QUINTESSENCE

— First review of this album —

Absolute masterpiece. Sorry, but i had to begin this review by these strong words.

This freshly unreleased 1971 double live album is an unexpected gem (and the word is weak) which expand a lot Quintessence's discography, along with the other « Cosmic Energy: Live at St Pancras 1970 » CD also by Hux records which is almost in the same vein in term of performance, but not for sound quality.

The performance on "Infinite Love: Live at the Queen Elizabeth 1971" is stellar, that's why at the time some music reviewers claimed that Quintessence was « the best live band in the world ». Indeed, the band combines virtuosity and mystic fervour like nobody. Flute and guitar parts are awesome, the psychedelic jams evoke the best Grateful dead. Quintessence is really the following of the american psychedelic scene, with a unique indo progressive touch. The track list gather pieces from all albums including the masterpiece eponym track « Dive deep » with two versions including one clocking at 24 minutes.

This is rare enough to be precised : not only this concert has been very well recorded in 1971 -as explained into the very informative booklet- thanks to amplifier settings in order to make the flute and vocals clearly audible, but the CD transfer is a success too : for one time the sound is neutral and musical with great presence, no over-compression which makes this CD a delight to listen to, even on ambitious audio systems, which is rarely the case with « rock » records. Thanks a lot to Hux records for this great mastering job. This is the kind of CD releases which may save the CD industry ! The only drawback for picky audiophiles who don't like to put their fingers on their precious discs is the very unconvenient double CD jewel case which is a pain to use : it's very hard to remove the CD from the box without damaging it, which is very frustating with such a quality record. Besides this detail, this « Infinite love » is easily the release of the year in vintage progressive rock.

4 stars

Quintessence first album presents an under-rated band which appears to be quite precursor in the Indo folk progressive genre for this 1969 year. There's a strong analogy with another progressive band: Sweet smoke. For the jazz and Indian influences, the predominance of flute, the same happy hippy spiritual mood and the excellent guitar work. Quintessence music is never complex but can be well progressive anyway, like on "Midnight mode", the gem here: excellent flute, a mind-blowing psychedelic space guitar solo and an impressive pure traditional (Indian) end. A must! A nice introduction to this great band. The Repertoire CD release has a good sound and is very nice looking in its Digipack form.

This is my first Indo prog/raga rock album! Well, I was expecting exotic sitar arrangements, flute airs that lift serpents and some psychedelic guitar patterns that help to elevate your spirit from your body. Actually, this description partly describes the principles behind "Epitaph for Tomorrow": I must add that there is a very present psychedelic jazz, rock and even hard rock dimension.

Let's say the many flute parts combined with some guitar and percussion parts sound a bit like the Ozric Tentacles. We also feel some Beatles influence too. There are many exotic incantation lead & backing vocals. The excellent "Chant" has a real Indian flavor. The tracks are not very progressive, despite the music is rather loaded. Like the Beatles, the electric guitar sound is rather sissy and inoffensive, often showing a Hendrixian wah-wah effect. The rare keyboards are very timid. There are some more catchy songs like the very good "Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Gauranga". There are some less good lengthy experimental or jam parts, but Quintessence are at their best when they play catchy and structured compositions. I give 4 stars for anything except the experimental/jam moments. Since there are less experimental/jam moments, then 3.5 stars seems appropriate.

Rating: 3.5 stars

This one had been the band's last of their three Island-records still featuring Shiva Jones and Dave Codling both having been fired late on. They carried here on more or less doing their typical ethnically inspired psychedelic rock presented in six rather simply structured songs. The opening title track, a straight forward pop song left me quite unimpressed but fortunately the quality of the tracks is gradually rising up after that one reaching its peak with "Epitaph for tomorrow". This one together with the final "Sri Ram chant" in pseudo-traditional raga style are the best tracks of this album. The remaining three songs are nice ones for a couple of spins though being not really elaborate compositions. It's in some way difficult to give this record a fair rating since it's not a bad one at all but certainly not on par with their first two releases. For sure I wouldn't recommend it as a starting place for this band but I guess it might be worth to be checked out by anyone who enjoyed their previous ones already. Still I'd like to rate it with 3 stars not without emphasizing that it might be only interesting for fans of Indian flavoured hippie psychedelic!!

Second album by Quintessence had been in some way slightly advanced compared to their debut with more elaborate tracks and a less pop-ish sound. On the other hand it appeared as well rather incoherent with spiritual chants standing at times blatantly besides acid jamming and Cream-ish heavy blues rocking. Overall it revealed a kind of nice atmosphere not too far away from the one in early Krautrock albums. Their ecumenical hymn "Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Gauranga" which opens the album reflects very well the spirit of this record they dedicated "to Our Lord Jesus". This one's by far the only commercially sounding one on here belonging together with "Notting Hill Gate" and "Gange Mai" from their debut to the most memorable songs by them. "Sea of immortality" sounds considerably more sophisticated exploding into a jam session and here's the place where the hint to Cream becomes obvious. "High on Mt. Kailash" is an excerpt of a planned rock opera starting with birds singing and reveals droning sitar, some jingling temple bells and Shiva's haunting vocals that remind me at times a lot to Jim Morrison's. That one's quite a mysterious and fascinating track and certainly one of the highlights of this album. After that one there's a sudden skip to the live recorded very loud instrumental "Burning bush" featuring heavy jamming of wah-wah guitar, bass and drums. This track seams to be not very well placed between the previous one and the following spiritual "Shiva's Chant" and as Chris Welch suggests in his liner notes the close array of these contrasting performances presented here by the band might reflect in some way the contrast between the two aspects of their style. But in fact the rather imperfect structure of this album and its appearance as more of a compilation of songs than a coherent work is the only reason for considering it less essential. For the song material here is really substantial as demonstrated by the next two tracks "Prisms" and "Twilight Zones". The former one is all instrumental and consists of an improvised flute solo by Raja Ram with the addition of some great echo effects. This one segues seamlessly into the next track being an excellent ballad-type one dominated by Shiva's vocals and backed with flute and guitar. "Maha Mantra" is another hypnotic chant followed by the slow ballad "Only Love" whereas in "St. Pancras" the band presents us once again their live jam qualities. The short track "Infinitum" finally closes this rather strange album with a quite awkward droning sound. But overall such kind of hypnotic and droning sections which aren't not that much my "cup" usually are kept here quite shorted and I really don't find them disturbing at all.

As a summary of my review I've to say though I usually don't favour albums with religious contents this one was quite appealing to me albeit being a more difficult listen than their debut. Nevertheless it's a kind of acquired taste and some people might feel alienated by its religious background. Thus I would not consider it essential in a general Prog context but fans of Krautrock or spiritually influenced "hippie music" might check out this band. Actually I'd rate their first two releases as equally good with 3 ½ stars but since I've put 3 for their debut I'll round up here to 4!

Standing in the shadow of bands like Floyd or Procol and emerging in the late sixties hippie underground scene heavily inspired by Indian culture this wonderful band has been all too often overlooked and underestimated. But in some way they had been far ahead their times in what they were doing and might be considered highly influential for what would be known many years after as world or new age music (as Chris Welch, busy for MM in those days pointed out in his liner notes for the CD re-release). In fact those guys had been brought together by an announcement in Melody Maker magazine and lead vocals of Australian born Phil Jones (aka Shiva Shankar) as well as the delightful flute play of Ronald Rothfield (aka Raja Ram) should become characteristic for their sound. The line-up had been completed by Alan Mostert on lead guitar, Dave Codling (aka Maha Dev) on rhythm guitar, Sambhu Babaji playing bass and Jeremy "Jake" Milton on drums. Soon after their foundation the band signed to Island Records later better known for hosting bands like Jethro Tull for example. Picking up eastern influences in the music of the "Fav Four" inspired by Harrison's India trips and reinforcing the general fashionable trend of late sixties psychedelic bands they created a kind of perfect "quintessence" of western pop/rock/jazz and Indian raga music. Though they've been mainly attracted by Hinduisms also spiritual influences by Buddhism and Christianity can be found in their songs. During their heyday they managed to fill places like the Royal Albert Hall with their splendid concerts and they also played at the prestigious Montreaux Jazz Festival.

The balance between east and west in their music used to be shifted more in favour of western influences making it quite approachable for people being not that much familiar with Indian classical spiritual music. This applies even stronger in the case of their remarkable debut from 1969 here in review. In fact there's only one traditional chant on here with track no. 5 titled not so imaginatively as such. The opener "Giants" presents a nice blend of song-based Indian flavoured psychedelic pop and some more jam-oriented elements and one can easily imagine that this song might have inspired contemporary bands like Ozric Tentacles as well as some more commercially directed one like Cornershop, Kula Shaker and so on. In "Manco Capac" Raja Ram's shiny flute play comes into action and this track offers in particular a great bluesy break by Alan Mostert. "Body" comes closer to hard rock territory in terms of the guitar sound but nicely balanced by Shiva's vocals and Raja Ram's flute as well as some occasional keyboards (which were usually only sparsely present in their music). One can imagine a mix of Cream and Tull here. Revealing stronger eastern touches "Gange Mai" is a more playful and highly rhythmic track getting into a type of repetitive, hypnotising mood especially due to the vocals and the flute. But there's as well a lot of rock to be found here. "Chant" has droning sitar tunes and combines a "Hare Krishna" routine with an old English carol making up to a wonderful unification of eastern and western spiritual culture. In "Pearl and Bird" Shiva presents his strongest vocal performance on this record revealing an extraordinary range of his voice. "Notting Hill Gate" which had been released as well as a single quite reminds to what Jade Warrior did on their first two albums one or two years after with the difference of sitar added here. The original edition had been concluded by the ambitious track "Midnight Mode" starting with some chanting followed by an extended flute solo and some guitar jamming. It finally fades out with some continous heavy drone. That one together with "Chant" is certainly the least accessible track on here. The CD re-issue contains as bonus the single version of "Notting Hill Gate" and its B-side "Move Into The Light" sounding very commercially though and not really worth mentioning.

Though probably being not really an essential one in Prog "In Blissful Company" should be considered an excellent debut of an usually forgotten band that combined religious and spiritual influences with psychedelic and early progressive rock music in a highly appealing (at least for me) and approachable manner. Certainly this kind of music will not appeal to everybody - rock fans might find it to esoteric and for puristic followers of raga prog it will probably sound too poppy. Nevertheless I think this band (especially their first two albums) should not be dismissed by anyone who doesn't mind some eastern flavour in his Prog. ***1/2 really!!!

Quintessence is a folk progressive rock band based on indian influences (or Indo/Raga prog). Their song is very rock oriented and those who are afraid of hearing music like Ravi Shankar can be calm because the song is very psychedelic oriented.

The only exception to this rule is the song Chant, which is a mantra chanted over sitar lines. The other songs are good examples of psychedelic rock with indian influences,including some songs that deserve special mention, like Gange Mai, which has a great guitar soloing during the song, along with the good boogie guitar and bass riff. Giants and Manco Capac have good distorted guitar riffs, very psychedelic. The long Midnight Mode has an extensive flute solo and then a guitar solo over a great jazz riff, with good bass and drumming, though the end of the song is just sitar humming.

The album is very good and it is a great fusion of eastern influences to rock. For those who like sitars, flutes and psychedelic influences, this album is recommended.

Flutist and percussionist Raja Ram is a GENIUS. he went on to form Shpongle, arguably the greaest electronic music endeavor weve seen to date. Quintessence gave him his start, and the band displays this genius applied to rock music. Definitely a must have if you like Frank Zappa, Jethro Tull, or even modern prog artists like The Mars Volta and Mike Patton. Buy this album.

This might, indeed, be an introduction to Quintessence, but they were much, much better than represented here. And it only covers the first 3 LP's, on the Island label. Where is "Vishnu Narain" or "Wonders of the Universe" (both off "Self") or "Brahman" or the "live" version of "Jesus, Buddha etc" or "Pearl and Bird"? As a staunch fan, I'm not impressed by this. Heaven knows, the band's vinyl output was already patchy enough, but this mismatched compilation sells them even further short. "Don't buy" is my recommendation. Shiva Jones is releasing a new album under the band's name next week. That is certain to generate a degree of renewed interest. Wait to see if a better compilation appears as a consequence.

Notting Hill Gate. Was the A side of the band's single. Always was hugely overrated Move Into The Light. Was the B side of the single, didn't appear on any of the LP's and duly has a certain novelty value...but nothing more. Giants. Excellent opening track off the first LP Prisms. Flute. Echo. More of the same. Lost interest after half a minute. Twilight Zone. Is where this belongs. For all eternity. Dive Deep. An uninspired dirge, despite being title track off third LP. St. Pancras. Yes, this was "live". This is good. Manco Capac. Magnificent. Band operating as a cohesive unit Dance For The One. Shiva Jones - you are a God. What a voice! Midnight Mode. Why the five minutes of drone to finish it off? Run out of songs for the first LP, I shouldn't wonder High On Mount Kailash/Burning Bush/Shiva's Chant. Not a bad finisher. I suppose there had to be a chant to be representative. But they do tend to go on. And on. And on....

This was effectively the beginning of the end for the band. "Self" is generally overlooked in comparison to the better-known three Island LPs which preceded it, but still contains a couple of real gems.

"Cosmic Surfer" is an atypical, fair-to-poor rock number to kick off with, and maybe reflected the increasing tension between some of the band members as to whether to carry on pursuing their trademark psychedelic rock route, as espoused by Shiva, or kick the bells into touch and play a straighter form of rock, as Jake would have wished. With hindsight, Jake was probably right: by 1973, the time for Quintessence had more or less come and gone and, to survive, they needed significantly to re-invent themselves. [In the event, Shiva and Dave left (subsequently to re-emerge in KALA), and the residue of the band followed up with "Indweller", probably the most abysmal suite of tracks ever scraped together.]

"Wonders of the universe" is a haunting, compelling ballad featuring voice and guitar, and highlights just how magnificent a singer Shiva was - (and still is: take a listen to his recent collaborations with his new music partner, Rudra Beauvert) - and how delicate and soulful Alan could be when the mood took him. This has always been one of my favourite songs, and will doubtless remain so. Beautiful interplay and crystal clear.

"Hallelujad" is one of the band's better chants, swelling slowly but inexorably to reach a resounding crescendo under Shiva's masterly touch.

"Celestial procession" is just what it says on the tin: a bunch of animal noises. Distinctly odd but nevertheless true. Don't play this when the cat's around.

"Self" is another chant: sadly, another pupil from the Great School of Dross.

"Freedom" and "Water Goddess" occupied the whole of the second side of the original LP. They were "live" tracks and were intended to capture what the band did best. But, even then, they don't....because simply listening to Quintessence was never what it was all about. Their concerts were full-on experiences - with candles and dancing and lights and drapes and incense, chanting and flutes and feedback and driving rhythm and soaring vocals - which invaded all your senses simultaneously, and gradually built up inside you until you found yourself transported to another sphere altogether. Electric. This could never successfully be captured on vinyl. But, since new listeners can only imagine what such concerts may have been like, these "live" tracks are about as good as you can hope to get after all this time.

So why, with all these reservations, do I still award (a slightly over-generous) 3 stars? The answer is clear: "Vishnu-Narain". Without doubt, this represents one of the band's two greatest moments on vinyl - the other being "Manco Capac" off the first LP. This is where the band welded together magnificently from the first to the last (fade-out) notes to deliver a stunningly powerful, cohesive song that really moved along: no dross, no aimless jamming, no frills, pure psychedelic rock at its finest. And what virtuoso lead guitar-playing! Absolute magic. If this doesn't get you singing and tapping over your jam butties, I fear you need to check your pulse. You're probably as extinct as the band.