COCKTAIL

Here is the 1977 debut album from Patrick Forgas, which was only available on vinyl until it was released on CD by Musea in 2008 with an additional 13 tracks taking its running time up to 73 minutes, and now that has been picked up and reissued by Cuneiform. This is the first time I have come across any of Patrick's solo albums, but following this release there was a gap until 1990 when he released the next, and then later formed Forgas Band Phenomena, and I have reviewed a couple of theirs which also follow his heavy influence of Robert Wyatt.

If we take the original album first, excluding the additional tracks, it is something of quite a strange beast in that Side A and Side B are very different indeed. The first side contains 9 tracks, of which only three are more than two minutes long, and some sound finished while others are more like demos. Patrick is primarily a drummer and singer, although here he provides many other instruments as well, plus he is joined by guests including members of Magma and Zao. The result is something which has that very Seventies Robert Wyatt feel, but the song quality is not nearly as good as it is somewhat difficult to get into, especially with so many short songs and instrumentals. Then we have the second side of the album, which contains just one song, the 18-minute-long "My Trip" which is more solidly in Soft Machine territory and is in many ways quite at odds with what went before.

The first of the additional tracks is a demo of that song, which was originally only six minutes in length, so it was certainly expanded a great deal when it was worked on in the studio as opposed to Patrick's home. The additional tracks contain a few reworkings of sone of the songs on the original album, plus plenty others which are unreleased, and while the material is generally longer it still has that feel of the first side of the album. I don't believe this release is as good as the later FBP material I have heard, but fans of Forgas and Canterbury will certainly be pleased to know this is again available some years after it was last released. Just not quite for me.

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