4 little gems (157)

Don't be fooled by the sleeve!It seems to be just another "family party" record of James Last,BUT,after 10 secs of hearing it you will find out a proto-kraut monster!In the vain of early CAN,Soft Machine,Faust with free jazzish-avantgarde hints,all hidden under a psychedelic rythmic veil!Distorted crazed out guitars,swirling organ-moog sounds,hypnotic vocals.A must-have!

"Listening to this record the very first time we thought that the history of Krautrock has to be rewritten. While this may have been some kind of over-enthusiastic, spontaneous reaction, it seems to be about time to share one of the last great Kraut secrets with the rest of the world. After more than a decade of countless re-releases in this field (and quite a couple of stinkers among them) you might be tempted to believe that there can hardly be any more undiscovered jewels out there which are worth your attention. But wait: some of the real stuff refused to catch your eye and ear because you wouldn't expect to look for it on conservative labels notorious for classical music only (e.g. 'Wired' on Deutsche Grammophon), in avantgarde-jazz surroundings (e.g. the first 'Et Cetera' Album) or like in this case hidden in an inconceivably disgusting cover on a cheapo label like Maritim, usually known for James Last impersonators and Humba-Tδtδrδ Bierzeltmuzak. The Electric Corona's Fantastic Party was their strangest and most outrageous attempt to cash in with one of such party records in 1970. And while the average customer of that kind of crap has probably lost all his friends and the party was over soon as the needle hit the grooves, these weird sounds make perfect sense for more sophisticated party animals who could imagine to have a hell of a good time while Hapshash & The Coloured Coat are jamming with Can (or whatever your own associations may be. The heavy noodling of Staff Carpenborg defies description because nothing else really sounds like it.) This forgotten and overlooked artefact of Teutonic freakness would be regarded as a Krautrock classic nowadays had it been released on Ohr, Brain or Pilz."
From Forced exposure review

All right, we'll admit that we were a bit doubtful about this at first, just from reading the hypesheet/liner notes, which claim, in part, that this is one of the "last great Kraut secrets" and because of its discovery, "the history of Krautrock has to be rewritten". And we're still not entirely sure if the person who wrote that was actually joking or not. But, while this is definitely not some undiscovered classic on the order of a Can, Faust or Neu! (or even the more obscure likes of Siloah, Kalacakra, Necronomicon, etc.) it IS pretty cool. And weird. Especially weird. Imagine Reynols or Yahowha 13 gone lounge, trying to entertain a bunch of jet-setters at some hip, swinging '60s party... It's called Fantastic Party after all and that's what it was meant as, a party record! Some cheesy German record label in 1970 put this together, presumably paying (with drugs?) a bunch of studio musicians to create a one-off psychedelic exploitation album by a nonexistent "band". A dime a dozen back then, maybe, but these guys really really went for it. It is pretty darn tripped out. Groovy but really off kilter and demented. Maybe we'd compare it to the children's songbook funk of Stark Reality, if you've heard the reissue of that. Or some totally dosed jazz combo doing porno music. Good times. Yup, it's got stinging fuzz guitar solos, flute warbling, hiccuping percussion, damaged "singing", bizarro titles... this has LSD written all over it. If you went to this "fantastic party" you'd know that Peter Fonda would be there for sure. And go-go dancers with dayglo body paint. And Timothy Leary, and midgets, and people who look like extras from a Terry Southern penned movie .

from Aquarius recs review MUTANT SOUNDS

 What an AMAZING album !!!!! It's hard to put this phenomenally cosmic release into words - absolutely mind-blowing. Former Hawkwind woodwinds player Nik Turner is joined here by an all-star crew of space cadets, performing music of the Gods, and, hence, it's by the Gods !! Turner has excelled himself with this album, no stoned waffling or neo-punk tendencies to be found, just pure SPACE. Based on the history of Egyptian Gods, the music is just incredible. Apparently, Turner's Flute playing was recorded in the Great Pyramid itself, adding more depth and ambience to the whole affair. Steve Hillage plays lead guitar and glissandos, Tim Blake twiddles his EMS, Nik Turner's voice is often heavily affected with delay, reverb, pitch-shifted delay, Leslie and so on as he spins his stories of Ancient Egyptian folklore. Mike Howlett contributes some suitable space-Bass licks and so on. Lots of ethnic percussion, gongs and chimes are utilised to create a mythical atmosphere of the lost world, and that works perfectly, almost as if Ancient Egypt as we know from history, exists concurrently, somewhere in space. The gorgeous voice of Miquette Giraudy can be heard perfectly here, more so than any Hillage solo release. This album has to be given 110 % attention, preferrably late at night, and if possible, somewhere far away - I committed this LP to tape so a friend and I could drive 100km's either to a craggy edge where land meets the sea, or down a forest road high up in the mountains to listen to this in peace, and absorb all it has to offer. That is how powerful this album is. Along with Steve Hillage's 'Green', Tim Blake's 'New Jerusalem' and Mother Gong's 'Fairy Tales', Xitintoday is a MUST HAVE - needs to be heard to be believed.

 The most interesting thing about this album is that the band recorded it to commemorate their five-plus year career as that career came to a close. Caedmon put together this self-produced, private label album in 1978 just prior to their last concert and sold it to fans and friends at that show, performed at George’s Square in Edinburgh. The band’s first show was also in Edinburgh, where the then-trio were all enrolled at the University as veterinary students.

The music on this album doesn’t really conform to any particular genre or even style, and later interviews and statements from the band acknowledge that they were primarily interested in experimenting in the studio and tried many different things. The songs were recorded on a four-track machine, pretty much live with a minor bit of overdubbing that is fairly apparent since the mixing job was austere to say the least.

The opening track is not a proper introduction to the band’s capabilities, and if one were to stop with that song they would have the mistaken impression that this was just another UK folk band with a faux medieval sound and predominantly acoustic instrumentation. Keyboardist Ken Patterson also employs a Crumar Compac with what sounds like the harpsichord setting most of the time, but also as a substitute piano. This describes that first track, but the musicians quickly branch out into more interesting territory, although I can’t say any of the subsequent songs stray too far, and none of the remaining songs stray too far from what are pretty variants of folk music.

“Maker Man” features an Ibanez acoustic guitar with a very fat and rich sound, as well as bongos for a very rhythmic tempo that is augmented by electric guitar and pleasant vocals from Angela Naylor backed by a couple of the male musicians. This song takes an interesting turn at the end when the band breaks into a salsa groove with a spoon and teacup providing the Latin shaker sound. Again, the players were clearly just goofing around and trying different things with apparently little concern over how the final product would be received.

One of the songs with cello is “Death of a Fox”, which also features both acoustic and electric guitar as well as bass. I should mention at this point that the band had no drum kit, that function being performed instead by bongos, bass and assorted hand percussion instruments (most of them uncredited in the liner notes).

The Crumer is switched to piano mode for “Sea Song”, and the guitar here reminds me very much of Robert Everett’s guitar ruffs on “Puppet City” of his band The Third Estate’s ‘Years Before the Wine’ album, which was another one-off vanity recording by some college students moonlighting as musicians, in their case in the New Orleans area of the U.S. “Aslam” similarly sounds like the Third Estate album, but with cello again and what sounds like a mandolin.

“Beyond the Second Mile” is a soft acoustic song that was intended for the original vinyl album, but was instead included on a 7” single that was packaged with the album since it and “Give Me (Jesus)” wouldn’t fit on the 12” 33rpm disc. Both of these are overtly religious songs very much in the vein of the hippy- tinged Jesus freak vein of the mid-seventies. “Give Me (Jesus)” will remind those who remember it of the early seventies Jesus freak anthem “Get High on Jesus” from Earthen Vessel, an even better version of which was recorded by the U.S. Apple Corps around the same time as this Caedmon album.

The band tries their hand at a sort-of Latin sound again on “Living in the Sunshine”, but with peppy vocals, choppy electric guitar and bongos in place of the teacup this time. Not really a very strong composition, but sounds like they had fun making it at least.

“Storm” is one of the longest songs at more than six minutes, but much of this is clearly improvised guitar and bongo noodling with some experimentation from a Fender Rhodes the band borrowed for these recording sessions. Again, nothing special except probably for the guys who recorded it; while “Columbas' Song” is sort of a medieval-like story-song but with a hopped up guitar track and more cello, this time a lot more lively than on “Death of a Fox”. This one and “Smile on Your Face” are the best representations of the Fairport Convention influence on the band.

“Caedmon's Hymn” is the most interesting song on the album, as it is a modern-day interpretation of a seventh-century religious song written by the band’s namesake Cædmon, an Anglo-Saxon poet-monk, and which is considered one of the oldest surviving examples of Anglo poetry. This rendition is quiet, reverent, and all acoustic with some recorder thrown in to further enhance its ancient and dated sound.

I don’t typically get into overtly religious contemporary music, but in the case of guys like Caedmon, Pentangle, Water into Wine Band and the like I think exceptions have to be made since these were all people who were simply spreading the message of their faith through the medium they best knew without being heavy-handed or overly-proselytizing. Kind of hard to get annoyed at that – better just to kick back and enjoy the tunes.

This is a marginal progressive album at best, but the band’s history and the enthusiasm they displayed in making these songs is rather infectious for those of us who are into rediscovering this sort of music decades after it was forgotten. The Kissing Spell reissue is well-produced considering the likely quality of masters they had to work with. For prog folk fans this will be a fun discovery, and well worth adding to their collection. Four stars for innovation, naïve sincerity, and fifty-four minutes of low-key fun. Enjoy.

peace

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAP7B8ltO5M