SUPER ROBOT

Ota Petrina is a Czech lyricist,composer,musician and singer.He was born in Male Zernoseky in 1949 and his early music years found him as a guitarist for the group The Golden Kids.Around mid-70's Petrina wrote material for Czech female singer Petra Janu and worked also with C & K Vocal and singer Lubosem Pospisilem.But Petrina's feet were both rooted strongly in the progressive rock field,so in 1978 he released his debut solo album ''Super Robot'' on Supraphon,helped by Vladimir Padrunek on bass,Jan Neckar on keys and Anatoli Kohout on drums.

The 11-min. starter ''Já nejsem já'' is quite an eclectic mix of Space Rock,Psychedelic and Progressive rock.Starts off as a spacey PINK FLOYD-number with harmonica and synths to offer shortly gentle GENESIS-inspired guitar tunes with touches of mellotron till the very end.''Čas neodeslaných dopisu'' follows the same path,orchestrated soft rock with a slow- tempo and expressive vocals.''Nebýt tebe'' is a different story,a standard Blues Rock ballad with no surprises,while ''Tak zazpívej jí blues'' is more psych/space-oriented soft rock with good guitar work but again with the familiar singer/songwriter style.The short ''Podivín'' is like stolen from an early GENESIS album,pastoral Acoustic Music with short orchestration and gentle vocals.''Computer III. Generace'' is more on the heavy side of rock with blues influences and a spacey feeling overall.''Super-Robot'' has a strong space/symphonic vibe with excellent HACKETT-ish hints on guitars and lovely synths,the middle-section with the acoustic guitars and flutes is similar to ''Trespass''-era GENESIS,while the following notes recalls bands like SHYLOCK or PULSAR with heavy spacey content.Definitely a brilliant composition.

The talent of this musician is undenieable,''Super Robot'' is the proof for this fact,as the album is a nice journey into Prog,Psych,Space and Blues rock.However this work lacks in really memorable or stunning material,while the absence of these characteristics (exception the vocals) that make all these East-European bands unique is a negative point too.Nevertheless this obscurity deserves some more attention and I recommended this album for lovers of eclectic blendings.