Late-'60s concept band Hello People was put together by New York producer Lew Futterman. Basing his concept on French mime films, Futterman assembled a group of Ohio musicians to make up the group, dressed in full face paint and performing wordless mime routines between their songs during their live sets. The first lineup of the band consisted of guitarist and singer W.S. Tongue, bassist Greg Geddes, keyboardist Larry Tasse, drummer Ronnie Blake, guitarist Bobby Sedita, and flute player Michael Sagarese. Taking on stage names like "Goodfellow" and "Much More," the band was born and recorded its debut, self-titled album in 1967.
The Hello People were one of the more interesting also-rans of their day, never really scoring a hit record but turning heads for a moment with their gimmicky mime motif, dressing in full face paint and performing wordless skits between songs while performing. A convoluted back story and one best ignored when examining Fusion, the second of eight LPs produced in the group's lifetime, and arguably their brightest moment.
More or less the creation of New York producer Lew Futterman, the band reached out in several directions at once to cash in on various musical trends at the inception of their Summer of Love. Watching mimes tune in, turn on, and drop out may have been a little harder to swallow at the time, but with decades of hindsight, the various attempts at counterculture significance on Fusion are pleasantly comical, surprisingly inspired, and often weirdly deep. Beginning with the moody, Baroque pop of "White Winged Doves," the album switches gears with almost every song.
The Free Design-esque flutes and social commentary of "Anthem" are bizarrely mismatched, and abruptly fade into the proto-prog horns of the instrumental "Jelly Jam," and then into the electric Dylan rip-off of "How Does It Feel to Be Free?" Beatles-via-the-Monkees pop, psychedelic folk, and rootsy road ballads round out the album's diverse ten songs, bringing together a vaguely conceptual album about fusing ideas and styles from a vaguely conceptual band. Buffered by nostalgia, the ten completely processed stabs at appropriating styles of the day hold some weight and feel enjoyably odd as tuneful reminders of strange days past.
by Fred Thomas
Tracks
1. White Winged Doves (Peter Weston) - 4:11
2. Anthem (W. S. Tongue) - 4:01
3. Jelly Jam (Bobby Sedita, Greg Geddes, Larry Tasse, Michael Sagarese) - 4:00
4. If I Should Sing Too Softly (W. S. Tongue) - 3:16
5. How Does It Feel To Be Free (W. S. Tongue) - 3:41
6. Pray For Rain (Peter Weston) - 2:53
7. A Dream Of Tomorrow (Peter Weston) - 4:18
8. Everything's Better (Bobby Sedita, Larry Tasse, W. S. Tongue) - 3:17
In the mid 1960s, so concerned were the Danish-American Blegvad family by the US’ nightmare political mood following the Kennedy assassination and the escalating Vietnam conflict that they upped sticks from prosperous mid-century Connecticut and relocated to sleepy Hertfordshire. It was there, at the fee-paying St Christopher School in Letchworth, that Peter Blegvad formed a band with aspiring musicians Anthony Moore and Neil Murray (who doesn’t appear again in this story but would later play bass for Whitesnake and Black Sabbath.) The teenage band, variously named things like Slap Happy and the Dum-Dums, went their separate ways as teenage bands tend to do. After a stint at a British art school, Anthony Moore moved to Hamburg in 1970. On arriving, two people would change the course of his creative life. One was Dagmar Krause, a Hamburg native who had already been a member of early alternative folk act The City Preachers and recorded the excellent psychedelic avant-rock album I.D. Company in 1970 with vocalist Inga Rumpf. Krause and Moore quickly became an item.
The other was Uwe Nettelbeck, a German leftist intellectual and critic who had begun acting as a middle-man between label PolyGram and the West German avant-garde. Nettelbeck had effectively assembled the membership of Faust and, admirably, convinced the label to finance a new studio for the group in a former schoolhouse in the village of Wümme on the outskirts of Bremen. Meeting Nettelbeck was fortuitous timing. Moore was developing a fierce interest in tape machine experiments, influenced by European avant-garde composers like Stockhausen and Pierre Schaeffer but also English pop experimentalists such as George Martin and Joe Meek. Through Nettelbeck, Polygram recorded three albums of Moore’s work – 1971’s Pieces From The Cloudland Ballroom and the 1972 releases Secrets Of The Blue Bag and Reed Whistle And Sticks. “It was enough for PolyGram to throw up their hands in despair,” remembered Moore in a 2022 interview with Perfect Sound Forever website, “at that point, Uwe asked me if I couldn’t possibly make something a little more listenable.”
He phoned up his old friend Peter Blegvad, who was bored, lonely and studying in Exeter. Of course he wanted to get on the next plane to make an experimental rock album. His arrival at Wümme minted the three-piece act that would adopt the name of Peter and Anthony’s old school band. “Peter, Dagmar and myself were offered the use of the studio and as we were just a trio,” writes Blegvad in the liner notes to the new reissue, “it seemed a natural choice to ask Faust to become our rhythm section.” Jean-Hervé Péron, the bass player, Gunther Wüsthof, the keyboard and sax player, and Zappi Diermaier, the drummer, became, in effect, Slapp Happy’s rhythm section.
"Acnalbasac Noom" was their second LP, recorded in 1973, and engineered by Kurt Grauner, in Faust's legendary Wumme studio. Like the first it was produced by Faust's Svengali Uwe Nettelbeck, using Faust as the Slapphappy house band. Unaccountably it was rejected by Virgin Records, who made the group re-record all the material with different musicians and another producer in their own studio. That version is still available through Virgin as 'Casablanca Moon' -- they straightened up the name too. As time has told, it is now universally accepted that Acnalbasac is the definitive version of this material. This rather overdue reissue, taking advantage of significant technological advances, has been completely re-mastered by Bob Drake from the original tapes. The CD also features a handful of extra tracks, including the single 'Everybody's Slimming' released to coincide with a one off concert at the ICA in the '80's." Bonus tracks: "Everybody's Slimming," "Blue Eyed William," "Karen," and "Message."
by Fergal Kinney, 15 September 2023
Tracks
1. Casablanca Moon - 3:05
2. Me And Paravati - 3:31
3. Mr. Rainbow (Peter Blegvad) - 3:50
4. Michelangelo/The Drum - 6:30
5. A Little Something (Peter Blegvad) - 3:17
6. (Silence) - 0:14
7. The Secret - 3:25
8. Dawn - 3:36
9. Half-Way There (Peter Blegvad) - 3:08
10.Charlie 'N Charlie - 2:24
11.Slow Moon's Rose (Anthony Moore) - 3:08
12.(One Minute Silence) - 0:56
13.Everybody's Slimmin' - 4:12
14.Blue Eyed William (Peter Blegvad) - 3:37
15.Karen (Peter Blegvad) - 3:23
16.Messages (Dagmar Krause) - 2:13
All compositions by Anthony Moore, Peter Blegvad except where indicated
In the days when folk-rock first emerged from Sunset Strip nightclubs, Sonny & Cher were its King and Queen, with Top 10 hits like "I Got You Babe," "Baby Don't Go," and "The Beat Goes On" pulsing from transistor radios across the country. With the duo as hot as they would ever be, Sonny Bono recorded and released Inner Views, his first -- and only -- solo album. As it was in 1967, it remains today a singular listening experience.
The opening track, the nearly thirteen-minute long opus grande, "I Just Sit There," is the perfect example of what listeners are in for. It employs a sitar as its lead instrument, quotes from both "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic" and "A Day In The Life" within sixty seconds of each other, liberally uses faux-Dylanesque harmonica and organ stings throughout, rhymes "sturgeon" with "virgin" and thunders from your speakers with Sonny's own Wall Of Sound. They just don't make records like this anymore. As Sonny's Inner Views solo album is just 33-minutes long, we have filled out this CD with every Sonny Bono solo Atco single there ever was.
From his first solo hit "Laugh At Me" (heard here in the mono single-lyric version, the stereo album-lyric version, and a previously unreleased original backing track recording session) through his cover versions of "Misty Roses" and "Cheryl's Goin' Home" to the shortened "radio friendly" re-edited single versions of many Inner Views tracks which Atco somehow thought might become big hits. Inner Views includes 16 tracks and a 20-page booklet with all of the album lyrics and with three essays about the album from varying perspectives.
Every Atco release Sonny Bono ever issued solely under his own name is now in one convenient package. Inner Views has been out of print for three decades. It has been remastered from the Atco vault masters and appears on compact disc for the first time anywhere. Sonny Bono was shagadelic before shagadelic was a registered trademark. And with this absurdly comprehensive Rhino Handmade expanded reissue of Inner Views there is now 69 minutes of incontrovertible, permanently encoded digital proof. Inner Views is available as an individually numbered limited edition of 1,500 copies.
Tracks
1. I Just Sit There - 12:45
2. I Told My Girl to Go Away - 4:21
3. I Would Marry You Today - 4:26
4. My Best Friend's Girl Is Out of Sight - 4:16
5. Pammie's On A Bummer - 7:52
6. Laugh At Me - 3:00
7. Tony (Brian Stone, Charles Greene, Sony Bono) - 2:22
8. The Revolution Kind - 3:26
9. Georgia and John Quetzal (Brian Stone, Charles Greene, Sony Bono) - 2:14
Well, back then (1969/70) I was on tour with the band “Missus Beastly”. This may mean next to nothing to you. "Missus Beastly" was a totally weird group that improvised psychedelic rock for hours when there was always enough of the stuff in the medicine cabinet. And we weren't just a sensation in Westphalia! We gave it to our fans every night - we didn't know what would happen and we didn't know that one of our friends would jump out of the window because he thought he could really fly. But that's a different film.
So, now I was standing in some dim city hall, only the lighting and sound crew were there and a funny drummer from England who was setting up his drum kit with dedication. He was part of "Amon Düül II", who had been headlining this small tour through small towns in southern Germany for over a week. Please don't ask me what city it was in, what time of day, or what time of year. I think it was spring 1970.
My buddies in the dressing room had just finished their blotting paper, so it was time for me to do my own private sound check all by myself. I rammed my Gibson into the Fender Showman and let it howl to celebrate the day, then transitioned elegantly into Jeff Beck's "Rock My Plimsoul." Then Keith Forsey, the English drummer for “Amon Düül II”, set up the eavesdroppers and simply joined in. The group's second English loanee, Dave Anderson, also picked up his bass and didn't let us down. An outsider would certainly have had the feeling that the three of us were having fun with music for the first time in weeks. And we had that.
At some point the two of us, Keith Forsey and me, Paul Vincent, decided to forget all the psychedelic Krautrock shit and do our own British thing. A mixture of Jeff Beck Group, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Cream and everything... That was our world.
Back then, I lived in Munich in my old rusty house, the VW Bully with the “Star Club” logo on it, somewhere on a quarry lake. In any case not far from Klara, Keith's Munich girlfriend from Hasenbergl. We always went to Klara's secretly to shower, my friend Woldy Fette, who had accompanied me from Lippe-Detmold to Munich, Keith, who had long since started working with Klara, and me.
Ambassador Music, our London producer, got us two really great musicians, keyboardist Pete Wood and bassist Rick Kemp, to record our songs with Keith on drums and me on guitar. By the way, Pete Wood had a small global career with Al Stewart ("Year Of The Cat") in the following years. And the good Rick Kemp also achieved some respect, at least in the British Isles, with his group “Steeleye Span”. The sound engineer who recorded the four of us in a small but nice backyard studio in London's Dalston district was a certain Robin Sylvester. I later found his name on a number of “Jethro Tull” records, well the world is that small...
Our LP was mixed in one of the finest London establishments, the Trident Studio, where such illustrious people as George Harrison came and went at that time. Imagine accidentally opening a studio door and accidentally finding yourself face to face with Marc Bolan, one of the gods you've always wanted to meet: "Oh sorry, wrong door!" "No problem!" And everything is completely normal. At the front counter you drink your cola with the top-class musicians, as if they were the nice guys from the parallel class. And your English is so good that no one thinks you're a Kraut, thank God, but rather an Australian or South African. Bingo. No more stupid Nazi jokes, just: The cigar goes around and it's just "Peace and Power to the Monkeys". And then, a few weeks later, we finally had the mixed tapes and had to go back to Germania.
The record company Metronome in Hamburg liked our band, turned out to be a generous association and promised us all kinds of support for the live promo, i.e. our band gigs. However, they first had to transfer all the money to Ambassador Music in London, because they were the official contractual partners.
When, during the disco fever, we the Munich musicians had the opportunity to go to L.A. in the wake of Giorgio Moroder, Keith went crazy and actually made a full career in America. He stopped playing drums, which is a sin, co-wrote the lyrics to "Flashdance/What A Feeling" with Irene Cara, produced Billy Idol, Icehouse and also did a few tracks with the guys from Simple Minds. But at some point his tracks were lost in the snow of Los Angeles and New York.
But I didn't like disco too much and preferred to stay in Munich with my wife and children, started writing chamber music on the side and recorded a few well-conceived LPs as a soloist, including one with German lyrics. 1973 "Makin' Our Own Sweet Music", 1975 "Vincent's Flying Rock & Roll Circus", 1981 "Sternreiter"
I played, arranged and co-produced several albums and tours for Udo Lindenberg from 1975 to 1980, which I thought was really great at the beginning, finally big halls, long tours, endless recording sessions, but towards the end it was easy couldn't stand it anymore.
For 28 years (from 1975 to 2003) I composed, produced and played for and with the Swabian blues bard Wolle Kriwanek and put together a band for him that could be seen and heard throughout Germany. Unfortunately, my friend Wolle died unexpectedly at Easter 2003. I've been writing film music since 1979 and have had great success with it: I won the German Film Prize in 2001 in the film music category!
by Paul Vincent, Mai 2003
Tracks
1. Hallelujah / Signs Of Strange (Paul Vincent Gunia, Keith Forsay, Wolfgang Fette) - 7:48
2. Z.I.P. (Paul Vincent Gunia, Keith Forsay) - 4:33
3. The Winter Song (Paul Vincent Gunia, Keith Forsay) - 6:28
4. English Rain (Paul Vincent Gunia) - 2:18
5. Mini Funk (Paul Vincent Gunia) - 0:47
6. Waterloo (Paul Vincent Gunia, Keith Forsay) - 4:11
7. Friend (Paul Vincent Gunia, Keith Forsay) - 6:46
8. Ode To A Little Knight (Paul Vincent Gunia, Keith Forsay, Wolfgang Fette) - 5:43
"Self" emerged a delight regardless, chiefly courtesy of the live second side that caught the band in full flight at Exeter University. Despite being just two songs long (""Freedom"" and ""Water Goddess""), the performance rolls back the years so effectively that the faintly workaday weight of side one is barely even relevant to the album's glory. There, of course, the band's customary blending of Indian mantra and jazzy heartbeats is as eclectic as ever, and the only downside is that the group has not really moved on from its original vision.
by Dave Thompson
Tracks
1. Cosmic Surfer - 3:49
2. Wonders Of The Universe - 4:13
3. Vishnu-Narain - 6:25
4. Hallelujad - 4:15
5. Celestial Procession - 1:20
6. Self - 3:08
7. Freedom - 6:44
8. Water Goddess - 14:26
9. You Never Stay The Same - 6:16
10.Sweet Jesus - 2:57
All compositions by Allan Mostert, Ronald Rothfield, Richard Vaughan, Jake Milton, Dave Codling, Phil Jones
Tracks 7,8 recorded live at Essex University, December 11, 1971
Reissue of a relatively obscure but rare US prog album from 1971. Sanctuary was based out of Kansas. They featured Erik Bikales on flute - he later went on to a popular career in the New Age genre. This is anything but that. Its a mix of original and cover tunes and frankly the covers are the most interesting part.
Beginning with “All In My Dreams,” the flute’s light and colorful timbre captures the ear, serving as a clarion call for all to follow and creating moments of majesty, as music and message seamlessly transform into one. Sanctuary’s interpretations of Yes’s “Time And A Word” and Edgar Winter’s “Winter’s Dream” are not mere covers. They are bright and bold musical statements, refusals to submit to the negativity of the times. Their unique take on these compositions, as well as their own, provides the kind of bright eyed anthems their generation’s voice needed to compete against the backdrop of war and social upheaval dominating the headlines."
Tracks
1. All In My Dreams (Roger Bruner) - 5:28
2. 1982A (Bill Champlin) - 3:58
3. Time And A Word (David Foster, Jon Anderson) - 4:54
4. Hard To Be (Roger Bruner) - 8:43
5. Winter's Dream (Edgar Winter, Johnny Winter) - 20:43
6. Things Get Better (Roger Bruner) - 6:40
7. Freedom Rider (James Capaldi, Stephen Winwood) - 5:32
8. Rainmaker (Harry Nilsson, Bill Martin) - 6:51
9. Magnificent Sanctuary Band (Roger Bruner) - 3:46
Don “Sugarcane” Harris, from Pasadena, California was born in 1938, and by his teens was playing R&B guitar and violin with Dewey Terry under the name Don and Dewey. In the 60’s they separated, and Harris began to concentrate on electric blues violin. He made many appearances as a sideman, with artists such as John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Johnny Otis, John Lee Hooker and Little Richard. He is probably best remembered, though, for his work with Frank Zappa in the 1970’s, notably the grinding, take-no-prisoners rocking blues “Weasels ripped my Flesh”. Here he makes the most of his raw, shredding sound, frequent “harmonica” trills, tremelo and double stops. His playing can be fast and fluent, but is most effective on slow numbers, where his distinctive thin tone and shaky vibrato come across as vulnerable and sensitive. After a lengthy battle with pulmonary disease, on December 1, 1999 he was found dead in his Los Angeles apartment at the age of 61.
David Lindley (It's A Beautiful Day) referred to Sugar Cane as a “force of nature”, while Dave Arbus, of East of Eden, said “there are quite a few violinist on the scene, but Sugar Cane is the only true rock fiddler. His feeling, his phrasing, his timing, unreachable!”
Guitarist Randy Resnick, who played with Don in the band Pure Food and Drug Act (PFDA)in the 1970’s had this to say; “I never got chills in any other band like the ones I got when Don took off alone in a cadenza or when he and Paul did violin-drums duets. It was tribal, it was primitive and it was real music with all the faults that make us human. Don had a swing to his playing, a groove, a soulfulness that you don't hear anywhere else. No one plays with such gut-wrenching rawness, because musicians are trained to play "better".
"Fiddler On The Rock", released 1971 is a tripped-out batch of funk rock tracks – one of the biggest crossover successes of the MPS lable! Don Harris sings and plays violin – and he gets some very heavy backing by a trio that includes Harvey Mandel on guitar, wailing away with those slow choppy riffs that made him the west coast equivalent of Dennis Coffey's east of the Mississippi fuzzed-out guitar groove. Features the slow funk classic "The Pig's Eye", plus "No Inspiration", "The Buzzard's Cousin", and "Eleanor Rigby".
Tracks
1. Eleanor Rigby (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) - 9:35
2. I'm Gonna Miss You - 4:48
3. The Buzzard's Cousin - 6:04
4. The Pig's Eye - 6:27
5. So Alone - 7:05
6. No Inspiration - 4:00
7. 'Till The Day I Die - 7:08
8. My Soul's On Fire (Victor Conte, Don "Sugarcane" Harris, Paul Lagos, Harvey Mandel, Randy Resnick) - 4:12
In case you're wondering, Dragonwyck is the title of a 1944 historical romance by Anya Seton, made into a movie starring Gene Tierney and Vincent Price. This Dragonwyck, on the other hand, was a psych band from Cleveland. Before taking on their eventual name, they called themselves Sunrise and recorded five songs in 1968 shortly after forming. Those tracks are included here as a bonus to the first Dragonwyck album, which dates from 1970 and includes refined versions of three of the Sunrise tunes. To a certain extent it shows that the musicians were quite young at the time, but from the start they show promise, operating in a realm of dark psychedelia with fuzz guitar and prominent keyboards.
Skip ahead to 1970 and you get a step up in virtually all respects: the recording quality is better, the playing is better, and they’ve refined their compositions. Only singer Bill Pettijohn and guitarist Tom Brehm remain from Sunrise, though they tend to define the sound, so there is continuity. Keyboards are expanded to include harpsichord in addition to organ. While I wouldn't exactly call this music proto-progressive, it's certainly headed in that direction. Unfortunately, the band never managed to find a sympathetic label to release their music, and only 85 LPs were pressed at the time.
Apparently the master tape was found, from which this reissue is taken. The band stuck at it until the mid 70s, recording two more albums' worth of material (also on World in Sound's slate).
by Jon Davis, Published 2007-03-01
Tracks
1. My Future Waits (Kenneth Staab) - 5:38
2. Ideas Within You (Kenneth Staab, Tommy Brame) - 1:47
3. Fire Climbs (Bill Pettijohn) - 9:02
4. Run To The Devil (Bill Pettijohn, Tommy Brame) - 3:55
5. God's Dream (Kenneth Staab) - 4:40
6. Ancient Child (Bill Pettijohn, Tommy Brame) - 4:57
7. The Vision (Bill Pettijohn) - 2:21
8. Fire Climbs (Bill Pettijohn) - 4:27
9. Flowers Grow Free (Bill Pettijohn) - 3:11
10.The Vision (Bill Pettijohn) - 7:02
11.Anything I'd Give (Bill Pettijohn, Tom Brehm) - 3:11
12.Ancient Child (Bill Pettijohn, Tom Brehm) - 4:51
Some bands seem only to have existed to provide future generations with cool samples. So it is with UK-based band Demon Fuzz, often classified as Afro-rock, who existed for a few years from 1968 into the early 1970s. Although Afreaka! is a good, occasionally great album, the band’s story is even more interesting.
Demon Fuzz was formed in London by a group of Caribbean ex-pats – Trinidadian saxophonist and percussionist Paddy Corea, keyboard player Ray Rhoden, guitarist Winston Raphael Joseph, bass player Sleepy Jack Joseph, singer Selwyn “Smokey” Adams, trombonist Clarence Brooms Crosdale and drummer Steven John. Initially things went well for the band, and they signed to Dawn Records, an offshoot of Pye, then a major label in the UK, if not exactly a signifier of quality. But the UK media didn’t really know what to make of a Black band that didn’t play reggae or soul, and, with little promotion, Demon Fuzz’s very of-its-era brand of semi-improvised funk-jazz-rock struggled to find an audience (though they were a live staple in the festivals of the era).
The band’s “Afro-rock” tag mostly seems to derive from the title, since the original album itself consists of five long, occasionally slightly aimless but often hypnotic and always funky jams, with only the slightest of African influences, unless you take into account that pretty much all western popular music ultimately has its roots in the continent. The first track is the 10-minute “Past Present and Future,” a driving but slightly bloated showcase for the band’s excellent ensemble playing. Initially, it’s an intriguing mixture of ominous, heavy, fuzz-toned guitar and percussion which becomes even better with the introduction of a slightly Middle Eastern beat, wah-wah guitar, ceremonial-sounding brass and groovy organ. But once everything is in place and the track really takes off about halfway through, it becomes a far more conventional but still enjoyable piece, a bit like an extended Deep Purple or Uriah Heep jam with added brass, which then softens into a more old-fashioned, bland rock ‘n’ roll feel, albeit with the unusual feature of a trombone solo.
The more concise, five-minute “Disillusioned Man” is more characterful, but could almost be the product of a different band. Light and jazzy, it features some great drumming and a nice, charismatic lead vocal by Adams that suggests that the band could have had a very different, more chart-centric career. To do that they would have had to forgo the song’s extended soloing, which would have been a mistake though; Corea’s light and fluid solo is one of the song’s most appealing features.
From the album’s title and cover, Afreaka! seems to suggest something dark, edgy and radical, but in fact the fairly standard and slightly unadventurous (if very enjoyable) jazz-rock continues throughout. Though the promotional material promises – and again, the album’s title hints at – the influence of African music, the eight-minute “Another Country” is an Electric Flag cover, and that really indicates the kind of direction Demon Fuzz were looking in for inspiration. The track isn’t vastly different from the 1968 original in style; it’s pretty much jazz-rock, being a little reminiscent also of Uriah Heep’s immortal “Wake Up (Set your Sights)” with its very late-‘60s hippie atmosphere. The song features another appealing vocal performance and is notable for an abrupt change of pace/mood, from organ-led rock to an atmospheric, sultry, Eastern-flavored sax solo in place of the elaborate Mike Bloomfield jazz guitar solo of the orginal. It’s a strong, forceful performance, but the guitar is oddly muted in comparison with the gritty rock tone that opened the album, and after snaking effortlessly along, the song ends with unexpected abruptness and feels slightly truncated, even at eight minutes long.
“Hymn to Mother Earth” is another eight-minute track, and though in a similar mold to the songs that precede it, it feels like it should be the album’s centerpiece. A slow, melodic, dense and initially, tranquil, organ-heavy paean to the Earth that is a reminder that ecological concerns are hardly new, even if they were largely ignored in the past. As with most of the album’s tracks, the song launches into another, busier phase at the halfway point, transforming into Afreaka!’s most convincing jazz-funk section, the sax playing against the percussion, bass and organ before the impassioned vocal comes back in and gives the song a kind of psychedelic, quasi-gospel, or at least spiritual lift as it fades away. It’s probably the album’s most well-balanced song; neither the vocal section or the soloing dominates and the transition between the different passages is smooth and logical.
Even if the whole album had been up this standard though, Afreaka! would be more of an interesting minor curio than a lost masterpiece. But in fact, the album continues on with more of the same. “Mercy (Variation No. 1)” was originally the album’s closing track and it begins strongly with pulsing bass, clattering percussion and a bit of nice wah-wah guitar, but its groove, though bustling and atmospheric, is so repetitive that the track’s nine minutes feels interminable, despite a somewhat jumbled change of time signature early on. It’s not bad though, dramatic and hypnotic, a rare example – or possibly the only one – of the album sounding something like it looks.
Initially, Afreaka! ended on a high with this performance, but Radiation’s reissue follows the example of the reissue by including the band’s only other release for Dawn, the “I Put a Spell on You” maxi-single. Surprisingly, the version of “I Put a Spell on You,” though strong enough, is far less distinctive and less atmospheric than the Screamin’ Jay Hawkins original. Smooth and organ-centric, it’s a very pleasant version and complements the album tracks nicely, but it isn’t hugely distinguished, and limited to the three-and-a-half minute format, the band feels a little cramped and compromised.
“Message to Mankind” is similarly succinct, one of the most soul-oriented tracks the band recorded, with Adams and Rhoden particularly shining, though the brass is nowhere to be heard. The final track is, depending on your point of view, promisingly or unpromisingly-titled “Fuzz Oriental Blues,” but aside from a great, driving beat, it feels almost like a mashup of various different tunes, like one of those old Hammond Organ covers albums from the ‘70s. It’s a nice showcase for the band’s excellent interplay and especially for Rhoden’s Procol Harum-like organ playing, but at under seven minutes and with little soloing apart from the organ, it feels like they are just getting into it as the song thunders to a halt.
Afreaka! is definitely not an album that needs to be approached with caution, but it comes with a lot of keywords which are slightly misleading. It is funky and jazzy and it has been sampled by a handful of hip-hop artists, but it’s not quite the cool treasure trove of beats, bass and flute that you might hope for if you came across its imposing cover in a thrift store. However, it is enjoyable, accomplished and easy to listen to, especially if you have an appetite for early ‘70s jazz-rock atmospheres and long organ solos.
by Will Pinfold, November 15, 2022
Tracks
1. Past Present And Future - 9:50
2. Disillusioned Man - 4:58
3. Another Country (Ron Polte) - 8:28
4. Hymn To Mother Earth - 7:00
5. Mercy (Variation No. 1) (Ray Harris) - 9:20
6. I Put A Spell On You (Screamin' Jay Hawkins) - 3:54
7. Message To Mankind - 3:52
8. Fuzz Oriental Blues - 6:48
All compositions by Ray Rhoden, Winston Raphael Joseph except where noted
Originally called Sweet O.K. Supersister, Supersister is formed in The Hague by Robert-Jan Stips (vocals and keyboard), Sacha van Geest (flute), Marco Vrolijk (drums) and Ron van Eck (bass). Supersister’s progressive sound sticks out among the beat and rock music and the band spearheads the local hippie scene. In the spring of 1970 Supersister’s first single She Was Naked is released. It’s the group’s first hit and it earns them a record deal with Polydor.
The third Supersister album is a big favorite with prog fans because it provides a good representation of the group's combination of Caravan-inspired jamming and Zappa-esque humor. Pudding and Gisteren consists of a pair of pop songs and pair of lengthy prog jams. The songs are instantly appealing: both "Radio" and "Psychopath" combine witty narratives with jaunty, hook-laden tunes that pack plenty of musical complexity into a compact space.
The longer-form jams show great technical prowess and the occasional element of wacky humor ("Judy Goes on Holiday" finishes with an unexpected but amusing parody of doo wop music), but they lack the cohesiveness and memorable themes that define the best prog rock epics. That said, fans of art rock are likely to enjoy this album thanks to the group's considerable instrumental chops: Robert Jan Stips in particular shines, coaxing a variety of sounds out of his electric piano to fit the shifting styles of the music. Ultimately, the appeal of Pudding and Gisteren will depend on the listener's tolerance for eccentricity and musical self-indulgence, but it will offer plenty of surprises and musical fireworks for the patient prog rock enthusiast.
by Donald A. Guarisco
Tracks
1. Radio (Robert Jan Stips, Ron Van Eck, Sacha Van Geest, Marco Vrolijk) - 4:01
2. Supersisterretsisrepus (Robert Jan Stips) - 0:18
3. Psychopath (Robert Jan Stips) - 3:59
4. Judy Goes On Holiday (Robert Jan Stips, Ron Van Eck, Sacha Van Geest, Marco Vrolijk) - 12:39
5. Pudding En Gisteren - Music For Ballet (Robert Jan Stips, Ron Van Eck) - 21:01
6. Dead Dog (Robert Jan Stips) - 2:43
7. Wow (Live Version) (Robert Jan Stips, Ron Van Eck, Sacha Van Geest, Marco Vrolijk) - 12:59
Bonus Tracks 6,7
Supersister
*Robert Jan Stips - Lead Vocals, Keyboards, Vibes, Harmonica
*Sacha Van Geest - Flutes, Tenor Sax, Vocals
*Ron Van Eck - 4 & 6-String Basses, Guitar, Harmonica
