HERE COMES THE CRAZY MAN!

Wow, just found here another album requested by myself to be on Prog Archives: Here Comes The Crazy Man! This is another one to rock Soft Machine fans. Performed by the band leaded by the keyboardist Koen De Bruyne, this rare belgian gem came to bring us the jazz rock /fusion experimental essence and elevates the listener to a weird level. Koen De Bruyne was a studio musician and worked for several belgium popular artists and bands like Black Blood. "Here Comes The Crazy Man!" was his only effort carrying his own name, besides the experimental electronic soundtrack for a movie called In Kluis written by by Jan Gruyaert. Unfortunatelly, Koen died some time after the movie release, in 1979.

The synthesizer effects really sounds great, the piano and keys are majestic and the idiot trumpet duo playing random riffs in the first track (the song titled Here Comes The Crazy Man) sounds like a couple of ugly animals raping each other, both drunks in a birthday's party, and that's just awesome. This album has one of my favorite album covers ever. The tracks easily changes the mood, and even the freakest point of this album was done with caution, so the music is full of beauty, of classical touch, mainly in the piano leading phrases, different than usual experimentalism , that sounds weird and hard listening for any "normal person" (I know, there's no "usual" experimentalism, but I think you will get my point). Just take a look at Pathetic Dreams, or Unanswered Questions, or any of the four tracks, and you will understand what I am talking about. The song is full of freak passages but the melodic background and the female vocalization leaves no strangeness, and make the music feeling satisfy you in a symphonic way. Now, I think the last track will really satisfy symphonic prog fans. To break the equality, every track has something different going on. Like I said, the third track has some female vocalizations. The second track features a jazz quick drum solo, and the last one is florid with flutes.

This album, this right one that I'm talking about, Here Comes The Crazy Man, from 74', is what Koen De Bruyne left to the world. And I'm saying, he did a good name for himself with this.

Belgian composer, pianist and keyboardist, brother of well-known singer Kris De Bruyne.Koen De Bruyne had his own, unfortunately short, stint in the field of Jazz, Fusion and Funk with a line-up he gathered around mid-70's and featured Placebo's Richard Rousselet on trumpet, Yvan De Souter on bass and Jean Pierre Onraedt on drums.He also used trumpeter Gerard Sabbe, Patricia Maessen on voices, Adelson Defrise on flute and Firmin Timmermans on bongos for his sole album ''Here comes the crazy man!'', recorded at the Studio Madeleine in Brussels and released in 1974 on the Vogue label.

With three pieces of PLACEBO in the line-up the sound here is somewhere between Jazz Rock and Funk with some strong Fusion interactions, making up for a pleasant atmosphere, relying much on the double horns of Sabbe and Rousselet and marked by De Bruyne's keyboard and piano parts.There are some straight links to Jazz with piano and bass in evidence, sometimes without any supporting personel, but there are also some impressive parts with beautiful changes from piano-based to synth-drenched jazzy experiments.Heavy trumpet lines and soft grooves combine for a quite 60's-flavored Psych Jazz, while the addition of Maessen's voice in ''Pathetic dreams'' delivers some ethereal tunes in the vein of compatriots COS.Some moments in here sound a bit directionless and the mood is sometimes a bit softer than expected, but there are decent ideas on jazzy executions, highlighted by some great bass parts and De Bruyne's omnipresent piano.The synth-based passages are likely the ones closer to Jazz Fusion, having a neurotic and dynamic sound and maybe their use should have been more pronounced.''Unanswered questions'' features also the psychedelic flute work of Adelson Defrise, offering another charming variation of De Bruyne's sound.

The following year De Bruyne became a member of the short-lived Jazz Funk act Mad Unity and, of course, he was a regular contributor in the works of his brother Kris.In 1978 he composed the soundtrack of the film by Jan Gruyaert ''In Kluis''.Sadly he passed away shortly after the album's release.

Ethereal and very jazzy album of funky and Fusion ideas.Maybe too mellow in certain parts, but still well-played and warmly recommended.