THE WORLD OF GENIUS HANS

Yee-haa! Good old Moving Gelatine Plates!. A super prog jazz band from France who sound very unusual. I can't proceed any further without mentioning the wonderfully bizarre front cover... One of my all time favourites. A pig with a bomber jacket, smoking a fag with parsley on it's head and also stuffed up its nose is the stuff of genius... Genius Hans.

Music wise, the band are as tight as hell. There's a fair bit of of rock jazz involved. The title track has some great vocals and also some very 70's keyboards which fit brilliantly. Things are pretty much similar to their first self titled album. This one however just does it for me. At times it sounds like late night Jazz followed by 'Test Card transmission Music' cheese.

There's some decent vocals on track two which devolves into 'Two Ronnies' jazz malarky briefly.

A very uplifting album which shoots about randomly over the place but which always seems to fall back together again beautifully. 'Moving Theme' pretty much sums up this strange album - beginning with some backwards tapes and transmogrifying quickly into jazz rock styled madness.

Now... here's where the big problem lies in giving 'World of Genius hans' a rating. The last third is taken up by half of the following album 'Moving' from '80.

As a single entity it's brillant, sounding like Sammla Mammas Manna at many points. I may even prefer this to the disc I'm reviewing presently. There's lots of cool French vocals and real pretty instruments involved, sounding quite different from the '72 album

Does this mean I'm reviewing 'World of Genius hans' or 'Moving' ?

Baahhh! It's very confusing. The last 20 minutes push this recording to a perfect five stars. In an unusual way the tracks from the '80 album sit very comfortably with the original LP from '72. But it means I can't review 'Moving' on it's own.

A strange scenario which is one I've never experienced before. I love this album and would recommend it to all prog fans.