CRASH COURSE - A HERMETIC SCIENCE PRIMER

It may not earn a fraction of the praise lavished on other bands featured throughout these pages, but no website devoted to Progressive Rock would be complete without acknowledging this obscure, on again / off again trio from coastal northern California. The band was the brainchild of Professor Edward Macan, perhaps better known as the author of the 1997 book "Rocking the Classics", still one of the more thoughtful introductions to Prog Rock yet published.

Such an articulate defender of the faith certainly deserves a place at the Progarchives table, and not just for his academic smarts. Hoping to turn a scholarly passion for music into actual music, Macan formed a small combo centered on the sort of instruments (tuned percussion, marimba) typically reserved for jazzier supporting roles, but here deployed in a more dominant format. The band recorded three studio albums little heard outside Mendocino County, and later released this two-CD compilation, easily the best introduction to the music of Hermetic Science, for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it collects all the original material off the band's three albums (sadly, omitting the sympathetic RUSH and ELP covers). Even better, the tunes have all been remixed to a higher fidelity than the earlier efforts, and further enhanced with discreet overdubs: sitars, and so forth.

The music itself demands a certain readjustment of expectations. Put another way: this is music that defies your expectations, which historically is what Progressive Rock was always meant to do. Listeners more accustomed to the full symphonic palette of classic Prog may find it a somewhat arid experience, but that might only be a matter of acclimation. A vibraphone, after all, is a more intimate musical instrument than an electric lead guitar or synthesizer, and the sometimes lively, sometimes contemplative melodies on these discs are hardly what anyone would call extroverted, even with a typically dynamic rhythm section in tow.

Judging from the selections here it was the first, self-titled album that stayed closest to the original concept for the band, and thus presented the most innovative music. Later attempts at a more traditional Prog Rock sound were less convincing, in part because of the anemic ARP string synthesizers Macan favored at the time. His adaptation of the Gustav Holst standard "Mars, The Bringer of War" sounds particularly bloodless, at least when compared to the muscular versions heard elsewhere from the likes of KING CRIMSON and ANEKDOTEN.

But the group, in all its periodic configurations, was (is?) undeniably unique. Credit the Professor, who not only organized the personnel and wrote nearly all the music, but who also fought a tireless rearguard action against record company indifference and public apathy (apparently a lot of Prog fans aren't as adventurous in their tastes as they like to think). Forward-thinking bands like Hermetic Science don't exactly help themselves by requiring the rest of us to catch up, but in the meantime we can enjoy a different but no less worthwhile side of the Prog Rock experience.

Ironic postscript: in his monumental study of ELP ("Endless Enigma", 2006) Macan admits to being "galled" by the organizers of Progressive Rock music festivals who overlooked his own band in favor of the many Neo-Prog copycats pandering to '70s nostalgia (singling out two groups in particular which he diplomatically refrains from naming, but I'm guessing one of them had to be SPOCK'S BEARD, a fixture at such events in the later 1990's). And yet, where was it that I found this Hermetic Science CD? On a vender's table at the 2008 Rites of Spring Festival: a textbook celebration of Prog conservatism (but still a gas, to this aficionado).

Edward Macan, the founder of Hermetic Science and its main composer, is also the author of ROCKING THE CLASSICS, by far the most intelligent and best-written study of the classic prog scene. (The only book that comes close is Aymeric Leroy's French-language ROCK PROGRESSIF.) I was intrigued when I bought ENDLESS ENIGMA, his study of E.L.P.'s music, and found that he had this to say about his own band: 'Hermetic Science contributed one of the most original and important bodies of music to the progressive rock canon between 1996 and 2001'. Since Macan's main instruments are vibraphone and marimba, I got terribly excited when I found that CRASH COURSE contains almost all of their music, and you effectively get two C.D.s for the price of one. Much to my disappointment, however, it turned out that most of Macan's compositions sounded terribly academic (in the worst sense of the word) and lifeless. The majority of his pieces were written for vibes and marimba and/or keyboards, plus bass, plus drums. The bass usually sounds nice and fat, especially when played by Andy Durham, and the drumming often reminds me of Michael Giles (IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING) or Bill Bruford ca. 1973. The main problem is that Macan's tunes rarely seem to go anywhere. Due to the absence of vocalists or star soloists they're utterly lacking in passion. 'Esau's Burden' and 'Against the Grain part two', for example, sound like a pale imitation of Pierre Moerlen's Gong. 'Leviathan and Behemoth', 'State of Grace' and 'Against the Grain part one' were clearly influenced by E.L.P. and Egg, but they seem quite amateurish by comparison. Some of Macan's pieces feature deadly boring piano fugues; others sound like end-of-the-pier entertainment. The double album's strongest section is the second half of the first disc, where pieces like 'Fanfare for the House of Panorama', 'Intrigue in the House of Panorama' and 'Last Stand' happily carry the listener along, without irritating. All in all, though, Macan greatly overestimates his abilities as a composer and performer. It seems to me that, around the year 2000, Anekdoten, Kenso and The Flower Kings made far more convincing progressive albums than he. Macan even believes that Hermetic Science 'made one of the most imaginative uses of the trio format by any band, in any genre of music'. Hm. When I think of Keith Jarrett's Standards Trio, I just cannot mention Hermetic Science in the same breath. Sorry, Ed...