Eclectic Prog Britannia: 1973
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URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=134904
Printed Date: July 19 2025 at 18:18
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Topic: Eclectic Prog Britannia: 1973
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Subject: Eclectic Prog Britannia: 1973
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 02:09
 1973: Cirkus - One - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqAdWz_Q36M" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqAdWz_Q36M  1973: CMU - Space Cabaret - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoRE9Cm7HVw" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoRE9Cm7HVw 1973: Curved Air - Air Cut - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL19kp5Xy8sYBEE3A3wpRINWNyN8A_hB9Z" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL19kp5Xy8sYBEE3A3wpRINWNyN8A_hB9Z  1973: Family - It's Only a Movie - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3FE70DB1531989E9" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3FE70DB1531989E9 1973: Flash - Out of Our Hands - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_TaS3ukydpKS2uQ7qCQ79buCH2BF9tEM" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_TaS3ukydpKS2uQ7qCQ79buCH2BF9tEM  1973: Ron Geesin - As He Stands - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUfViXI00lVBAISptdsQS9G6r7bY9MqBx" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUfViXI00lVBAISptdsQS9G6r7bY9MqBx 1973: Gentle Giant - In a Glass House - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5918EC0001048893" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5918EC0001048893 1973: Peter Hammill - Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeXG1JK9gqjp3QFw65vHBP-9-cmbe_G-s" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeXG1JK9gqjp3QFw65vHBP-9-cmbe_G-s 1973: Home - The Alchemist - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBej6wCQDc0" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBej6wCQDc0 1973: King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXhfRoiJBIitfeySfg3M2JpsHofCulKv9" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXhfRoiJBIitfeySfg3M2JpsHofCulKv9 1973: Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Messin' - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbIN9DHtOfK8Q6Ihm2UMLfAr8s4g-Z6LA" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbIN9DHtOfK8Q6Ihm2UMLfAr8s4g-Z6LA 1973: Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Solar Fire - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL44kuYYS8ykUJnEZBFSlzY1h_vSAlgEL" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLL44kuYYS8ykUJnEZBFSlzY1h_vSAlgEL 1973: Traffic - Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lQWxZmXZsWzjkrK17Hl2rCODvvKVAfzqg" rel="nofollow - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lQWxZmXZsWzjkrK17Hl2rCODvvKVAfzqg
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Replies:
Posted By: progaardvark
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 05:05
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Larks' Tongues in Aspic. If all of us gather together and eat cauliflower and beans, we can make our own wind farm. ------------- ---------- i'm shopping for a new oil-cured sinus bag that's a happy bag of lettuce this car smells like cartilage nothing beats a good video about fractions |
Posted By: Grumpyprogfan
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 05:14
| Gentle Giant |
Posted By: Logan
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 05:22
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Of those I know well, my top three are: Gentle Giant - In a Glass House Peter Hammill - Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic GG and KC already each had three votes, so I decided to go with the underdog Peter Hammill (and, actually, I think I would have anyway). I should listen to more Curved Air and spin more Manfred Mann (I have heard Solar Fire). ------------- Watching while most appreciating a sunset in the moment need not diminish all the glorious sunsets I have observed before. It can be much like that with music for me. |
Posted By: David_D
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 06:01
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Larks' Tongues in Aspic or Solar Fire (Prog or Hard Rock?) ------------- quality over quantity, and all kind of PopcoRn almost beyond |
Posted By: Saperlipopette!
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 08:23
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I feel like going for Curved Air - Air Cut. Their last great album, but it's really quite lovely. I guess I logically should have gone for Larks' Tongues but it's actually my least favorite of KC's seven first classics (I still rate it a 9/10 actually, but all of their first eight studio albums are either 9/10 or 10/10 for me). Chameleon comes third, followed by Circus One and Glass House. |
Posted By: Octopus II
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 11:01
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Gentle Giant - In a Glass House King Crimson - Larks' Tongues in Aspic Curved Air - Air Cut Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Solar Fire |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 12:38
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1. Cirkus - One 2. CMU - Space Cabaret 3. Flash - Out of Our Hands 4. Home - The Alchemist |
Posted By: Steve Wyzard
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 12:52
| With all due respect to In a Glass House, the standout here is Shoot Out at the Fantasy Factory. This album gets a bad rap because it's always compared to the previous album, The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys, which of course is Traffic's masterpiece. Shoot Out is bluesier and more melancholy (Winwood was physically ill during the recording sessions) but only ever so slightly short of Low Spark. |
Posted By: verslibre
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 13:06
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MMEB – Solar Fire ------------- https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_ipg=50&_sop=1&_rdc=1&_ssn=musicosm" rel="nofollow - eBay |
Posted By: Mellotron Storm
Date Posted: May 08 2025 at 15:56
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King Crimson takes it for me. ------------- "The wind is slowly tearing her apart" "Sad Rain" ANEKDOTEN |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: May 09 2025 at 02:46
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Air Cut. 17 year old Eddie Jobson and the heir apparent to Wakeman, Emerson and the rest. Love this way than the more vaunted albums of the year. Don't get LTIA at all, sounds horrible and musically disjointed to my ears. In A Glass House is GG getting really serious but I miss the more obvious hooks of earlier albums and again sound wise is horrid for a 1973 album. TPATG is the only GG album I can really happily chime with. |
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: May 09 2025 at 02:49
| Gentle Giant - In a Glass House |
Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: May 09 2025 at 13:18
Why am I not surprised that I'm the only One who voted for Cirkus. 
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Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: May 10 2025 at 03:50
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CIRKUS were a quintet of Geordies from Sunderland in the north-east of England. Cirkus' opening act in their big top performance came in 1974 with their "One" album. Another two decades would pass by before Cirkus re-emerged in the arena with their second album "Two - The Global Cut" in 1994, followed by a third album "III - Pantomyme" in 1998. Cirkus weren't quite finished yet though because they had one more final performance left in their repertoire with "IV - The Blue Star", released as recently as 2017. It's the opening 1974 act we're focusing on here though, which was re-issued on CD in 2015 with two bonus tracks added to the original nine songs on the album. Cirkus have conjured up an incredible acrobatic performance of a lifetime with the exhilarating opening number "You Are". It's a booming and bombastic explosion of powerful prog that's unashamedly pompous and anthemic. The magnificent music features a rousing female chorus, repeatedly chanting "You Are" in perfect harmony over this fully orchestrated symphonic epic. There's also the gorgeous sound of a Mellotron to be heard underlaying the music, which adds to the sense of symphonic spendour and glorious majesty. If this bravura opening performance is anything to go by, then we could be in for a rather special treat indeed in the big top arena of Cirkus. The next spectacular act is "Seasons", a marvellous Mellotron melody balancing on a delicate high-wire of lush strings which wash over the listener in a tremendous rush of permanent waves of symphonic pleasure and delight. "Seasons" is a haunting, melancholic refrain that's in the same stellar league as the Mellotron classic "Epitaph" by King Crimson, with the Cirkus singer blessed with the same rich honeyed tones as the gifted and much- missed vocalist Greg Lake. "Seasons" is a gorgeous sunburst of dazzling anthemic power and epic grandeur that's guaranteed to brighten up the dullest of days. It's back to "April '73" now for our third Cirkus act. "April '73" is a very commercially appealing song with definite smash hit potential, if only it had been given the chance to grace the airwaves by being released as a single. There are obvious parallels to be drawn with Jeff Lynne's Electric Light Orchestra in this sensational string symphony of sound. The splendid year of 1973 is generally recognised as being the ultimate high-point of Progressive Rock, and you can hear why when you listen to the superb Cirkus performance here. Our fourth act "Song for Tavish" is a wondrous story of love and romance, where the lovelorn singer goes into full heart-wrenching emotional overdrive in this powerful symphonic ballad. He's able to conjure up powerful emotions and tug at the heart-strings in the same way as Justin Hayward of the Moody Blues, and this song does indeed sound somewhat reminiscent of their classic "Nights in White Satin". Just as Barclay James Harvest recorded their rousing and anthemic masterpiece "Poor Man's Moody Blues", this Cirkus song represents a less well-known but equally good resemblance to the classic Moody Blues epic. Save a prayer now, because "A Prayer" is the title of the stirring paean which brings Side One to a thrilling climax. This powerfully impassioned, devotional song opens deceptively gently as a lilting Folk Rock refrain, but then blossoms out magnificently into a majestic symphony of epic proportions with truly awesome power and magnificent grandeur. WoW!! This is a rousing and stupendous celebratory song of praise and worship, the likes of which you may never have heard before. The rather mundane "Songs of Praise" on Sunday television will never be the same again! It's time for some "Brotherly Love" now, a storm and thunder hard rocker that's the heaviest song so far on the album. It's always a delicate balancing act in juggling the right combination of "hard" and "soft" songs for an album, but Cirkus have mastered the art to perfection in this sensational album of thrilling trapeze performance acts/songs. We're getting all nostalgic now with "Those Were The Days", and the early seventies were indeed the glorious days when prog ruled the music world. This invigorating and uplifting explosion of psychedelic Prog-Rock will take you right back to those wonderful glamour and glitz days of Afghan coats, flared jeans, platform boots and Iron Butterfly flowers and beads. This is a song that's positively bursting at the seams with flower-power love and a desperate yearning for magical times gone by. It's only when you look back, you realise what a wonderful time the seventies were for music lovers, despite what some cynical music journos might say, but then, what do they know!? Enough reminiscing, it's time to meet "Jenny", a charming Pop song to add to Cirkus' stunning repertoire of great songs. This beautifully-produced melody is given the full symphony of strings treatment, guaranteed to carry you blissfully away on a #9 Dream to Seventh Heaven. The final song is simply called "Title Track" divided into "i. Breach" and "ii. Ad Infinitum". Cirkus fully intended to make this a truly unforgettable grand symphonic epic to linger in the memory, forever and ever, amen, and they've achieved that with spectacular style and panache. This has to be one of the most marvellous symphonic epics EVER to close an album! Cirkus have given the big top performance of a lifetime with this "One" outstanding album! |
Posted By: someone_else
Date Posted: May 10 2025 at 04:39
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Three contenders: In a Glass House, Solar Fire and Chameleon in the Shadow of the Night. I gave the edge to Peter Hammill. ------------- 
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Posted By: moshkito
Date Posted: May 10 2025 at 06:28
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Hi, I wanna SCREAMMMMMMM! With 8 of those albums in my collection, choosing one is a hassle. GG and KC progbably deserve to run away with that poll, but seeing Solar Fire not appreciated, and in the middle of several monster albums ... is really sad. Curved Air and Family, don't stand a chance, either! C'mon Paul, this ain't singles and the PA/PP Variety Poll!  ------------- Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told! www.pedrosena.com |
Posted By: Cristi
Date Posted: May 10 2025 at 07:21
It's not that MMEB is not appreciated, it's that they have some serious competition in the poll. |
moshkito wrote:Posted By: Psychedelic Paul
Date Posted: May 10 2025 at 08:30
I didn't choose the albums for this poll - it's just a collection of albums that happen to be listed under PA's Eclectic Prog banner for the year 1973.
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Posted By: A Crimson Mellotron
Date Posted: June 27 2025 at 04:25
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Here's another vote for Gentle Giant
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