BACK TO THE CLASSICS

My only chief reason to write this review is that no one has done it, noting that this album cameout in the seventies - the golden years of prog. In my case, I did not pay attention to this band at that time as the most top notch genre at that time was more on symphonic prog or people just simply said it as art rock music with Genesis, ELP, Pink Floyd, King Crimson, Yes in the bandwagon. Of course we all knew this Dutch band as our local rock magazine, Aktuil, kept updating their activities. Remember at that time there was no internet - so magazine was our main source of information.

As for this album, I only have the cassette format which I believe most of you do not have it because this kind of cassette was very common in the 70s, re-recorded and distributed "legally" (because the Government did not prohibit it) by local record companies. One that was quite well-known for progressive music was the one produced by Yess (name of the brand) from Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. I still have approximately 550 cassettes from Yess records in my rack that I reckon the record qulaity still excellent despite its 30 years and more of age. Cassette rules! So when I play this cassette of Ekseption "Back To The Classics" with my vintage cassette deck TANDBERG TCD 440A (made in Norway in 1978) I still enjoy a very good quality of music produced by this vintage cassette.

This album by Ekseption contains ligh music taking fom the classic masters and it starts nicely with great Hammond organ through "Sonata in F Major" which also has excellent flute-work. In this cassette there is no line-up info that I can refer to. I thought that this was the fault of Yess for not providing this info but in fact this is not listed also in the original LP issue. The next "Ave Maria" is very famous song that most of you already know very well. One thing that touches me is really when the album hits track number 4 "Clarinet Concerto in A" where it has great work on clavinet and piano. I think the most interesting part is the piano work - especially the solo one. Of course there is a follow-up on clarinet as the title implies. Oh Boy ...the clarinet work is also excellent especially when it's combined with Hammond solo work.

Overall, this is a very good album showing great musicianship of the players, playing slected songs from Classic Masters. I think most of you would enjoy this album very much. The most important thing is that I enjoy this album because the source of the music is coming from cassette - so it's "nuansamatik" (a term that I use to describe the nuances of the music where it was originally released sometie in the past - the seventies mostly). Keep on proggin' ...!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW