TRIP HAZARD

Dave and John Francis are brothers, I guess this is where the band name is from. Dave is also one of our "pen friends" here on Progarchives and about 2 years ago he gifted me of a copy of this album. I'm a bad guy. I haven't reviewed it until now so it's time to try doing my best,

We are speaking of something between psychedelia and progressive electronics, if we look at how the subgenres are defined on this site. Both the elements are present, but if we think as example to the debut of Tangerine Dream, also Electronic Meditation had boht the elements inside.

But we are speaking about Trip Hazard. It's only three tracks, but the core is 36 minutes long, so something not possible in the vynil days. I remember side long tracks up to 30 minutes on vynil, but 36 are likely too much.

The first, "Meditation Of The Blue Serpent" is a good intro in which I hear the influence of early Pink Floyd. It's like playing Tomb Raider with the soundtrack of "Set The Controls For The Heart of the Sun". It's mainly electronics, even if Dave blows good notes into his sax and the percussion sound quite natural even though it's very likely a synth giving that sort of oriental touch with made me think to the Ummagumma days.

Then it comes the "monster". "Hin und Zuruck" is the 36 minutes core of the album. I guess that the title in German ("Departure and Arrival" more or less) is a reference to Krautrock, but it's also the title of an opera by some Paul Hindemith written in 1927. Anyway the album is fully instrumental so this is destined to remain a guess. As in the standard Progressive Electronics, the first 2/3 of the track are repetitive with few variations, but respect to the standards, there is rhythm so it doesn't need the huge dose of patience that equivalent minutes of keyboard soundscapes usually require. it's rock after all. The last 3rd has a different mood, the rhythm changes and it's like another track is started, but there's enough continuity.

Last, the third track "Flying Saucer Patrol" is my favorite. It's just 5 minutes long, but it's a rock instrumental with an excellent guitar solo by John. The basic chords are mainly a blues tune which with a different arrangement could have been sounded like a police or spy movie of the early 70s. Very enjoyable.

The album is on Bandcamp. Give it a try.