Prog Britannia - Album Reviews

To be honest, it was Robert Wyatt's singing on Rock Bottom that put me off the album right from the outset, and I wasn't that enamoured of the music on the album either. Maybe the Canterbury Scene isn't really my scene as I only gave Hatfield & the North's Rotters's Club album a three-star rating and review recently when most other PA members gave the album a four or five star rating. I'm not a fan of Soft Machine either.  I really like the music of Caravan though, as they represent the far more approachable end of the Canterbury Scene.

I think the Matching Mole lp;s to be the weakest in the Canterbury area...and Egg sounds like ELP on acid....maybe not acid but they are quirky but feature keyboards.

;)

:)

The Sallyangie 'Children of the Sun has been re-issued a couple of times in the last few years on vinyl; I had a spare copy and only just recently sold it! Ive got a white label promo copy which is worth a few quid! Its a nice enough lp, very much of its time..

Funny thing, personal tastes.. im as horrified that you'd find 'Rock Bottom' a 2 star lp as you are finding someone who doesn't find Mike Oldfield's lps very interesting... There are nuances to Robert Wyatt's work that are truly sublime, particularly on Rock Bottom.. it is an lp that takes a few listens to let it seep in.. and maybe reading a bit about Robert's Life (his 'different every time' book is one of the best books- not only biography but giving a real feel of how the decades changed, politically, socially and artistically) will give a bit of insight.. He is a true genius and someone who has quietly kept his distance from the progressive tag (despite being one of the pioneers).

I'm genuinely shocked! Are you saying you think Tubular Bells and Ommadawn are mediocre too?

 

I think they're two of the finest prog albums of all time!

 

I'll definitely look out for The SallyAngie album the next time I'm in Nottingham, and I may even order it specially if it's not too expensive. I'm a big fan of Sally Oldfield as well as brother Mike.

I like all of Mike Oldfield's albums apart from Heaven's Open. I doubt if The SallyAngie album will appeal to prog-heads generally, but it's an album I'd be happy to go out and buy for £10 if I could find it in a record store.

Until the full album becomes available, here's a high-flying album highlight: "Balloons"

 

 

Album Review #111:-    THE SALLYANGIE may have been a short-lived Prog-Folk duo, but both members went on to have long and distinguished solo careers, because they were none other than sister and brother duo Sally and Mike Oldfield! The SallyAngie recorded their one and only hippyish Folk album "Children of the Sun" in 1968. It would be another five years before Mike Oldfield stunned the world with his landmark "Tubular Bells" (1973) album. Sally Oldfield launched her long solo career as a Folk singer  five years after brother Mike with the release of her "Water Bearer" album in 1978. The Oldfields were a very musical family - their brother Terry Oldfield was also a multi-talented musician who appeared on Mike Oldfield's "Hergest Ridge" (1974), "Ommadawn" (1975) and "Incantations" (1978) albums. Terry Oldfield also went on to establish a long solo career, specialising in his own particular brand of New Age World music. And so, it's time to travel back over half a century in time now to the late 1960's for Mike Oldfield and sister Sally's unique Prog-Folk offering, "Children of the Sun". The 2002 CD re-issue included a bonus disc, adding eight songs to the original fourteen songs on the album.

 

Right from the opening few bars of "Strangers", we're in very familiar territory with the honey-sweet demure vocals of Sally Oldfield. She's best-known for the song "Mirrors" from her first "Water Bearer" album in 1978. Sally performed the song on Top of the Pops and the single reached #19 in the U.K charts, although the hippyish Sally Oldfield would be the last person to regard herself as a Pop star. One of the most surprising things about The SallyAngie album is hearing Mike Oldfield singing for the first time, when he's not normally noted for his vocal abilities, although he sounds in remarkably fine voice on this endearing Folk album, admirably accompanying his sister Sally in a duet. Mike Oldfield also provides accompaniment on acoustic guitar (obviously!) and there's the sound of a flautist to be heard too on this brief but charming 70-second-long opening introduction to the album. "Strangers" sounds more like two familiar old friends. We're off to meet "Lady Mary" next, a saccharine-sweet Folk song with some lovely harmonies and rich orchestration. Mike Oldfield even takes the vocal lead for a brief time on this song. There's no inkling of the masterpiece to come in five years time, when Tubular Bells was still a twinkling in Mike Oldfield's eye at this early stage in his career. The music on this charming Folk album so far sounds as delicately exquisite as a warm gentle breeze. And now we come to the title track and one of the longest songs on the album at five minutes long: "Children of the Sun". The song opens with a spoken introduction from Sally Oldfield before brother Mike joins in for a duet. This song sounds like the kind of pleasant pastoral Folk number that Peter, Paul & Mary or The Seekers might have recorded back in their heyday. The song certainly has commercial potential, had it ever been released as a single, although a warm and tender Folk melody probably wouldn't have stood much of a chance in the charts when they would have been up against some of the mighty giants of late-1960's Pop/Rock such as The Beatles. The fourth song "A Lover for All Seasons" continues in similar vein with another acoustic guitar and vocal duet, so there are no real surprises in store here. Although The SallyAngie are billed as Prog-Folk, you won't find many proggy elements here, as this is more of a traditional pastoral Folk album, but that's no bad thing as the gentle music contained within is very pleasing on the ears. The SallyAngie features a percussionist, although he's so low-key that you hardly even notice he's there. You certainly won't hear any pounding drums on this album. There's no sign of Mike Oldfield's trademark electric guitar sound to be heard either on this totally acoustic album, but it's still turning out to be a very agreeable Folk album judged on its own merits. Next up is the "River Song" which has a macabre sting in its tail, because despite the pleasant melody and the dulcet tones of sweet-voiced Sally, the lyrics reveal a shocking tale of a brutal murder, so there are no happy endings here. The frightful lyrics to this song bring to mind the classic Neil Young song "Down by the River", which also involves a murder.  We'd better not delve too deeply into the horrifying lyrics of "River Song", so we'll move swiftly on to the next song, which is: "Banquet on the Water". We're on much safer ground here as this lovely song is all about going for a pleasant stroll along the river and  stopping for a picnic with a romantic partner for company.

 

Side Two opens with "Balloons", the longest song on the album at five and a half minutes long. The song begins as a very twee-sounding lullaby that sounds so light and delicate, you feel it might get blown away like a balloon by the slightest of breezes, but don't let that put you off, because it's really a great song once you get past the first minute or so. This song comes the closest to Psych-Folk of any of the songs so far on the album. Not that you'll hear any psychedelic fuzz guitars, but the music is a hauntingly-beautiful Folk refrain, featuring some eerie-sounding harmonising and witchy chanting in the style of Comus, although nowhere near as creepy as those witch-finder generals of Psych-Folk. "Balloons" is a helium-filled uplifting highlight of the album. We're travelling right back in time to the world of Shakespeare now for "Midsummer Night's Happening". This fluty duet sounds like a typical Elizabethan madrigal that you might hear accompanying a medieval banquet, so watch out for those flying chicken bones and glasses being thrown into the hearth fire with gusto and gay abandon! Yes, this is definitely minstrels in the gallery music, so you'll know exactly what to expect here with this merry-making music. The intriguingly-titled "Love in Ice Crystals" conjures up a frosty image of some romantic brief encounter at the South Pole, which is not that far from the truth, as the lyrics are about making love on a rug in front of the warm comfort of a blazing fire when it's freezing cold and snowing outside. Listen out for the soaring echoey vocals on this song, the like of which you may never have heard before. They're really quite incredible! Side Two of this lovely album is so far turning out to be even better than Side One. The next piece of music "Changing Colours" is a brief prelude, featuring some offbeat twangy guitar  strings where Mike Oldfield sounds like he's tuning his guitar up, so we'll leave him there and move on to the next song which is the aptly-titled "Chameleon", which follows on nicely from "Changing Colours". The enchantingly mystical lyrics to this haunting refrain deserve a special mention here:- "The king of Orion brings, The jewels from his belt and his sword, The emeralds shine through the trees, To dance upon the high forest lord, I am to you as I am to me, I am a star in a deep blue sea, I am the queen of a million queens, I am a ripple on a crystal stream, The three kings from the east bring gifts of gold frankincense and myrrh." ..... It's a complex tune in which Mike Oldfield cleverly sings in counter-point to Sally Oldfield, bringing a whole extra dimension to this engaging piece of music. The next brief 30-second-long acoustic instrumental "Milk Bottle" sounds just like a "born on the bayou" twangy country steel guitar, which it probably is! This leads us into the penultimate Psych-Folk song on the album, the ominously-titled "The Murder of the Children of San Francisco". Mike Oldfield's semi-whispered vocals sound quite sinister on this song, giving the song an ethereal other-worldly haunting atmosphere, which makes a  stark contrast to Sally Oldfield's traditional sweet-voiced Folky tones. This is another album highlight in what is turning out to be quite an extraordinary album, featuring mainly traditional Folk songs on Side One, spiced up with some spookier off-kilter Psych-Folk tunes on Side Two. We're entering a twilight zone world now, as it's time to bed the album down for the night with the 14th and final song and what better way than with the "Twilight Song", a delightful Folk melody where Sally Oldfield's gorgeous dulcet tones carry you away blissfully to a land of sweet dreams and peaceful slumbers. 

 

Mike Oldfield and sister Sally have come up with a very pleasant album of gentle pastoral Folk in their first musical outing together. It's not going to take the progosphere by storm, but it makes a pleasurable diversion to while away a warm summer's afternoon when we can all be transported back in time to the late 1960's and be "Children of the Sun" all over again. That's the theory anyway. If music be the food of love, then let Mike & Sally Oldfield play on forever!

I'm a fan of Auger;s work...have most of his things on either vinyl or cd.

I'm not a big fan of Rock Bottom either (I have an original vinyl)....I do like some of Wyatt's music here and there and of course his work with Soft Machine. 

I have the Auger- Driscoll Open on original vinyl...Streetnoise is even better...the two between never really did much for me.

 

The full Refugee album isn't currently available, so here's their epic 18-minute-long magnum opus "Credo" as a temporary substitute.

 

 

Album Review #109:- REFUGEE were a short-lived Symphonic Prog threesome from London. You could be forgiven for thinking Phil Collins was a member of Refugee, because the man in the middle on their one and only self-titled album cover from 1974 bears a striking resemblance to the Genesis drummer. There's no mistaking Swiss keyboard player Patrick Moraz on the right of the album cover though. He was brought in as a last-minute  replacement for Keith Emerson, who was otherwise engaged with the Prog-Rock supergroup Emerson, Lake & Palmer at the time. The other two members of Refugee besides Patrick Moraz were both ex-members of The Nice:- Lee Jackson on bass, electric cello, electric guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar and lead vocals, and Brian Davison on drums and percussion, where "percussion" meant virtually anything the versatile drummer could lay his hands on, including tympani, various gongs, Tibetan temple bells, African drums, kabassa (whatever that is!?) and broken glass! Patrick Moraz wasn't exactly slacking in the keyboards department either with this very impressive array of keyboard instruments at his disposal:-  Mini-moog, AKS synthesiser, piano, electric piano, clavinet, organ, pipe organ, marimbaphone, alpine horn, electronic slinky, mellotron, and occasional vocals too! Patrick Moraz would of course go on to be a member of YES and a "days of future passed" member of The Moody Blues. Who could forget the famous music trial of the century!? The sole Refugee album was recorded in 1974 at ART Studios in Geneva in Patrick Moraz' native Switzerland, so he would have felt right at home there, whereas the two English members of the band, Lee Jackson and Brian Davison were temporary "refugees".

 

The title of the imperious 5-minute-long opening number "Papillon" can have several meanings:- Either a black butterfly; a symbolic breaking free of societal restraints and restrictions; or even a toy breed of dog with large butterfly-like ears! One thing's for sure though, the "Papillon" on this album is no delicate butterfly. No, this is an aggressive and impressive Pictures at an Exhibition-style display of powerful keyboard prog in the best tradition of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. There's no shortage of classically-inspired, lightning-speed keyboard runs to be heard from Patrick Moraz in this tremendous instrumental album opener, which also features a storming salvo of machine-gun-like drumming from Brian Davison. Yes,  it looks like we could be in for quite a treat here with this gloriously pompous one-off album of unashamedly exhibitionistic Symphonic Prog. On the second song "Someday", We get to hear the emotionally-wrought (and some might say "over-blown") vocals of Lee Jackson for the first time, which also features another incredible keyboard performance from Patrick Moraz before he went on to join YES for their "Relayer" album in late 1974. "Someday" is one of those grand magisterial prog epics that gathers in pace and intensity as it progresses, so it could be described as the true definition of Progressive Rock. If "Papillon" represented a symbolic breaking-free, then "Someday" continues the theme of liberation with the powerful message contained within these lyrics:- "Someday, I'll go away, Pack my bag, Get on a plane, I'll fly up through my cloud, I'll smash right through, Right into the sun." ..... This is the kind of powerfully uplifting feel-good prog that'll leave you flying high on a wave of joyous and exhilarating emotion. If you haven't quite reached seventh prog heaven yet, then the third piece of music might help get you there, because next up is the awesome 17-minute-long, "Grand Canyon" suite, the first of two epic suites on the album. This magnificent five-part magnum opus is every bit as grandiose and spectacular as the song title implies. Be prepared to be stunned by this brilliant landscape of dazzling musical colours. The outstanding "Grand Canyon" suite represents the musical equivalent of the real Grand Canyon bathed in rich golden colours at sunset.

 

The title of the Side Two opener "Ritt Mickley" is a humorous reference to the strong Swiss accent of Patrick Moraz when he pronounces "rhythmically". It's another 6-minute-long demonstration of ELP-style keyboard prog at it's absolute best, so you can expect another dazzling display of keyboard histrionics from Mr Moraz & Co. The final piece of music on the album is the second of the two epic suites. It's a thunderous 18-minute-long masterpiece titled "Credo". The majestic music is divided into eight movements of stunning symphonic splendour and delight, which just HAS to be heard to be believed. This is incredible!

 

You can't fail to be over-awed by this stunning display of ELP-style keyboard prog. This outstanding one-off album has a treasured place in the hallowed halls of ProgArchives. Refugee might not be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but they truly
deserve to be included with full honours and flags flying after this very impressive powerhouse debut!