Sounds Incorporated

 

As I mentally prepared myself, I thought, "Well, they probably aren't that progressive. I'm getting excited over some goof-ball band." But when the album came, I was pleasantly disappointed.

 

A little background: Sounds Incorporated was a band formed in 1961 or thereabouts, and best remembered for providing the backing on the Beatles' "Good Morning, Good Morning."

 

The lineup is pretty interesting: gutiar, bass and drums, with some keyboards, flute and at least two saxaphones. They did a bit of backing work for various artists of the time, but their own work is entirely instrumental (and any fame at the moment was devoted to their jazzy re-arrangements of classical type works).

 

The first album is an interesting mix of jazzy pop rock and psychadelia, but the second album is more mature sounding, and makes more use of keyboards, adding much more piano to the organ dominated sound, and also bringing in some acoustic guitar.

 

They are all excellent musicians to boot; the bass and guitar are good, the sax, flute and keys are very good, and the drummer is surprisingly good.

 

One more word about that flute; it's sometimes aggressive use oftentimes reminds me of another flute rock band. I am, of course, referring to Focus. Pretty creepy that.

 

I think these guys should be in for proto-prog. I don't know if they directly inspired anyone, but it sure sounds like they did.

Anyways, just google 'em for some interesting, if bare, pages with lineups and releases and all that (singles included there, but no singles collections are available on CD I think. Pity that; I would have loved to hear their cover of "Hall of the Mountain King," especially if the Who did use it as a springboard for their's, as the liner notes pretentiously proclaimed). Here's their answer.com (and they're also at allmusic):