QUINTESSENCE

I have started to listen Quintessence quite recently. I have heard bands name earlier, but this summer there came a document from Glastonbury Festival 1971 where they played and that woke my interest. Because there was only one review with one star of this album I decided to make another. In 1972 bands career started to go down. They weren´t satisfied to Island records and refused to go on tour in US, so Chris Blackwell dropped them. They made two albums to RCA, but before "Indweller" recordings band leader Raja Ram fired singer Shiva Shankae Jones and guitar player Maha Dev. It´s not clear who was singing in this their last album.

Starter "Jesus Is My Life" is very funny piece! Maybe they made it seriously, but now it works only a humor song. But direction changes into next one: although "Butterfly Music" is very short, it has really deep atmosphere played by flute, guitar, bass and very gentle drums! It sounds to be from the larger piece, it´s sad they put only so short part of it in this album. "It´s All the Same" is long acoustic song with very warm feeling in it! To me it sounds title piece has taken also from the longer improvisation piece as "Butterfly Music", because it sounds as awesome! "Portable Realm" ends the a-side in acoustic way and has great "late evening"-feeling. "Sai Baba" is mantra song. "Holy Roller" is little bit mediocre song, but has good groove whole through. "On the Other Side Of the Wall" is again very serene and melodic piece with great flute playing. "Dedication" is calm, short acoustic very Indian sounding piece including some mantra. "Bliss Trip" starts with organ, thunder sounds and gong. Soon comes very meditative flute. In the middle there comes beautiful sounding vipraphone. Very holy atmosphere continues whole over six minutes. "Mother Of the Universe" ends album as cheerful way as it starts, it seems to include again some mantra.

I have listened now only once their all albums, but really going to listen them again. I have given four stars to everyone. To me this albums sounds as great as those others. Quintessence was from the begin very spiritual taken influences specially from eastern religions, so if that´s too much for you, you´re not liking this or their any other albums. I haven´t got anything against those philosophies, but it´s the music that I love in this band! Still I don ´t think they made any masterpieces, in every album there are empty moments here and there. Anyway you hear very rare this kind of music these days.

QUINTESSENCE were a quintessentially English Psych-Folk band. Their unique brand of Indian-influenced psychedelic folk music came to be defined as Raga Rock. The London-based, six-piece band released five albums between the years of 1969 and 1972, beginning with the album we have here "In Blissful Company" (1969), and followed by "Quintessence" (1970), "Dive Deep" (1971), Self (1972), and finally "Indweller" (1972). There were also two later offshoots of the band, named Kala's Quintessence and Shiva's Quintessence. The 2004 CD remaster of "In Blissful Company" included two bonus tracks added to the original eight songs on the album. It's time now to cook up a hot Madras curry and settle down with the sitar for some psychedelic Raga Rock.

"Giants" opens the album with a real giant of a song. It's a four and a half minute long psychedelic freak-out, featuring not only the sound of a wailing acid guitar, but some wailing vocals too. Tune in, turn on, and drop out to this psychedelic blast from the past. In the immortal words of Austin Powers, "It's groovy baby!" Onwards now to the intriguingly-titled "Manco Capac", who, just in case you wondered, was the first governor and founder of the Inca civilisation in Cusco, Peru. This Lovely song is overflowing with Love and flower power. It's sensual, it's spiritual and it's a song with perpetual appeal 50 years on from its recording. Take a look at these inspirational and devotional lyrics:- "High on a mount in the sacred place, The Holy sun is born to the lake, He radiates his life - the sun's so, In water and cosmic energy the God's flow, And he is the spirit in the lake of time, His eyes are the Truth you seek, His face is blue wishing cloud skies." ..... Hallelujah brother! This spiritual slice of late 1960's psychedelia will take you on a cosmic journey along the free love freeway, without the aid of any psychedelic substances. Far Out, Man! Onto Song No. 3 now and "Body", another song drenched in swinging psychedelic 1960's vibes. If you're looking for fun and feelin' groovy, then chill out to this mellow and laid-back groove and dream about going to San Francisco and wearing some flowers in your hair. And now we come to an uptempo and uplifting number "Gange Mai". What's it all about you may well ask. Well, it's all about the sacred (but very polluted) River Ganges as these lyrics reveal:- "Gange Mai, The river, Gange Mai, Holy water." ..... Yes, that's it in a nutshell. It's a lyrical, spritual hymnal tribute to the Indian river and Hindu goddess Ganga. The title of the next song, "Chant", might give you a clue as to what to expect. You won't be surprised to hear it's a devotional song full to the brim with repeated chants of "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna", so you might be inclined to put on a robe and shave your head for this spiritual number. Then again, perhaps not.

Onto groovy Side Two now and it's time to get on the magic bus for "Pearl and Bird". It's an enchanting and entrancing, laid- back devotional groove, with the golden-voiced rich mellow tones of the singer inviting us on a spritual journey. This inspiring music is your ticket to musical heaven. Onto Song No. 7 now and the best-known song by Quintessence which they'll always be remembered for, "Notting Hill Gate", which just happens to be the district of London where the band originally hails from. This bright and lively, flutey psychedelic number was released as a single in 1970 and reached No. 22 in the UK charts. We come to the end of this inspirational and spiritual album now with "Midnight Mode", an epic 9-minute midnight mass, featuring a gorgeously-long flute solo. which Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull would be proud of. It's a song full of Indian mysticism and psychedelic guitar grooves. It's hippy, it's trippy, and if you're in the right kind of mood, the music will make you feel part of an ever-expanding, loving, joyful, glorious, and harmonious universe.

If you've remained in blissful ignorance of this marvellous album for the last 50 years, then give "In Blissful Company" a listen. This beautiful, inspirational and spiritual album will take you on an emotional, mind-expanding, psychedelic journey of love and devotion. Who needs a dopamine high from drugs to reach the heights of spiritual ecstasy when you can achieve an emotional and devotional high with this wonderful debut album. "In Blissful Company" is indeed a blissful album, which is best listened to in romantic company. It's fabulous, baby!

Peace, bro!!

This is a trippy album. Yes, it contains some Indian stuff, a bit of "Hare Krshna, Hare Hare", but from this album only I don't understand why it's classified into the Raga subgenre. Luckily it's made of proper music, also good, but the atmosphere is that of the first AMON DUUL album, with a big difference: QUINTESSENCE knew how to play an instrument, the first AMON DUUL were just a band of hippies banging on bongos.

In my view, this is a psychedelic album, released in 1970 and deeply son of its era, maybe even a bit late.

The album has all the right ingredients: flute, percussion, prayers but also bass and electric guitar. There are some interesting guitar solos. Sometimes they are just too long because, you know, when you are having a good trip, stopping is difficult. So you can make a lot of things tripping on Aminor and Dmajor, especially on a live performance.

It's a good document of an era, played with some skill but fresh as you can expect from a band of hippies. Far from being a masterpiece, it's a nice listen.

Many roads in rock and pop music since the 60s lead back to The Beatles and the fertile cross-pollination of Indian music with Western rock was one of the more popular ones following the Fab Four's brief stay at an ashram in India with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi as their guru. Once George Harrison recorded his famous "Within You Without You" on the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" album, the genie was out of the bottle and suddenly every musician was incorporating some sort of Indian reference in their music. While some rockers were content to simply find a spiritual guru, other's like the London based QUINTESSENCE went all the way and developed their own unique mix of jazz and psychedelic rock with progressive touches all completely infused with musical influences from India including full on chants, Indo-raga droning effects and of course the mandatory sitar and percussion. They were known for energetic and dynamic live performances.

The popularity of the whole East meets West thing grew so fast and so big that bands like QUINTESSENCE were literally snatched up after only performing a few gigs. The original line-up included Sambhu Babaji (bass guitar), Maha Dev (rhythm guitar), Shiva Shankar Jones (vocals, keyboards, percussion), Jake Milton (drums, percussion), Allan Mostert (lead guitar), and Raja Ram (flute, percussion), the last of which chose the name of the band implying a five unit quintet despite the band actually consisting of six members. Keeping with the trend, the band members were actually christened by Swami Ambikamanda who was the band's spiritual guru. Right from the bat the band had multiple record contract offers and chose the less lucrative route with Island Records because of the fact they could retain creative control.

The band's debut was released in 1969 at the height of the Indo-rock craze. The album contained eight tracks with most displaying the band more as rockers rather than Indian fusionists since the majority of the tracks are fairly typical and unfortunately rather dated sounding psychedelic rock songs from the era that implement a standard rock, bass and drum base with a passionate sort of Tom Jones vocal bravado. While firmly steeped in rock, the sitar, flute and occasional Indian percussion do add an exotic flare to their sound which for the time was fairly innovative (save The Beatles notwithstanding). Interspersed amongst the rock oriented grooves are segments that delve completely into the Indian spiritual practices such as the fifth track "Chant" which takes the listener on a psychedelic journey into the ashram for a musical meditation. Likewise the album's closer "Midnight Mode" ushers the album out in a mystical mode with more transcendental chanting and Indo-raga droning effects.

While other Indian inspired bands like John McLaughlin's Shakti were pioneers of stunning virtuosic fusion, QUINTESSENCE was a pure hippie band through and through with garage band musical talent, rather cheesy pan-continental fusion and an overwrought vocal style that seemed more fitting for the Las Vegas strip rather than a fitting tribute to Bollywood. The guitar delivers a rhythmic drive for the rock aspects and occasional bursts out some soloing as heard in "Manco Capac," but don't expect Jimi Hendrix or anything even close. One of the most pleasant aspects of the music is the sensual flute runs that sound to me like they could have inspired the flute aspects of Comus' masterpiece "First Utterance" as the style is actually quite similar although not nearly as accomplished. My buddy Ashratom (from Rate Your Music) nailed it when he pinpointed the band as a major influence on Marupilami as the vocal style, flute sounds and other aspects seemed to be primary influences in their more adventurous form of progressive rock a year later.

IN BLISSFUL COMPANY, as many others have stated, is well, rather dated! This is a period piece if there ever was one. This is not something i would choose to listen to on a regular basis. While some Indo-raga and Eastern influenced albums of the day were transcendental beyond the zeitgeist of the era and still retain an avant-garde aura, QUINTESSENCE sounds like they came out exactly when they did, namely the tail end of the 60s in the midst of the drug fueled psychedelic days of the hippie era. To be fair, the band had only just begun and immediately thrust into the studio to record this debut and they apparently were not ready for prime time. While they would improve their musical chops on subsequent albums, they would experience less than peace and love filled episodes that would cause them to slowly splinter off into irrelevance. Despite playing alongside bands like The Who and Mott The Hoople, QUINTESSENCE never quite caught on within the larger rock world. Perhaps things happened too soon for them to catch the right wave. Interesting as a relic from the era. Not a bad album but not great either.

Despite the quarter of a century gap, there are analogies between Quintessence and the later English band Kula Shaker. The music of both is distinctively imbued with Indian sounds and religious themes, but the core sound is late 60's psychedelic rock (a 'retro' character for only one of them, of course). Both bands enjoyed meteoric popularity for about three years and then vanished, sadly for good in the case of Quintessence (though Kula Shaker re-formed and I highly recommend their 'K 2.0' of 2016).

Quintessence's first album 'In Blissful Company' was released in the same year and on the same Island label as the King Crimson debut, and its producer John Barham was a collaborator on George Harrison's forthcoming 'All Things Must Pass'. Quintessence albums followed in each of the next two years, a self-titled release in 1970, and 'Dive Deep' in 1971, which reached #22 and #43 in the UK albums charts. Their association with Island Records ended unhappily due to failure to arrange a tour to the United States, and the band did not last much longer.

Esoteric Records have now released re-mastered editions of the three Island albums as a double CD. These vintage classics are seriously under-reviewed on Prog Archives, so I'll try to summarize them for anyone considering exploration, terming the albums IBC ('In Blissful Company'), Q ('Quintessence') & DD ('Dive Deep'). Each album contains tracks of diverse types, and you would need to appreciate all of them. First and best, there are absolutely spell-binding sedate and spiritual songs, clearly involving Barham's inventive touch, with superb vocals, flute, guitars and drones. Examples are 'Manco Capac', 'Midnight Mode' (IBC), 'High on Mt Kailash', 'Prisms', 'Twilight Zones' (Q), and 'Dance for the One' (DD). These are must-hear tracks for anyone. Also winners are the wild guitar-burn tracks 'Burning Bush' and 'St Pancras' (Q).

Then we have a couple of track types that are potential negatives for some tastes, and this probably accounts for the underwhelming consensus PA ratings of Quintessence albums. There are straightforward Hare Krishna-style chants, namely 'Chant' (IBC), 'Shiva's Chant' (Q) and 'Sri Ram Chant' (DD). I really like these, but admit they are not standard rock fare. Then there are 60's pop tracks written for an era fixated on chart hits, most notably 'Notting Hill Gate' (IBC) with its B-side 'Move into the Light', 'Jesus, Buddha, Moses, Gauranga' (Q) and 'Dive Deep' (DD). The above represent the musical boundaries of these Quintessence albums, but there is much interesting material occupying the spaces between.

Digressing back to Kula Shaker, I note there have been Forum discussions on whether to include this band in Prog Archives, each time reaching the wrong conclusion. The so-called Indo-Prog/Raga Rock sub-genre on Prog Archives is presently very weak and obscure (and this remark comes even from a Krautrock fan). Even Wikipedia describes Kula Shaker as a 'raga rock' band...

Verdict: recommended to Kula Shaker fans.

My property in the Welsh hills is the long-lapsed inheritance of a local clergyman's son, who went to India in the 1970's and was never heard from since. This poignant glimpse into history shows how, for certain Western hippies, the spiritual draw of Indian culture was real and powerful. And the album under review is a rather charming closure for a pre-eminent rock band of this enigmatic tendency.

So, Quintessence... if you run the Prog Archives ranking for the Indo-Prog/Raga-Rock sub-genre (which I doubt many do), using joint studio & live filters, you may find the #1 album is called 'Infinite Love', a 1971 London concert by this band. If you run the live filter only, that album is almost certain to be top, but then there are only two in the list. Anyway, you get the picture: a few of us think this band were great in their day (I still remember the ethnic drums and scent of joss sticks as I sat cross-legged on the floor at one such concert...).

Quintessence, indeed, were so prominent in the underground rock scene of 1970 that they earned the historic distinction of being the opening band at the first ever Glastonbury Festival, where they performed in front of 1,500 members of the counterculture, sharing the bill with T. Rex, Al Stewart and Stackridge. They returned in 1971 along with David Bowie, Hawkwind, Fairport Convention, Traffic, etc for an audience of 12,000. So when it was suggested that Quintessence re-form for the 40th anniversary Festival, whose attendance would be 177,500, with acts including Muse, Lou Reed, Stevie Wonder, Kylie Minogue, guests from Radiohead and U2 etc, there was of course no problem from the organisers. The only problem was Quintessence, who split very acrimoniously in 1972 and dispersed across the globe.

To cut a long story short, the performers recorded on 'Rebirth - Live at Glastonbury 2010' include two key original band members: Maha Dev, the English rhythm guitarist, and Shiva, the Australian vocalist and principal song-writer. They notably did not include Raja Ram, the Australian flautist and subsequent founder of the Psytrance band Shpongle. For those familiar with Quintessence, the 'Rebirth' concert is revealing about the true core of the original music - what Maha Dev and Shiva recreate is not that far off. In particular, I should say that Shiva confirms his exceptional talent - always a highlight of vintage Quintessence, his vocal performance on 'Rebirth' is incredible for his age. Shiva also surprises with his new prowess as a didgeridoo player. Maha Dev falls over a model of Stonehenge on stage, and makes the corny hippy joke that 'I really enjoyed my trip!' - this is a concert with real, if zany, personality.

So what songs do we get? The classic Quintessence mix from far-out spirituality ('Mount Kailash', 'Dance for the One') to unintentionally comic pop ('Cosmic Surfer', and we don't escape 'We're getting it straight in Notting Hill Gate / We all sit around and mediate'), with 'Only Love' and 'Ganga Mai' in between. This selection appears to be not much more than a quarter of the weekend's recordings, due to technical issues. It is a pity because the tracks on offer are of very worthwhile musical quality - had everything survived, I can imagine giving this concert four stars.

Due to the unplanned shortage of concert material, the album ended up divided into 'Part One: Glastonbury 2010 Performance' and 'Part Two: Sattvic Meditation Suite'. There is a proportion of 'filler' masterminded by their distinguished producer, John Barham, who was responsible for their early studio albums. Barham was an intimate musical associate and producer of George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, so his contributions to 'Rebirth' are interesting in their own right. They comprise three short creations involving flute, birdsong and eastern drones. In addition there are three spiritual pieces recorded by Shiva in the USA: 'Shiva's Chant', a type of track familiar to Quintessence fans and it's nice; 'Sunrise', a sung poem in tribute to the band's late manager Stanley Barr; and 'When Thy Song Flows Through Me', written by the guru Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952), founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship in California.

If you want to investigate the real Quintessence, obviously go for 'Infinite Love', or their earlier studio albums. To appreciate 'Rebirth' you really need to understand all the background. But for existing fans (or spiritual devotees), 'Rebirth' is better than you might expect.

Verdict: I really enjoyed my trip...

This band operated in England but most of their members had an Ethnic background. Indian philosophy and music culture can be heard in their music. I'm not usually very keen on Eastern music but here East and West are united nicely. Quintessence may be of interest to listeners of early jazz-rock or instrumentally oriented Psychedelia, even if you don't actually expect to enjoy Indian influences.

This 68-minute compilation includes selections (some of them as live versions) from their first three albums, 1969-1971, which I believe is their best era. Probably a good introduction to the band. For me this is enough anyway. Some tracks I enjoyed to some degree, some I didn't.

Free acid folkish rock combo, back in the 1970s, Quintessence played a key role in the development of long musical excursion mixing raga-ish ornamentation and pop folk-inflected psychedelic improvisations. After a bunch of original and highly inspired mantric folkish-rock studio releases, the band culminates their whole career with this ritualistic and epic live improv recorded in 1971. This blissed out live session first introduces us into the spacious sound mandala with a highly intense, mid-epiphanic-nervous ballad then carries on a crystalline, gentle pastoral pop chanting hymn (Wonders of the universe). The rest of the album features Eastern buzzing and ravishing drone raga, expansive soundscapes (dominated by the dancing dreamy-like flute and the free folk rockin ensemble), amazing almost liturgical acoustic section. Incredibly elaborated sound signature and recognizable sonic sound travel which features essential convoluted freakout moments always within a classy stylish vein and an efficient sense of melodicism. The album is constantly luminous or charming despite that we can regret the brief presence of a few enthusiastic pop naiveties (which anyway don't affect the quality of the album). With their unique combination of improvised textures and sound alike syncrestism, Quintessence contributed to create what I would like to call ragadelic prog music. A tribute to the esoteric beauty. Warmly recommended to all prog lovers.

Both this album and Quintessence's output as a whole has become rather dated over the years. Clearly riding the wave of enthusiasm for all things Indian that was inspired by the Beatles, the band's fortunes dried up at around the time that particular fashion did. Still, the group seem to have explored both Indian music and Indian spiritual beliefs to a significantly greater depth than many of their peers; a good many hippies of the era took a rather superficial approach to "Eastern" religions, and in the end of a lot of the cultural appropriation at the time comes across as simply another type of orientalism, a fetishisation of all that's "alien" and "exotic" about other cultures that ultimately comes across as faintly patronising.

Quintessence do not come across as superficial culture-tourists on this album; on Chant, for example, the Hare Krishna mantra is delivered with reverence and without embellishment or tampering. On the one hand, this does show an appropriate level of respect for the culture whose trappings the band adopted. On the other hand, it leaves the album a strange, patchwork affair - I mean, it's like a Christian rock band slapping a five-minute Gregorian chant in the middle of an album, it ruins the flow completely. At one point there will be a sincerely presented Krishna chant, whilst at other points there are flute-laden psych songs which come across a bit like early Jethro Tull cast-offs and the occasional sub-Donovan hippy-folk outing (Notting Hill Gate, the major single from the album, is an absolutely asinine song about how hip the neighbourhood the band lived in was at the time), and then at other points you'll get a psych rendition of some traditional Indian music. The album doesn't flow at all well - the different moods don't blend into each other so much and the transitions are just jarring - and the individual songs are pleasant but never much more than pleasant. Maybe Quintessence really were as sincere as they made themselves out to be, but whilst the sincerity is here the musicality isn't.

I am delighted to support Oliverstoned's assessment of this totally magnificent - and wholly unexpected - release.

Simply listening to Quintessence was never what it was all about; this was a band that just had to be experienced "live". Their concerts were full-on experiences, with candles, lightshows, drapes, incense, chants, hypnotic rhythms and soaring vocals, with jams which gradually built up - (very much along the lines of Grateful Dead's Dead/Alive) - until the disparate parts wondrously coalesced, and the melodies expanded to invade all your senses, and you found yourself transported to another sphere altogether. With Allan's guitar wailing and floating gloriously, propelled by Maha Dev on rhythm guitar, Jake on drums and Sambhu on bass, while Raja Ram danced with his flute and Shiva danced with the audience, this was simply electrifying - psychedelic rock at its finest.

I have previously reviewed each of the band's five albums and consistently bemoaned the fact that no studio-based offering could ever hope to be truly representative of their "live" performances and actual musicianship; and, worse, that there was no chance, after all this time, of being able to do other than imagine how completely magical their concerts were. How happily wrong I was! Here we are, some forty years down the track, unbelievably resurrecting two live concerts from 1971, recorded at QEH on the same day (plus another half a concert, if you add in the surviving excerpts from the previous year's St Pancras concert, as captured on the sister CD, "Cosmic Energy: Live at St Pancras 1970"). What total joy!

I am not going to launch into a review of the individual tracks (a number of which are duplicated across the two concerts), because there is no need: people either loved the band or dismissed them as being a bunch of pretentious piss-takers peddling their own brand of pseudo-devotional clap-trap. Guess what? I loved them. Indeed, cards on the table: Quintessence is one of my favourite bands of all time. And the magic is all here again, on disc, in 2010.

Whilst the physical constraints of the CD format has necessarily resulted in the "Giants" suite from concert 1 (which should properly feature after Meditations, track 4) being housed as a bonus track on the St Pancras CD, we are nevertheless still left with well over 2 hours of sheer bliss. I note that the commentator in the booklet sides slightly with concert 2 as the preferred one. In the race to the stars, it's a severe case of splitting hairs, but, in my book, the inclusion of (a truly stunning version of) Wonders of the Universe elevates the first concert to a slightly higher plane, with the band on absolutely top form.

At their height, the band earned the reputation as being one of the best "live" bands in the world. They undoubtedly were. And now, thanks to this release, they are again, within the given constraints. Music and lights from the spheres, indeed!

Whoever mastered the double disc at Hux records deserves a medal - it has truly been a labour of love. The sound quality is absolutely crystal clear. And the accompanying booklet is hugely informative - (two of the concerts at which I saw the band are missing from the itinerary at the back, but it is both unreasonable and unrealistic to expect total accuracy after all this time).

All in all, this package is altogether just about as good as it could ever hope to get; and, to me, it's (quite literally) wonderful - as Oliverstoned says, a total masterpiece! Accordingly, I couldn't recommend it more highly. But I freely accept that it may now sound chronically dated and distinctly less than wonderful to the uninitiated!