VERLORENE WELT

Flaming Bess is a pretty obscure band, and one that like most people I’d never heard of. That is, until they released their ‘Black Sun’ album a couple years ago with its appealing cover of a meditating young lass and its throwback, sometimes lounge-like but seductive lazy instrumentals. Shortly after I sought out this early recording, which is even more appealing given its release date of 1980 and the unlikely sound at a time when most bands were shedding any visible connection to progressive music.

The band is pretty obscure, and it is difficult to learn much about them other than they have been around since the late sixties, and rarely release albums or even perform live. Too bad, because I imagine they would put on a good show.

This album has a bit of that contrived nouveau-jazz feel that artists like Group 87, Al Di Meola, and Jah Wobble were pumping out in the early seventies to niche but loyal audiences. This has a feel to it that would have been considered modern in 1980, but sounds a bit dated today. Like so much German music of that period there is a heavy electronic presence, primarily from the keyboards and some of the canned percussion. But amid that there is a plethora of quite brilliant acoustic and electric guitar, and particularly noteworthy is the acoustic work. I think most of the drumming is authentic as well, although in a few places it sounds like there might be some digital sequencing.

No matter, this is a thoroughly enjoyable forty minutes of lush acoustic guitar with stilting piano, and augmented by that distinctly German electronica keyboard layering. Like other German bands such as Anyone’s Daughter and Floh de Cologne, the band also intersperses narration between the long instrumental passages, presumably telling the tale of lost worlds or some such thing. It’s hard to say since the vocals are in German (unless you speak German of course).

“Kristallplanet” and “Cron Endor” are particularly ear-pleasing with long instrumental pieces, although on the latter there is a digital effect that sounds exactly like the ones on the VH-1 show ‘Pop-Up Video’, which is just a bit distracting. The title track also features a lengthy instrumental with some kind of synthesizer riff that sounds a little like a vocoder and which gives this a particularly spacey feel.

On the other hand the band can’t seem to completely escape the eighties, as evidenced on “Mythos” and “Zay”, both of which feature some danceable but decidedly unproggy rhythms, and on “Zay” even some cheesy Hall & Oates-like backing vocals.

I’m tempted to give this four stars simply because it is better than most of whatever else came out in 1980. But it does suffer a bit from the brief but very noticeable eighties cheese odor in places, and the German narration inherently limits the effectiveness of whatever lyrical messages the album contains. But for the very appealing acoustic guitar and piano work, and the refreshingly long instrumental in a sea of contemporary eighties crap it definitely rates three stars, and a decent recommendation to anyone who’s into slightly-jazzed contemporary art rock.

peace

This pretty much confidential band already released one album prior to this one. Very few reviews are available for both works and I couldn't share the optimists about their debut.

I guess that I would mention the same critics about this "Verlorene Welt": enjoyable instrumental passages with some solid good electric guitar soloing à la Carlos Santana; unfortunately combined with some German "wordings".

Some jazzy feel (already noticeable on their debut) like during "Kristallplanet" are not unpleasant; but the major problem is again these spoken words in German. These are pretty unnecessary as far as I am concerned. But it is true to say that I have never (and never will) appreciated German lyrics / vocals (the only exception being the great "99 Luftballons").

Would it have been a full instrumental, it would have been much better although too much of a pastiche of "Camel".

To be honest; while I am listening to the weak "Ballade", even the English lyrics and the female vocals can't really be exciting. Press next.

The whole feel is the same actually: some German "Camel" oriented music like "Zay" but less inspired. There are some decent symphonic moments ("Cron Endor") but too scarce to rate this one as a good album.

There is not a single outstanding track which could raise this album a point higher. The title track is just everything of the same stuff: a short intro with German words, some jazzy affair and a bit of female vocalizing.

No wonder that this band remained confidential. . It is just average IMHHO: which means two stars in my books.

FLAMING BESS' was decidedly late to the table when they released their first two albums in 1979 and 1980, which remained their only recordings until a relatively more active period beginning in 1996. "Verlorene Welt" largely follows in the footsteps of its predecessor "Tanz der Goetter", extended pseudo-improvisations of an ultra listenable light jazz-disco-symphonic blend. If its beats somewhat betray its time frame, the tastefulness of its melodies and the professionalism of the playing more than compensate.

The main improvements are in the greater emphasis of acoustic guitar which serves to anchor the otherwise somewhat flighty characteristics of these pieces, and actual female vocals integrated into many arrangements. While most of the German lyrics remain the province of the narrator Woh Galach, Marlene Kruckel imparts a sultry dance club sensibility to "Aufbruch", "Zay" and "Ballade". But sometimes she sounds like she may have inspired EPIDAURUS' dire reunion album from the early 1990s, which has invoked musical PTSD in more than a few of us. Another shortcoming is that the elongated spoken parts are not deftly excised as they were in the remastered debut, and even appear mid track at times. And "Mythos", while enjoyable in a mid 1970s PASSPORT manner, sports a tune so entwined with OLDFIELD's "Tubular Bells" that the word "inspiration" falls dramatically short of describing the relationship. But then you have the creative caressing of Barry Peeler's picking in "Kristallplanet" which is suffused with an attachment to the beauty of the musical concept and probably the poetic muse as well.

I can't quite accord this the same honors as the group's debut, but it does cheerfully channel the late 1970s CAMEL sensibility into its own modestly successful artistic vision. This should ensure that there will always be fans who willingly lose themselves in the FLAMING BESS world.

Press and public received warmly ''Tanz der Goetter'' and six months after its release the album had sold about 36,000 copies.Propably not enough for Peter Wahle, who decided to part ways with the band (and record the solo album ''Happy bananas'' in 1980).His departure did not slow down Flaming Bess, the remaining duo of Wende and Jansen hired Hans Schweiss on drums and Barry Peeler on guitar, heading for a contract with Polydor.They recorded their next album ''Verlorene welt'' in September/October 1980 at Dierks Tonstudio and released it in 1981.Many guest musicians/singers participated in this work, among them was guitarist Achim Wierschem, who would later reach the main core of the band.

Flaming Bess was always a heavily CAMEL-influenced band and with ''Verlorene welt'' they seem to walk parrallel ways with the British legends.The strong organ and the light symphonic flavors of their debut were replaced by a smoother and extremely melodic approach with a deep, jazzy sound, while the poppy sensibilities are present as well, they appear to do what CAMEL were creating during the same period.The tracks are now passing through Lounge Jazz aesthetics with soft piano lines to acoustic crescendos with a period sound and from melodic rockers with some sort of ANDY LATIMER-like sensitive guitar touch to 80's Fusion with piano, synths and guitar in evidence.Among or within the pieces there are plenty of narrations with German lyrics.Not among the tasteful works one should expect from a band, that created a nice, progressive album a couple of years ago.The atmosphere is dreamy and ethereal, the melodies are mostly nice but the lack of some adventurous twists or deep instrumentation make the album sound a bit pale.Of course there are also a pair of exceptions, the opening ''Mythos'' with the mellow electric piano and the beautiful acoustic/electric melodies hold some of the band's previous inspiration, while the 7-min. title-track is even better, a nice combination of melodic, jazzy and Fusion stylings with a couple of great melodies and notable work on clavinet, acoustic guitar and synthesizers.

The CD reissue contains only reworkings of the album's tracks, so there is no big deal of prefering it.''Verlorene welt'' ends up to be some sort of smooth Jazz Rock combined with CAMEL-esque melodies, not entirely convincing or satisfying, suffering from some bland 80's tunes.CAMEL fans are propably the ones to reach this album...2.5 stars.