FIRST RECORDINGS 1971- 1973

A clear advantage of having a girlfriend who also knows and loves the realm of progressive rock, is that she can surprise you every once in a while. I am saying that because she highly recommended this Bayon music to me, it is probably one of those albums whose music makes her happy, so well, I accepted the recommendation of course.

Honestly I know nothing about the band´s formation or even musicians, so this time i won't write a band's background as i use to do, now I will focus only in this album which is named "First Recordings 1971-1973", if you go to their PA discography you will notice that their first studio album was released until 1977, so yes this are really their first tracks, maybe a premature sound of the band, but a nice way of getting to know them I believe.

This album features 6 songs and a total time of 38 minutes, it starts with "Stell Dich In Mittel Den Regen" which will show since the very first notes the kind of music they are playing, this is a kind of soft and delicate prog folk containing nice acoustic guitars, flutes, percussion and some other wind instruments, the music in some moments has a feeling closer to relaxation, when you can close your eyes, listen to it and rest like a king.

The second song is "Die Nacht", I forgot to mention that the vocals are in German, so this song in some way follows up the previous one, the structure and instrumentation is very similar, though here there is a kind of interlude where the flute sound takes you inside the song, then guitars and soft percussion starts again and seconds later a faster sound begins making an acid folk sound.

"Die Lerche" has a different sound, this time the vocals are different I honestly don't recognize if it is still German or another language, but the music has some African flavor on it, violin, percussion and a constant singing, it may be used for a ritual, though I may say that the music here has nothing new to add to my book, I should say that there are some beautiful moments inside this album, this song is one of those I liked the most.

"O Mangobaum" follows up the previous one immediately, the style is the same and the rhythm kind of, so both songs are completely linked one to another, here you can have a very enjoyable time, but it also may be boring for you, your choice.

"Synthetic Waltzer" is a live track, starting with some guitar that little by little is building up a solid structure, there is a beautiful flute sound taking your attention, as well as some violin sound that in moments reminds me to a slow tempo Mahavishnu sound, so yes besides the obvious folky sound, thanks to some elements like violin and drumming the fusion sound is also valid in this song, which is very nice.

"Bayon Suite" finishes the album, it's starting reminded me to A Saucerful of Secrets organ notes, the vocals appear, the flute and the organ prevails, but there are also some electric guitar riffs so the sound might be different to the first 5 songs of the album. After a couple of minutes the song changes a little bit, the rhythm spins in several moments, so the song is not that constant, which at the same time could be either interesting or boring to the listener, I particularly prefer the shorter songs on this album, but this is not bad at all.

Nice album, always good to receive recommendations, what better if those come from a person you love, my final grade 3 stars, good but non-essential.

Enjoy it!

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