VARIOUS ARTISTS (CONCEPT ALBUMS & THEMED COMPILATIONS)

In my review of the live version of the first part of Alan Simon's Excalibur trilogy, I claimed that it is better than the studio version. With Anne de Bretagne, I feel the opposite way. This behemoth of a live album is a three disc set featuring, in addition to a large cast of Folk and Rock musicians, a choir, a symphony orchestra, and a narrator! The narration was not present on the studio version and takes up many minutes here. As it is in French its meaning is (almost) totally lost on me; it becomes a distraction, an annoyance. The vocals are primarily in French as well, but when non-French musicians like Les Holroyd (of Barclay James Harvest) and Simon Nicol and Chris Leslie (of Fairport Convention) take the lead the language naturally shifts to English.

The first two discs contain the complete live performance of Anne de Bretagne: Le Rock Opera d'Alan Simon. The third disc repeats some themes performed on classical piano only. I feel that there is just a little too much of everything here and that Simon bit off more than he could chew this time. There certainly are some good moments here, but listening to the whole thing in a single sitting wears the listener out. (And disc three is for fans of classical music only.)

If you are curious about Alan Simon's musical projects (that feature many well-known people from the Prog music world), I strongly recommend you to start with the Excalibur trilogy (preferably in backward chronological order). Anne de Bretagne is somewhat less interesting, but if you want to investigate this one as well I would suggest going for the studio version.

Le Concert Mythique is the live recording of La Legende Des Celtes, the first part of Alan Simon's ambitious Excalibur trilogy. The set list is however not identical to the track list of the studio version. Personally, I enjoyed this live album a lot more. Fairport Convention forms the core of the backing band here and Simon Nicol of that band also hands in some very fine lead vocals. Other very good vocal performances here are by Roger Hodgson of Supertramp, Jacqui McShee of Pentangle, and several others. Some numbers are sung in English and others in French. The narration (that in my opinion plagued the studio album) is thankfully not recreated in the live setting. Here the focus is on the mostly very good music which is an appealing mix of Folk, Rock, and Pop, with some Celtic and symphonic elements. The Prague Symphony Orchestra is present, but they are thankfully used wisely and don't overpower the other elements resulting in an overly bombastic sound (which is so often the case when orchestras are involved in a Rock context).

In my review of the studio version I wrote that this first part of the Excalibur trilogy is the least interesting of the three Excalibur albums. But this does not, I think, hold true of this live version. While both versions are enjoyable, the live version appeals to me more and equals Excalibur II and III (which don't exist as live albums as far as I know).

Le Concert Mythique is definitely recommended over the studio version and in addition to the subsequent studios Excalibur II and III

Being Holy Saturday and a Christian, it seemed appropriate to review my favorite musical and a favorite movie also since they are this movie/musical. First I'd like to say that I love the music from this recording! Even though I love the movie and truly like the song (Can We Start Again Please) that is in the movie but not on this, the concept album production, I do prefer this recording to the movie soundtrack. The cover of the this album has a brown leather-like look to it with two gold fanciful angel renditions meeting at the bottom giving a slight horse shoe effect. I hope you, the reader, don't mind if I refer to the movie as well as the recording here in question. I find it virtually impossible to separate one from the other. I've always felt that the music and the movie went hand-in-hand. The stark middle-eastern setting with minimal stage sets, set upon existing antiquity sites always seemed ideal for the production. A good amount of artistic license was used making this movie but I think that if you watch it with an open mind listening to the fantastic music IMHO, realizing that symbolism plays a major role in it's story telling, that you can be moved by it. I know that I have been many a time.It never seemed too difficult to me to interpret. Whether my interpretations were correct, well I don't know that, but I feel satisfied with them. Before I forget, I'd like to mention one of my favorite symbolic moments in the movie. It is just prior to the 'Damned For All Time/Blood Money' scene when Judas Iscariot is crouching in the dessert and, in slow motion a line of 5 or 6 military tanks rumble over the top of a small hill directly behind him. Now I've always interpreted that as the tanks representing evil which drives Judas to his appointed role in Jesus' betrayal. But it's just one of those scenes that make this movie and it's music so special to me. I love all the music in this musical and it's a hard call as to say whether or not or to what extent of a recommendation I can make. If you love 70's era rock and very good musicals and if the fact that the story told is a religious one and that doesn't bother, offend or annoy you then I think you'd appreciate the music from this movie/musical. I think I recall hearing back in the early 70's the local rock radio station actually playing the track 'Jesus Christ Superstar' on the air once and a while. Sadly, radio stations these days couldn't play anything like that today. It was a time when freedom of expression in music and not only hype for record sales was respected. Oh well. that's about it. Take care, and enjoy God's gift of music.

Alan Simon's Anne de Bretagne is a concept album in the same style as the Simon's ambitious Excalibur trilogy. Like on the Excalibur albums, Simon enlists a large number of artists from the Folk and Rock worlds. This time around the vast majority of these were previously unknown to me. But those that I did know well from before, Les Holroyd from Barclay James Harvest and several members from Fairport Convention, were also involved in the Excalibur project. A couple of the songs from this album also appear on Fairport Convention's own Fame & Glory album that is based entirely on material that they contributed to Alan Simon's Folk Rock Operas.

The vast majority of the songs on this double album are in French, with a few sung in English. This mixing of languages might be distracting for some listeners. The material is not bad, but the album is perhaps too long for its own good. After a while I tend to feel that I'm hearing only more of the same.

Overall, this is a less interesting album than the the Excalibur trilogy (especially Excalibur II & III), at least from a Prog perspective. Still, it is an at least partly enjoyable listen that could appeal to some fans of Celtic Folk Rock and Prog-related Pop Rock.

First off, I ought to note to those who might not know that I will approach this concept album from two angles: one would be the proggy perspective that members of PA are used to, and the other would be from a musical theater approach. I have become a fan of musicals and Broadway within the last year and a half, so the prog audience is going to get a little different take on this album.

While not naturally my style, with musicals, an understanding of the plot, characters and story is quite vital to enjoying the musical. Yes, the musical largely focuses on Jesus's last days which correlate to the Gospel readings on Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter). However, the man who betrays Jesus, Judas Iscariot, has as large of a role in this story as does Jesus. Also, instead of the traditional Christian telling of Jesus and Judas as two men (one the Son of God, the other a disciple) accepting divine destiny, the musical explores the two men from a more psychological, humanist and perhaps secular angle. There are other figures throughout like Mary Magdalene, the high priest Caiaphas, etc. that have a fair role in the story while traditional ''go-to'' names like Peter and Pontius Pilate are kept to a minor stance. This musical saw the writing team of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice hit their creative stride (started with JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT in '68), providing memorable tunes with a few offbeat melodies with a story that is very well known, yet told in a slightly different context, but not enough to sound too disrespectful or blasphemous.

My understanding of the classical music term ''recapitulation'' is where a theme in one part is reused elsewhere in the piece albeit in a slightly different setting. Webber (the musical force here) does this quite well here; despite the laundry list of tracks, many themes are recycled and reused throughout the musical, giving a unity effect, almost as if this was one giant prog epic about the last days of Jesus. But this isn't a rare thing in musicals as many have reprises and finales that borrow or shorten themes from the more memorable numbers. A specific other example is Stephen Sondheim's COMPANY, where the opening title number is cued very often at various points in the show.

One thing I like to hear whenever I listen to a musical is a memorable lilt that I can't get out of my head. Good musicals have at least one instance of this, and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR offers several. There's the shuffle in ''This Jesus Must Die'', the opening fuzzy guitar riff in the orchestra reused in ''The Thirty-Nine Lashes'' (how do we know it's 39? They count it in the music.), the gentle melody of ''Everything's Alright'', the chanting of both ''Hosanna'' and ''The Temple'', and the grand bombastic finale that could only be described as ''Superstar''. There's a ton of melodies going for this musical.

This particular show emphasizes the characters, and I want to spend a few words on how well the actors pull off the characters. For starters, the chorus is one of the best I've heard from any musical; if you think the ensemble means nothing, listen to both ''The Temple'' and ''The Arrest'' as the chorus carries both numbers. The men who played Caiaphas, Annas and King Herod must have had fun portraying them as it shows in their demeanors. Yvonne Elliman sounds like the right Mary Magdalene as a sweet, gentle yet emotional restrained woman. The rub can set in with the two main leads, Judas and Jesus. Yes, I know it's Ian Gillan as Jesus Christ, and for the most part, Ian taps into to a humanistic Jesus rather well. When the tender moments need to shine like on ''Gethsemane'', Ian can really bring powerful emotions and truly make the character come to life outside of a true religious context. However, Ian finds the need to use his trademark high-pitched screams here; it works in Deep Purple, but here it's miscast. I find the same level of balance with Murray Head as Judas; he can work the frustration of the character very well, but he also butchers ''I Don't Know How to Love Him'' (in ''Judas' Death'') in the worst way. Still, the acting is convincing to the point where even with the success of Mark II Deep Purple, this is Ian Gillan's crowning achievement in singing.

How does prog fit into this story? For starters, the band Quatermass is heavily associated with the project with singer John Gustafson portraying Simon Zealots and keyboardist Peter Robinson being the main keyboard player. Also, 2/3 of the classic Nucleus lineup have bits in here. There are the constant shifts to 5/4 (notably ''Everything's Alright''; sounds like a hybrid of Dave Brubeck's ''Take Five'' and the church hymn ''Sing of the Lord's Goodness'') and 7/8 (''The Temple'') as well as the epic nature of the story itself (the Passion of Christ is a big portion of the basis of Christianity along with Jesus's Resurrection). Really, listening to the music almost reminds me of a Nucleus or an If or a Soft Machine; there's plenty of fuzzy guitars and Hammond organs flying about, and Webber himself actually manages to sneak a Moog line into the Overture. Not to mention the very avant-garde ''Crucifixion'', which is quite creepy and unorthodox for a musical, let alone one where Jesus Christ is a fulcrum in the story.

This is one of the greatest musicals I have come across, and the bounty of prog similarities helps in my enjoyment of this. Prog fans will gravitate towards the more rock-based approach to the music and tricky time signatures, and musical fans will find the great character portrayals, snappy melodies and abundance of singing appetizing.

As the subtitle "The Celtic Ring" underlines, the music has a strong Celtic folk flavour, which in practice means mostly the instruments familiar from the British / Celtic Folk Rock tradition. Also the cast is chosen in order to bring the connection to both progressive rock - its original generation of the 70's - in general and to the folk department in particular. Fairport Convention stars in two tracks. Female vocals are by Maddy Prior (known from Steeleye Span), Jacqui McShee (Pentangle), and very beautiful (and yet standardish) voice of Karan Casey from the new folk generation. These emotional tracks are among the highlights. McShee is accompanied by the Swiss harpist Andreas Vollenweider.

Of the male vocalists it's Justin Hayward (the Moody Blues) with his two tracks, 'Earth & Sky' and 'Celtic Heart', who makes the best appearance. John Wetton does a good vocal in 'Lugh' but he's not quite as well at home with this folky album as others. The biggest problem is with Jon Anderson. Maybe it's just the arrangement and mixing that I dislike in 'Circle of Life', but the track sticks out of the whole in an unpleasant way, to me. BJH's Les Holroyd's fragile voice is way too nasal in 'Call' to sound good.

As for the compositions, this album is mostly quite pleasant, at times very beautiful, if you like Celtic, New Agey rock, but far from unforgettable. One might say it's all very expectable, close to being one big cliché. Don't expect progressive rock! The 45-minute DVD is a nice addition, showing all these legendary musicians (turned grey) giving their participation. What they speak is not that interesting, just the usual blah blah about the Arthurian legends that they read in school and the great experience of working together with these great musicians etc. Oh no, Justin Hayward gives an acoustic fragment of 'Nights in White Satin' (I just mean I'm getting tired of seeing that song popping up wherever Justin is shot into a DVD). The liner notes include lyrics and narrative introductions to each track (for which I find very little interest, but which of course can bring an additional value if you're a big fan of these legends).

The songs, while not bad, are not memorable. Melodies are kind of ho hum. The songs don't hold up.

I like Sherwood's work in general. Back Against the Wall, his World Trade Albums, his work with Squire, his work with Yes. This to me is too disjointed. One of the best aspects to prog for me was great musicians playing together. That is missing here, the energy is gone. It's just OK.

After a short prologue featuring Banco's Francesco Di Giacomo reading extracts from Livy's 'The History of Rome' the album kicks off proper with '... April 21st 753 B.C.' Appropriately enough - since it deals with the birth of the city and the legendary circumstances around which it got its name - this track features the Italian house band. The listener's attention may be focused on the big guns of the duty roster but the album isn't solely dependent on the famous individuals. Vincenzo Ricca is the main man behind the project and his vintage keys have more fizz than a sherbet fountain, although admittedly there are occasional nods to 'Cinema Show' on this track.

Talking of fountains, the inspiration for the album came when Steve Hackett quipped to his friend Ricca in 2009 that he would like to make a record about the fountains of Rome. The idea subsequently grew to involve a number of famous musicians and 'Over 2,000 Fountains' showcases the almost liturgical violin (acoustic and electric) of David Cross, along with more Genesis influence in the form of 12-string guitars and a 'play me Old King Cole' feel in places. Hackett himself features on 'Down To Domus Aurea' and this track has enough pomp and bombast to match that of the great city.

While the expansive form of the music largely reflects the subject matter, the English musicians involved in the project likewise have connections to Italy. 'Caracalla's Dream' is a sensitive dialogue between a flute and the fretless bass of Richard Sinclair, a chap who has all but settled in Italy and lives there for most of the year. And of course David Jackson has close links to Osanna; the album is mostly an all-you-can-eat symphonic feast but his 'A Mankind Heritage...' provides a significant counterpoise and it sure spices things up with its Bacchanalian sax and flute evocations.

Saying that 'The Rome Pro(G)ject' represents a bonanza of famous English proggers is a bit like describing Gustav Klimt's 'The Kiss' as two people snogging in a psychedelic sleeping bag. But it's very much a joint venture with enough arrabbiata sauce to satisfy fans of the Italian prog; it harks back to a lost golden age and seventies-style prog almost leaps out of the speakers like that mythical wolf.

I find it odd that Vox Dei is not included in Progarchives, especially since their album La biblia is a marvellous concept album. Though I've been familiar with it for a long time I really didn't listen until a few months ago. Some albums come creeping up on you when you least expect it. Anyway, I don't speak spanish. Having read latin in school and being interested in languages in general I do understand certain words but not all of the lyrics. But that's not really all that important. The important thing is the way the music speaks to me. It hits me right in the chest and fills my body with joy. The music is very proto-proggish, sometimes with strong influences of blues. Theres a roughness about the whole thing, a ragged, furious feel. I am not all that knowledgeable about south american prog but this has to be one of the diamonds from that area. It grooves on very nicely and is ended with the apocalyptic Appocalipsis. I find the first song, aptly titled Genesis, to be on of the highlights with strong, emotional vocals and really, the album doesn't let up after that. Do give it a few spins. I think you'll thank me afterwards.

Some may not enjoy the movie because of its loose storyline, but it's fairly typical of the spirit of the times. Indeed, the plot ir relatively patchy, but it holds a few avant-garde topics, namely the human expansion and environemental concerns. The end of the movie is particularly poignant with the scene of that modern mansion exploding under an early form of Floyd's Careful With That Axe, Eugene. Even 40 years later, that scene still sends chills down my spine. Aside that finale for the rest of the music's plece in the movie, it's a lot less noticeable, partly due to the difference between the soundtrack presenting the entire "songs" when the movie featured only bits and extracts. To be honest, for the proghead, it's ostly the Floyd tracks that matter. The second disc is somehow interesting because of the Love Scene's several trials, both from Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia and Floyd's runs. In some ways, it's kind of too bad Floyd lost that "bid" as well, but history won't be remade. If the Dead/Garcia pieces and the Kaleidscope (US group) songs are relevant pure psychedelia, the Floyd pieces are even more relevant. They're sonically somewhere in between the More Soundtrack and Ummagumma's live disc.

Zabriskie Point is like a few other movies depicting the later-60's era, such as easy Rider, Blow Up, The Trip, Model Shop (from French director Jacques Demy, with the involvment of the group Spirit), and a few more, often taking place in California(or London) All essential pieces of an psychedelic era gone by. Sorry if this reads more like a review of the movie rather than the soundtrack, but this new "expanded" reissue is not really more interesting than the original vinyl version that I'd borrowed from a frend in the mid-70's. I understand an extensive and luxurious boxset was released a few years ago, with even more unreleased material, but one might wonder why, since the movie was not included in it. If the soundtrack gets three stars for me, the movie gets nearly five in my book, hence the average I made.