JUNTA

Phish is progressive, kind of. They mix elements of Funk, Jazz, Bluegrass, and Prog. Their first album, Junta, is a two-disc set and it's their best album. The best song for me is The Divided Sky, which starts with a wonderful intro, then stops after ca. 1 minute. Then comes the strange chant "Divided sky, the wind blows high". After 20 seconds or so it stops again. Now comes the major part of the song: It begins verry jazzy, then it gets proggier and proggier, sounds a bit like Genesis (!!!) and it's nearly 12 minutes long! The other great songs are You Enjoy Myself, Esther, Foam, David Bowie, Fluffhead / Fluff's Travels, and Contact. The songs also have proggy timings: over 6 minutes (Foam, Contact) over 9 minutes (Esther, You Enjoy Myself) over 10 minutes (Divided Sky, David Bowie, Fluff's Travels) and even over 20 minutes!!! (Union Federal) The rather strange, funny songs like Icculus or Golgi Apparatus are there, and also the prog compositions that you can only find on Junta, like YEM or Divided Sky. Only "Billy Breathes" is nearly as good as this, but this is the ultimate Phish album. Highly recommended!

the Sorcerer