RAGA

Quite possibly the earliest album on this site which you could seriously argue was "prog" by any definition, Raga is a half-hour jam fusing the still-emergent Western folk-rock style with liberal borrowings from Indian raga music of the type which Ravi Shankar was introducing to the West.... which came out in 1964. If you consider that the Beatles had barely emerged from beneath the shadow of their rock and roll influences at this time, that's pretty incredible, but it's important not to go overboard about how early this came out - how is it *musically*?

Well, frankly the production values aren't great, but if you don't mind an occasionally fuzzy sound you get an experience which isn't half bad but at the same time doesn't seem brilliant to modern ears - the guitarists strum away, the drummer plays something approaching a rhythm, visiting flautist Frank Evatoff solos over that and the participants wail along in a tuneless, stoned sort of way. Of course, many hippy jam sessions would devolve into something resembling this, but this was 1964 and at the time this was novel. What's interesting about this Raga is the way the individual parts, none of which are especially stellar, come together to make a whole which actually just kind of works.

The overall effect is trippier and more relaxing than the work many second-rate psychedelic bands would put out in the later part of the decade, and occasionally mounts into rousing crescendos which provide just enough variation in mood to stop the album from becoming completely repetitive, but ultimately - as with many jam sessions - there just isn't quite enough variation to stop the Seventh Sons from outstaying their welcome. Don't put this one on if you want to listen to something exciting, energising, and fast, but if you want to relax a little this foundation stone of psychedelia can't hurt. But even then you probably won't want to sit through the entire thing. Two stars, three if you really, really enjoy improvisation.