PUDDING EN GISTEREN [AKA: PUDDING & YESTERDAY]

Some CD's I buy tend to get onto the plate very rarely, and this (or actually a CD containing this one and Superstarshine Vol 3) is among them. Yet I like it quite a lot. A bad thing is that some silly repetitive moments remain easily in one's mind after listening and sorta ruin the listening experience a little. In other words, Supersister from Holland were very talented and daring band who didn't mind throwing in some plain silly things in their music.

'Radio' starts the album sounding at first like a soft pop song, and reminds me of some NITS songs sung by Robert Jan Stips (I hope at least some of you know that art-pop band featuring Supersister's leading man Stips). Then it suddenly changes into a slightly nightmarish, amusing narrative. Following it is a 16-second (sic!) keyboard piece called 'Supersisterretsisrepus', a palindrom because the latter half of the track is the first one played backwards. I must say I'm not too fond of this kind of riffraff... 'Psychopath' is the other song of the album, sharing the montypythonesque crooked pastiche style with 'Radio', occupying nice harpsichord playing.

Then the rest of the album shows clearly where the influences came from: Canterbury! 12-minute 'Judy Goes on Holiday' sounds very much like a Caravan instrumental with fuzzy keyboards and flute. I referred mainly to one section of this track when I in the beginning talked about silly moments. All of a sudden it's a sort of Beach Boys mockery repeating falsetto "ouiiii, I love you bayaybeee..." and "pom-po-po-pom-po-pom-po- poom-poom". OK, if it lasted just for a minute it wouldn't harm at all, but it goes on and on a few minutes. But during the more artistic moments of the track and especially of the 20-minute title track (subtitled 'Music for Ballet') you can just sit back and enjoy the finest instrumental Canterbury-ish playing. At one part the influences seem to come from modern classical composers too. Schönberg, Stravinsky and such. Piano and flute are taking lead at those great moments. So, quite an uneven but deservedly a classic prog album. For Canterbury diggers.