece and a surprising sound to come from Italy. No CD exists.

Saga - To Whom It Concerns (1978 Netherlands). Not releated to the more famous Canadian band, nor to the myriad of other European groups who took the name (France, Portugal, Sweden, etc..). This Saga is the Godfather of the Dutch neo progressive movement. Long before IQ and Marillion were reinventing the Genesis model for the 1980s, and even before the German school (Ivory, Neuschwanstein), Saga took on the task of replicating the “Foxtrot” sound (maybe they knew the Austrian group Kyrie Eleison?). Countless bands on the former SI label and continuing today on InsideOut, Musea and Cyclops can point to Saga as a band who pioneered this trail for our friends in The Netherlands. Lots of mellotron here, which unfortunately is something that the neo’s were keen to get away from. It’s not a bad example of the genre, not as inspired as the German school like Sirius’ “Running to Paradise” or Ivory’s “Sad Cypress”, but better than most of the Dutch Genesis imitators I can think of. UAP also had Kracq amongst its ranks, and they’ve self-released their one fine album, so perhaps Saga will do the same, since no CD is available?

Mott the Hoople - Live

Been listening to quite a bit of Hoople lately, which if it’s not particularly enjoyable or close to my tastes, is certainly interesting and enlightening from a historical perspective. This isn’t really what you’d call a success even for a fan, it’s more in the waning phase of their career, even the waning phase of the band’s second era and like a lot of live albums that fall flat for me, there’s maybe a bit of overreliance on covers such as the medley (including the Beatles’ Get Back) and David Bowie’s All The Young Dudes. It doesn’t help that even a lot of their hits and original material constantly evoke stronger work from Bob Dylan or the Stones. There’s also a bit of glam to the sound (not to mention the fashion sense), which doesn’t usually sit well for me. Maybe what mildly interests me is the way Hoople seem stuck between American and British rock styles, it’s often as there’s a tug of war in progress.

Soft Machine Legacy - Steam

Maybe William S. Burroughs would be proud of the way his coined term soft machine has managed to zigzag all over the jazz and rock fields, its legacy almost as strong as the Gong family in terms of the shards, splinters and digressions the naive, original pop group have given way to. At one point in their career there wasn’t even an original member left, so it’s of interest to see the combo of phases represented here by having Hugh Hopper, John Etheridge, John Marshall and Theo Travis on board. I was somewhat dismissive to a contemporary Hopper work earlier on Outer Music, and while the same arguments might apply here in terms of creating work that somehow transcends this long legacy, it’s at least closer in terms of a more energetic feel. Undoubtedly there’s a touch of melancholy to some of the proceedings, after all Travis is stepping into a long occupied positions recently vacated by Elton Dean (RIP), but for the most part this has a bit of pep to it, which may entirely be the contributions of Etheridge, who I’ve generally always liked. Like almost everything in this age, the CD’s filled out in length way beyond its breaking point, losing me just after the track “Firefly,” and it doesn’t really help that tonally this band doesn’t set itself apart from so much of modern jazz. But there’s definitely some moments here that are quite satisfying, although I’ll be damned if I can figure out which era of Soft Machine fans this would likely appeal to.

Duke Ellington - Duke’s Big 4

I’m so used to Ellington’s gigantic big band works, the ones that remind me of classic film and television, so to hear this smaller set, with a guitarist (Joe Pass) in front, no less, was kind of cool. Ellington’s just such an important composer with a sound like the eras he worked through, but with a sense of complexity and grandiosity more akin to more avant-leaning jazzers like Mingus. So to hear such an intimate session is always a pleasure, with Ellington almost taking a back seat to the rest of his quartet. It’s soft, laid back with the warm, saturated guitar tone a perfect contrast to Ellington’s cascading piano sequences.

Charlie Mariano - 12 Trees

This is half of the first batch of MPS reissues done by SPV (outside of Japan at least), a project that has gotten a great deal of attention in these Outer circles. The great news is everything is spot on all around, from the almost perfect remastering (described in detail in the booklet) to the mini LP presentation and thick booklets. Despite the almost tremendous ass kicking the dollar has taken, these are definitely worth the money on every account.

Mariano, from Mingus to Embryo and beyond, has always been a fine player and a worthy addition to any ensemble. For fusion fans, Helen 12 Trees has always been considered one of his standout titles, which the line up of Zbiegnew Siefert, Jan Hammer, Jack Bruce, John Marshall and Nippy Noya attest to almost without needing to hear it. Bruce’s bass is brought out really wonderfully on this remaster. The mood is generally spacey and groove oriented, with Hammer less a pyrotechnic lead and more into texture. The album seems to follow the label more than the line-up, fitting nicely into the Euro-space/fusion stream. All the solos are wonderful, Bruce and Marshall are flawless as the rhythm machine, but it might be Seifert who steals the show here, it just makes you wonder what he’d have sounded like in Mahavishnu Orchestra instead of Jerry Goodman.

George Duke - Faces in Reflection

Now THIS is my kind of keyboard trio, Duke with Leon Ndugu Chancler and John Heard. OK I guess you should count Duke twice given his almost ambidextrous skills on the boards, which are generally Rhodes and, I assume from the liner notes, Arp Odyssey. Again, this album benefits beautifully from the care taken to remaster these and the result is about as warm an album as I’ve heard in quite a while, the synths and Rhodes very wide and thick in tone. There’s no question this is something of a response to Mahavishnu Orchestra, not only given Duke’s comments in the notes about using an Odyssey rather than a Mini-Moog because of Jan Hammer, but also because of songs like the furious “The Opening” and the stunning “Psychocomatic Dung.” Throughout the album Duke’s tasty playing (and occasionally some slight singing) fill in enough of the gaps as needed and Chancler does a pretty damn good Cobham impression here. There’s quite a few solo numbers from piano to some experimental synth parts in “North Beach,” all of which play a nice dynamic balance to the louder numbers. Overall, this comes off as much better guided and less virtuoso for its own sake than the obvious fusion trend going on here, which is a credit to Duke and, likely, the influence of the Zappa band around this period. Set goes to Duke and hopefully we’ve got at least a couple more MPS reissues to come from him.

Association P.C. + Jeremy Steig - Mama Kuku

While I think the consensus would have gone with Erna Morena, not only for the first Association P.C. reissue but for the first live Association P.C. reissue, Mama Kuku is no slouch either and if you’re a flute nut, this would probably be the one you’d want first anyway. To be honest, this is really the band (perhaps with Volker Kriegel and a couple of others) that justifies the MPS reissue series, as drummer Pierre Courbois’ unit is one of the very top European free/jazz/rock ensembles of the 70s. Adding Steig to a front lineup of guitarist Toto Blanke and Joachim Kuhn increases the musical color available to the group, and the band takes advantage of this. The title track gets an opening Siggi Busch bass solo and an awesome Blanke solo and a bit of swing, then Steig and Kuhn get a duet. “Dr. Hoffman” floats with a very gentle feel before “Ecnells” blows the doors open, violent and intense. This tension and release carries over to the album’s side-long “Lausanne” which is a masterpiece of free, improvisational intensity, manically free as an ensemble, mysterious and oblique during solos.

I’ll definitely be grabbing the others just released (Don Sugar Cane Harris - Sugar Cane’s Got the Blues, Wolfgang Dauner - Free Action, and Dave Pike Set - Live at the Philharmonie), I started with these three as I knew them already, so my odds should be good that the rest are 11s at minimum like these.

Grateful Dead - Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA 2/6/70
Grateful Dead - Family Dog at the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA 2/28/70

Very roughly, these two performances are a week or two on the other side of the Fillmore East show that would be the fourth in the Dick’s Picks series. To my ears this early 1970 period still reminds me a lot of the band’s 1969 performances, there’s a rawness and slightly psychedelic edge that would be toned down once Workingman’s Dead and American Beauty filtered more Americana into their sound.

Very little about the 2/6 performance appeals to me with a lion’s share of the music backing up long Pigpen stints, such as the very long and rather pale sounding Lovelight. Both “Cumberland Blues” and ”Cold Rain and Snow” are highlights but I found a lot of the jamming suite later in the show to not be up to their usual standards.

On the other hand, the Family Dog was generally good to the Dead around this period and the show from the 28th has that spark missing from the 6th. Maybe it’s a half length Lovelight at the end of the suite that helps or maybe it’s just a chain of great versions, but definitely the Little Sadie>Black Peter is a neat little combo and The Other One catches fire white hot in a couple of spots.

Heart - Chicago Auditorium, IL 8/26/76

Heart around this period were just transitioning over from what what was almost a Led Zeppelin cover band to the hitwriting machine that wrote Dreamboat Annie. The opening Zep cover here, Rock n Roll, might be one of the worst ever with horribly played honky tonk piano drowning out the riff and a number of misteps. The show gets better as it goes, including much more competent Zep covers (one’s pretty unusual, but I can’t remember which one at the moment) as well as the usual Annie standbys. I’ve seen a video from this period as well, but don’t remember as many Yes-like structures here as I do from the video. The band’s still young, tentative and miles away from the pap they’d later serve, maybe not quite as good as they would be in a year or two but not quite so slick either.

Iron Maiden - The Palladium, NY 6/29/82

A very early Bruce Dickinson gig on the The Beast on the Road World Tour, this suffers quality issues like a lot of older Maiden shows that the band hasn’t wisely collated on their own. But like many of the shows during this pivotal period, Maiden get up on stage and kick ass like noone’s business. I’ve always loved this sort of high energy on stage and really Maiden probably had no peer during this period in terms of spectacle. Not sure the quality will make it one to return to, but it was still a fun listen with the Beast songs particularly impressive. It’s so fast one can’t help but wonder if it needs speed correction.