Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here (1975)

Dan:

How do you follow a mega-hit album? Make another mega-hit album. That's what Pink Floyd did with Wish You Were Here, two years following Dark Side of the Moon. I remember buying the CD version of WYWH about 1985 - my very first CD purchase. In those days we marveled at the absence of surface noise and were told that CDs provided "perfect sound forever." At Sound Advice in Miami, a salesman made a point of stomping on a demo CD to impress customers that it did not affect play. Such was the hype of digital compact discs.

Of course, a lot of the hype was nonsense. Scratched CDs did skip. "Perfect sound" failed to survive simple comparisons with vinyl, revealing "digititis," a grainy and ear-fatiguing characteristic of early digital discs. But that did not deter their promoters from demeaning "scratchy, dusty old records" in order to sell the new digital medium. 

Forty years later, vinyl rules again. CDs are largely missing in action, supplanted by vinyl reissues and online streaming and downloads. Today, my copy of WYWH is a rip from a deluxe Analogue Productions SACD edition, which I later sold to a guy in Spain. It is a much better version than the one I first bought. I also sold my German vinyl pressing because I like my rock music in portable format to hear at the gym or in the car.

I've so far dodged the usual analysis of the music, mostly because everybody should already be clued into this wonderful record. It's constructed around the nine-part "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," an elegy for Syd Barrett. "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar" serve as an interlude to the main theme, forming a second related theme critical of the music industry: ("Which one is Pink?" asked the obtuse producer on "Have a Cigar").

Obviously, Pink Floyd had matured into the top band in progressive rock and beyond. With almost guaranteed sales, they could craft whatever they wanted to do musically into beautifully produced albums and live performances. 

Probably everyone has a story about their discovery of Pink Floyd. Few bands transcend normal criteria of excellence; the Floyd are one of them. 

Steve:

Wish You Were Here was such a strong follow-up to Dark Side of the Moon that fans are evenly divided on which is the better album. It's a vastly different album too, making its popularity all the more impressive. It was during the making of this album that the band began to seriously fragment, leading one member to quip in an interview (paraphrasing) "it should have been called Wish We Were Here." Clearly, it was difficult work, but the band, still in that sweet spot of commercial and critical success enjoyed by few others outside Led Zeppelin and the Beatles, pulled through.

Interestingly, a good portion of what would become the Animals (1977) album was already written and performed live by this time, and the less conceptually minded David Gilmour argued to put these songs on one side ("You've Got to Be Crazy" aka "Dogs", and "Raving and Drooling", aka "Sheep") while putting "Shine on You Crazy Diamond" on the other side. But Roger Waters prevailed, and instead spread out the "Shine On" suite across two sides, with three newer pieces forming its creamy center. I agree with Waters' decision - the sequencing lends weight both to the suite and to the pieces in the middle. Not to mention that the most famous of these tunes, the title track, has an excellent segue from its windswept outro to the ominous bass theme of the second half of the suite.  

I remember hearing this album on Dan's stereo not long after we'd discovered Dark Side of the Moon, but I was not aware it was his first CD as far back as 1983. I don't recall CDs entering our household until 1985, when Dan got his first CD player and (what I recall as) his first CD, Avalon by Roxy Music. Soon after, I got my first CD, Candy-O by The Cars. I was already a big Pink Floyd fan by that time, but I think the first Pink Floyd album that I actually owned was Meddle, which I got because Dan didn't already have it. 

[Dan's comment: Steve is probably correct about the dates; my brain is older than his and I have more I have to remember. I've changed my part of the post from 1983 to 1985. I'm sure no one reading this post cares anyway.]

Brian Eno - Another Green World (1975)

Dan:

Brian Eno came to the music world's attention in the early 1970s with a pair of albums that defied conventional standards for rock and roll. Here Come the Warm Jets (1973) and Taking Tiger Mountain (by Strategy) (1974) shocked my ears, yet they were hailed as breakthrough albums. Critics extolled their virtues; listeners like me struggled to understand their appeal. 

Abruptly, Eno made two albums in 1975 that no one could have predicted, given their immediate predecessors. Discreet Music marked the dawn of ambient music, created and recorded in the studio by one person at the controls of various electronic devices. The rear cover of Discreet Music provides a map of the signal paths for the various loops and processing, giving the listener a sense of the creative process. It's a beautiful album in many respects, but certainly not rock.

Eno's second 1975 release was Another Green World, which was not ambient but rather a hybrid of songs, group interplay, and electronic wizardry. It is also a beautiful album but much more engaging than Discreet Music. Contributing musicians include Phil Collins, Robert Fripp, Rod Melvin, Percy Jones, Paul Rudolph, Brian Turrington, and John Cale. They don't comprise an actual band but rather play parts in Eno's designs. Eno and Rhett Davies assembled the album as co-producers.

I've owned this album for over 40 years, beginning with the vinyl copy I bought at Spec's in Miami and now enjoying a remastered digital version. It never seems to age or lose its relevance. 

Another Green World's success and almost universal appeal lies in the way that the tracks are sequenced. Eno's singing voice is technically unimpressive, and it conveys an odd sense of emotional detachment. However, his songs alternate with instrumental interludes that connect the elements into a moody whole with lots of emotional weight. It's hard to think of any other album that pulls off such trickery to such marvelous effect. 

There are too many special moments on Another Green World to mention them all. Every song and transition seem to cast magical spells that prompt profound insights that don't depend on any literal understanding. "I'll Come Running" and "Everything Merges with the Night" come closest to being songs about something, but most lyrics conjure images of imaginary places. (This sense of place is key to enjoying Eno's ambient albums, especially Ambient 4 (On Land)). Each of the instrumental tracks, several less than two minutes long, is a miniature gem. 

Sonically, the whole album scores high marks - lots of juicy bass, judicious use of synthesizers, and terrific blending across the different instruments and devices. It's no mystery that Eno is as wonderful a producer as he is a musician. 

Steve:

I'll echo Dan's praise of Another Green World's sequencing. More than anything else, this album is presented as a piece of artwork, almost a series of musical paintings, and the pacing, length, and placement of these pieces is as important to the overall work as the pieces themselves. The highlights for me are the two instrumental pieces "In Dark Trees" and "The Big Ship", two songs whose music perfectly evokes the titles, and at a couple of minutes length apiece, seem like they could each go on forever. But that seems to be the key to all the best songs on this album - each track is a glimpse into one narrow aspect of this mystical Green World, and each glimpse could easily last an entire afternoon, but instead it merges into a new setting, like gazing out the window of a train passing through the countryside.

Of the vocal pieces, "St. Elmo's Fire" is a favorite, not least because it has a wonderful Robert Fripp guitar solo; "Golden Hours" is hypnotic with its odd evocation of ennui and/or dementia; elsewhere, the refrain of "I'll Come Running to Tie Your Shoe" comes across as a sincere pledge of love and devotion. But it is the interstitial instrumental pieces that really define Another Green World. Rarely had instrumental music been so visually oriented in the rock era.

The Grateful Dead - One From the Vault (1975)

Dan: 

My wife and I used to stop at an outlet mall on our trips to North Carolina, which gave me a chance to browse the CDs at Music for a Song. That's where I picked up The Grateful Dead's 2-CD set, One From the Vault, in the late 1990s. I was still new to the Dead and the price was right. Little did I know the depths to which I would later dive into their massive trove of live recordings. 

One From the Vault is one of the best live recordings of the Dead, and it signaled a change in the band's direction post-Pigpen. Blues rave-ups were replaced by more cerebral jazz-infected jams such as "Eyes of the World," "Franklin's Tower," "The Music Never Stopped," and "Help on the Way/Slipknot." I wouldn't say that they turned toward prog because the band did not follow trends. Instead, they set trends that few bands could emulate. 

However, their approach during the 1975-1978 period was genuinely progressive in the sense that they were moving forward compositionally into more complex material. For instance, the closing number on One from the Vault is the mysterious "Blues for Allah," drawn from the studio album of the same name. It's a spooky 21 minutes that is part social commentary and part pure experiment. The Dead never made anything like it afterwards. 

I ran a half marathon in 1999 and stuck One from the Vault into my fanny pack along with a portable CD player and headphones. It got me through to the finish line! I can't think of a better soundtrack for my only long-run experience. 

Steve:

I took even longer than Dan to get into the Grateful Dead. I always admired their musicianship, but I just couldn't get much of a handle on the songs. Fans always tell you that you've got to listen to them live to understand why they're so good. However, I only started to understand them once I tackled their studio albums - that way, I learned the songs, which gave me the tools to make sense of their live extrapolations. So if you've tried getting into the Dead by listening to 30-minute jams on "Truckin'/The Other One" and just didn't understand what was going on, may I suggest you try my approach instead. 

Once emboldened with a working knowledge of their songbook, particularly the Blues for Allah album (one of their best and most progressive), listening to One From the Vault achieved a whole new level of enjoyability. This concert was a great, albeit unusual choice for the inaugural "From the Vault" release in that it documents a show that I believe had never been circulated to fans prior to its release, and it is also an atypical show. The band had been off the road for quite a while prior to this show, and the Allah material was receiving its public debut. The show was not just a stop on a tour; it was a special event during a non-touring period for the band. This gave the show a "showcase" atmosphere and a sense of occasion. Indeed, the performance of "Blues for Allah" was a pretty unique event in itself. The band only performed this piece five times, all in 1975.

Apart from the Allah material, you get some great performances of recent favorites such as "Eyes of the World" and the Jerry Garcia solo number "Sugaree". The recording sounds great and the formal invitation graphics of the packaging is entirely appropriate given the special occasion documented on this CD. Again, though, I stress that if you're not already familiar with the Dead, this may not be a great place to start. It helps to digest it in context - both the band's situation at the time and its established repertoire, as documented on prior studio work. Contrary to popular belief, they were actually a pretty great studio band too.

Terje Rypdal - Odyssey (1975)

Dan: 

In Miami, I often tuned my FM radio to the University of Miami jazz programs. One day, the deejay played "Better Off Without You" from Terje Rypdal's Odyssey album, thus introducing me to the Norwegian guitarist. I'm not sure when or where I picked up the 2-LP set of Odyssey, but it could not have been long after I heard the one cut on the radio.

Rypdal's guitar should be music to the ears of prog lovers. He began as a prog rocker but moved into the jazz genre while retaining many prog tendencies (e.g., long form compositions, emphasis on guitar), but excluding vocals for the most part (e.g., Inger Lise Rypdal adds wordless vocals to After the Rain (1976).

But this was neither jazz-infused rock nor rock-infused jazz. It was something new, unique to both rock and jazz. With his long sustained and pleasantly distorted chords, he could create a wall of sound against which bassists supplied swelling bottom and drummers provided accents. Drummers were mostly freed from the need to play conventional rhythms because most of Rypdal's music floats, soundscapes suspended in time and space. 

As a double LP, Odyssey serves as the perfect showcase for the guitarist. His trio is augmented by organ and trombone. Tracks range in length from the opening "Darkness Falls" at 3:27 to the closer "Rolling Stone" at 23:54. Half of the album's eight tracks are over 10 minutes long. Engineer Jan Erik Kongshaug and Producer Manfred Eicher, who jointly created the "ECM sound," are responsible for converting the guitarist's imagination into a fully realized sonic journey. 

I've collected about a dozen of Rypdal's ECM albums. See my review of one of the best at MORE FAVORITES: Reflections on Jazz in the 1980s: Search results for rypdal (jazzinthe80s.blogspot.com). Odyssey is the choice for our blog because it marks my discovery of one of my favorite artists. For me, Terje Rypdal is the perfect example of the fusion between jazz and progressive rock. 

Steve:

I don't recall when or where I first heard Terje Rypdal, but I'm certain it was from Dan's collection. At the time, I was accustomed to hearing jazz around the house, and I didn't really have the sophistication to distinguish one jazz artist from another (I still don't, arguably). Terje Rypdal, along with other artists on the ECM label, were the first such artists to stand out. Rypdal, as an electric guitarist sounding not too far off from David Gilmour and Steve Hackett in my mind, won me over with his sound alone, especially at the time when I was first getting serious about progressive rock.

After Rypdal's Works compilation CD on ECM (a series afforded to many other ECM artists), Odyssey is definitely the first complete album by Rypdal I fully digested. I copied Dan's LP onto a C90 cassette and brought it with me to college, where it made an impression on my friend Rob, who was finding inspiration in Rypdal's guitar stylings. In one of our inspired jam sessions in the college band room (Rob, being a music major, had a key to the music building for after-hours use), we recorded a version of Rypdal's "Ambiguity" (from the Chaser album) with him on guitar and me on drums. Sadly, that recording is lost. But Odyssey was the catalyst behind all that free-wailing, modal atmospheric stuff for us. For many years to follow, we would continue to record together as The Blue Sign Factory, and the Rypdal aesthetic is one of the few common threads across our many recordings. 

Below is a link to a video I have watched many times, of Rypdal and his band performing for a TV broadcast around the time of Odyssey. It captures the magic of his band better than my words can.

Santana - Borboletta (1974)

Dan: 

Borboletta follows closely in the footsteps of Caravanserai and Welcome, using Santana's tried-and-true formula. It's more like Caravanserai than Welcome, but all three albums are part of the band's peak period. None of them should be missed, especially by listeners only familiar with Santana in the 1980s and beyond. The 70's run is fully conceived and executed, blending subtle opening and closing passages that sound like insects on a warm night, tight vocals, and (best of all) extended jam-like suites featuring Carlos at his soaring best.

On Borboletta, the sequence beginning with "Here and Now" through to the end lasts about 16 minutes and is worth every second. "Here and Now" serves as a halting-tempo prelude building expectations that soon become realized by the faster-paced "Flor de Canela," driven by percussion and sustained by long chords from the electric piano, organ and guitars. After a little over two minutes, "Promise of a Fisherman," the centerpiece of the album, comes on gloriously. The temperature rises over the steady pulse to climax ecstatically during its 8-minute length. It's one of the most exciting aural adventures I've ever experienced in rock and roll. 

I'm envious of anyone who has not heard the Santana albums reviewed in this blog. They get to hear them for the first time!! 

Also recommended are Lotus, a 3-LP set of live recordings from Japan (1974), and Moonflower, a part-studio, part-live recording (1977). These serve as valuable cappers to a fertile period that was bound to end. 

Steve: 

When we decided upon the list of albums to review in this blog, I noticed that for some reason, I had never acquired a copy of Borboletta. Although I remember it being in Dan's collection, I wasn't sure what any of the tracks sounded like. Being old-school, I held off on listening until a few days later, when a used vinyl copy magically appeared on my doorstep. Thanks Discogs!

It turned out I did remember most of this album. Although Caravanserai, Welcome, and Borboletta represent the sweet spot of Santana's most exploratory period, each has its unique flavor. If Caravanserai was a cosmic search through a spiritual desert, and Welcome was the resulting spiritual awakening, then Borboletta feels like a celebration of the natural world. The brief opening and closing pieces feature percussion and nature sounds by guests Airto Moreira and Flora Purim. The R&B/Soul influences are more pronounced, with "Give and Take", "Life is Anew", "One with the Sun", "Practice What You Preach", and "Mirage" all featuring smooth jazz/soul vocal arrangements. Even the titles of the aforementioned tracks reflect a desire for harmony with nature. I have been in the mood for 70s R&B lately, so this goes down especially well.

The instrumentals, comprising about half of the album, continue the advances made on Welcome. I agree 100% with Dan as to the intoxicating power of "Promise of a Fisherman" - the rhythm track bubbles over like a boiling cauldron, maintaining intensity for its duration. Tom Coster (keyboards) and Carlos Santana (guitar) both contribute dazzling extended solos. Welcome to jam band heaven.

I still have some catching up to do on this album, but I'm glad this blog finally prompted me to grab my own copy. No Santana collection is complete without it!

Hatfield and the North - Hatfield and the North (1974)

Steve:

When discovering the bands considered within the "Canterbury Scene", there were two things that made it especially enjoyable: first, the bands had a great sense of humor (or humour, as they call it) and knew how to make even their instrumentals hilarious; and second, many of the same people kept appearing on these albums, giving the impression that you were now part of a cool club of eccentric Brits who were having a ton of fun and inviting you to join in. Once I had discovered Caravan, the next logical band to tackle (thanks to the CD liner notes that helped guide me) was Hatfield and the North, which included vocalist/bassist Richard Sinclair from Caravan.  

Despite this preparation, I was still surprised at the unique personality of Hatfield and the North once I heard their debut release. Pianist/organist/composer Dave Stewart immediately stood out as a strong instrumental voice, contributing jazzy instrumental pieces that changed constantly and conveyed an attitude of anything-goes fun and amusement, much like Frank Zappa's more playful instrumental works. On guitar, Phil Miller sounded like no one else, combining Eric Clapton's love of thick distortion and clean articulation with a jazzer's touch around complex chord changes. Richard Sinclair (pictured) further confirmed his ability to play with jazz chops, while contributing occasional vocal pieces that were disarmingly wry and goofy while containing complex changes of their own. Last but not least, Pip Pyle proved himself the perfect drummer for this outfit, as his rhythmic instincts were in sync with the band, and his own compositions added a bit of experimental flair to the album ("The Stubbs Effect", "Shaving is Boring", the latter of which appears to enter a sort of dream-state in its mid-section).  

I can't quite remember the first time I heard this album, as my post-Caravan discovery happened quite quickly, but Hatfield and the North has remained on my top shelf of prog rock records, to the extent that I cited it as "my favorite Canterbury album not by the Soft Machine". High praise that, if you know me. 

Dan:

After Steve had introduced me to this band, I was visiting London and saw a highway sign directing drivers to Hatfield and the North. That must have been the inspiration for the band as they sat around wondering "what should we call ourselves?" Having exhausted the limited variations on the Caravan theme (Caravan, Camel), why not pick the next convenient traffic sign? After all, random naming had worked for The Grateful Dead who picked their name on the first stab at an encyclopedia page. 

Both of the albums I know about (the self-titled debut and the follow-up The Rotters Club from 1975) are joyously zany while exhibiting exceptional musicianship. as Steve reports. The song "Share It" on Rotters Club is the one I remember the best, thanks to Richard Sinclair's fine vocals. 

The wacky song titles on Hatfield and the North do, quite honestly, make it difficult to remember the tunes so my practice is not to worry about where songs begin and end or what they're named. Like the long Caravan suites, it's better to sit back and go with the aural flow. 

Hatfield and the North reunited for a live performance in 1990, which is available on CD and DVD. The concert includes both old favorites like "Share It" and "Underdub" as well as new pieces. It's worth checking out. Also, Richard Sinclair formed a group called Caravan of Dreams, which released a self-titled album in 1992 and the live An Evening of Magic (1993). These are proof that the Canterbury scene lasted well beyond its heyday in the 1970s.

Gong - You (1974)

Steve:

Gong remain one of the most beloved progressive rock bands from their time. They combined the goofy whimsy of the Canterbury bands (leader Daevid Allen was an original member of The Soft Machine) with the sci-fi austerity of heavier bands such as Magma. Gong may have seemed a bit off-the-cuff with their whimsy, but they also were serious world-builders with a fantasy/science fiction concept adding thematic unity and weight to their vision.

You represents the climax of what I consider the band's second phase - the first phase had been quite raw and almost garage-rock, while the second phase brought in more skilled musicians, particularly guitarist Steve Hillage and percussionist Pierre Moerlen, both of whom would eventually lead prolific bands of their own. 

My initial experience with Gong was a bumpy one. The first album I heard was in my college radio station's record collection, Expresso (the US equivalent of Gazeuse!), which is a fantastic mallet percussion-based jazz fusion album from the late 70s with Allan Holdsworth on guitar. Expresso was entirely unrepresentative of their "classic" prog period. My second Gong album was an archival CD (The History and Mystery of the Planet Gong), consisting of a variety of radio sessions and random live recordings from the 60s focusing on the early Daevid Allen-led material as well as some of his later solo material in the 70s. In short, the two albums represented entirely different bands, and I admit to being confused at the time. Back in those days, you took what you could find.

Eventually, the Radio Gnome Trilogy albums (now acknowledged as the backbone of the Gong legacy) became available on CD, and it became clear why Gong was so highly regarded in progressive rock circles. You is the last chapter in this trilogy, and the instrumental fireworks detonated on this album represent some of the finest space rock of its era. More furiously paced than Pink Floyd, more complex than Hawkwind, and more lyrical than Tangerine Dream, You combines the best of all three and then stamps it with their own whimsical personality.

You begins deceptively - the first two tracks are short vocal tracks operating in silly mode, but then the album escapes the Earth's atmosphere, never to return. "Master Builder" is the first major piece, a repetitive droning riff in an odd meter, over which Moerlen superimposes swift polyrhythmic drumming and the rest of the band offer exciting sax and guitar solos. "A Sprinkling of Clouds" is a showcase for synth player Tim Blake, who builds beguiling layers of overlapping lines to create a hypnotic rhythm, eventually ushering in the rest of the band who turn it into a space groove to die for.  

"The Isle of Everywhere" begins side 2 with more patient pacing - not so much a race through the stars as a pleasant float through the cosmos. Finally, "You Never Blow Yr Trip Forever" finishes the album with the first vocals since the beginning of the record, offering a relatively tough rock edge across another long-form piece.  

You's combination of driving space rock and jazz fusion soloing puts it in a unique class among its mid-70s progressive rock peers. Its innovations would later inspire the likes of such insanely prolific modern bands as Ozric Tentacles, Acid Mothers Temple, and even techno/electronica bands, proving their ongoing relevance well beyond the 1970s progressive rock scene. Among the classic prog bands, only Can has been more influential on music from the 80s onward.

For a naïve yet more thorough overview of Gong, you could do worse than read the overview I wrote for Exposé over 20 years ago and which has been memorialized on the Gnosis web site: Gnosis2000.net - Gong

Dan:

Thanks to Steve, I have three Gong albums in my collection: You, Gazeuse!, and Shamal. You is my favorite, although I have a sentimental attachment to Gazeuse! and the now absent Expresso II because I used to have those LPs back in the 70s. You see, I'm attracted to the sound of the vibraphone within a jazz context. Pierre Moerlen is an excellent vibes player and he apparently reshaped Gong into a jazz fusion group. You more accurately summarizes the multifarious phases of Gong in one terrific album.

It's also a very likeable album. Although that may sound like faint praise, I am often turned off by records that I have to work too hard to appreciate. There's nothing superficial or "lite" about the music on You. I prefer to think of it as a logical progression of a band that consolidates their early goofiness with their later instrumental prowess. 

Franco Battiato - Clic (1974)

Steve:

Franco Battiato stands as an important figure in Italian music - he is well known in his country as a wide-ranging singer/composer from the early 1970s through to his death in 2021. He had success in a number of styles, including electronic music, new wave, symphonic works, movie soundtracks, and even opera. At the start of his career in the early 70s, he was a key figure in an unusual avant garde scene that combined Italian folk music, electronic experimentation, progressive rock, and musique concrète.  

I first heard of Franco Battiato well into my forties via the ProgArchives website and forum. In the late '00s through the early '10s, I spent a good chunk of my free time on music forums, and for a few years I was on ProgArchives all the time. Although not a prolific reviewer, I eventually became an active participant in the running of the site itself, in addition to interacting with others on the forum. There were tons of knowledgeable music fans from all over the world on that forum, and I had gotten to know some of them well and came to trust their recommendations. 

Battiato's first two albums, Fetus and Pollution, caught my attention initially with their striking artwork. Once I listened to them, I felt I'd discovered a new type of music that directly resonated with me: music made with fairly primitive means, using strange new technology in previously unforeseen ways, with abundant imagination, and conveyed by a great singing voice. 

All of Battiato's first four albums are classics of Italian progressive music, and Clic, the fourth, is my favorite, although I'm not sure many Battiato fans would agree with me on that pick. By this point, Battiato's music was turning more abstract, relying more on electronics and musique concrète, with very few vocals. The main draw of this album as I see it is how a clear human personality can be felt and understood within these pieces - even through the usually cold detachment of the avant-garde medium. Somehow, I feel this guy. His free association of musical and sonic ideas strikes me as very intuitive. I'm not sure how transferable that feeling is but give it a try if you're curious.

Dan: 

I was eager to play this album even though Steve was hesitant to include it. As you can tell from his comments, it means a lot to him so I was extra curious. Fortunately, most of the devices used by Battiato are familiar to me, having understood early John Cage, some computer-generated music of the 80s, and of course "traditional" prog (if that's not too contradictory of a term). The dedication of the album to Stockhausen seems appropriate. 

Of course, synthesized sounds became commonplace in the world of rock during the 80s, so music like that on Clic could be seen as a resource for artists like Phil Collins, Steve Winwood, and many others. Instrumental synth artists became very popular, especially Kitaro and Vangelis, with the latter's lush movie soundtrack albums. Clic is not like any of these derivatives, but rather a set of procedures that could be used by almost any later genre.

What I like the most about Clic is its mystery, made even more mysterious by my inability to understand Italian language. It definitely feels like it's about "something," but it's not describable in any literal sense. I don't really need an explanation because Clic impacts in other ways. It has a definite form and shape, as opposed to random noises sometimes offered in avant-garde music. It grows on me with every new listen.

I do appreciate Battiato's variety of techniques. His use of a string quartet augments the electronic devices skillfully, especially on "Propiedad Prohibida." The use of background voices conversing, chanting and singing during "Nel Cantiere Di Un'Infanzia" and "Ethika Fon Ethica" (the last two parts) is reminiscent of John Zorn's wonderful tribute to Italian film composer Ennio Morricone, The Big Gundown (1988). Zorn inserted dialog from Morricone's films into a thickly concocted musical stew. You can read my review of The Big Gundown at MORE FAVORITES: Reflections on Jazz in the 1980s: Search results for big gundown (jazzinthe80s.blogspot.com)

The 1988 reissue of Clic is faithful to the original 1974 issue. Apparently, there were LP versions that compiled parts of Clic with other music. I'm happy to discover Clic  and welcome it into my collection. 

Hawkwind - Hall of the Mountain Grill (1974)

Dan:

To paraphrase a common reviewer cliché, if you have room for only one Hawkwind album in your collection, make sure it's Hall of the Mountain Grill. (Maybe make room for Space Bandits too). Those are among the few Hawkwind offerings that I have spent any time with, but I'm glad to have been exposed to this band. Further exploration into their astounding discography of 96 albums between 1969 and 2023 is beyond my reach. 

I had read a bit about Hawkwind in the British jazz magazine The Wire. They covered relevant rock bands and were excited about Hawkwind. Steve, as usual, was way ahead of me and gladly loaned me some of his Hawkwind CDs. It didn't take long for me to home in on Hall of the Mountain Grill, which satisfied my need completely. I also got a lot from Space Bandits (1990), mostly from the first three tracks: "Images," "Black Elk Speaks," and "Wings."

Hall of the Mountain Grill is a coherent suite of songs that manifest hard rock sensibilities alongside more prog-like music. Violins, synthesizers, saxes, kalimbas, mellotrons and flutes all find their way into Hawkwind productions. I prefer to think of their approach as progressive rather than space-rock, which is how they're often typed, but I'm also not interested in playing the classification game. (As Duke Ellington once said, there are only two kinds of music - good and bad.) Hawkwind are unique and consistently good. Leader Dave Brock clearly knows what he wants from the band and each album succeeds on his own terms. To me, Hall of the Mountain Grill sounds like their pièce de résistance.

What I like most about Hall is the contrast between the individual songs, which flow naturally as part of a suite (another telltale prog sign). Thus, we begin with the rocking "The Psychedelic Warlords (Disappear in Smoke)" which segues into the mysterious "Winds of Change," which precedes the rocking "D. Rider," and so on to the end. Some of the instrumentals appear to be conceived as transitions, such as the title track and the lovely "Goat Willow." The rock songs are great, especially "Lost Johnny" and the closer "Paradox," but their impact is enhanced dramatically by the shorter tracks featuring wind sounds, acoustic piano, and flute. In other words, Hall of the Mountain Grill is a wonderfully conceived album, not just a set of rock songs. I'd recommend it to the faint of heart who might normally avoid noisy metal bands. Hawkwind can rock with anybody, but on Hall of the Mountain Grill, at least, they created something special for all to enjoy. 

Steve: 

Hall of the Mountain Grill was the first Hawkwind album I came across in a CD store, and thus was the first one I bought. It's a little hard to know if it's my favorite of their albums because it was my first or because it really is the best. I did learn later that this album is very highly regarded in their discography among fans, so I consider myself lucky that it happened to be the first one I saw. All these years later, I've acquired another dozen or so Hawkwind albums, and every one of them is entertaining, which is the sign of a band that knows its job and gets it done.  

"D-Rider" (track 3) is possibly my favorite Hawkwind song - it was written and sung by sax player and second vocalist Nik Turner, and I've discovered that many of my favorite moments from the original Hawkwind lineup were driven by his macabre proto-New Wave sensibilities (see also "Brainstorm" and the classic "Masters of the Universe"). Hall of the Mountain Grill works extremely well as a unified piece, as it flows organically from start to finish, making it an easy continuous listen with no dull patches.  

Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)

Dan:

There's hardly any room for additional commentary on Pink Floyd's classic The Dark Side of the Moon. So I'll just relate the story of my first encounter with it. As we moved from Pittsburgh to Miami in August 1977, we learned that Elvis Presley had died. Rock and roll had certainly moved on from the Elvis years, as the entries of our blog document. I had only begun to appreciate the significance of progressive rock and did not think of it as a genre. But that was soon to change.

One day, probably in early 1978, I was home listening to the noontime album on FM but got distracted. From another room I could hear the sustained low chords introducing "Time," which I had never heard before. I'm not sure if I rushed into the listening area or not, but I did hear the announcement at the end of the hour that the album just played was, in fact, The Dark Side of the Moon. 

I decided to get more rock albums into my jazz-heavy collection. So I went to South Miami and found copies of Dark Side in a pile next to piles of Billy Joel's The Stranger and Steely Dan's Aja. I figured the ones piled up were newly released and therefore the hippest choices. But the reason Dark Side was stacked up was not because it was a new release (like the other ones were). It had been selling in huge numbers since its release almost five years earlier! Duh.

This story illustrates just how clueless I was - probably the only 34-year-old person who had not yet heard such a famous album. Little did I know I would be blogging about it 35 years later. 

By now I've listened to and/or owned virtually every Pink Floyd album (thanks to my boy Steve). Only The Final Cut (1983) was a disappointment, but I probably gave up on it too soon. Even the novelty numbers from The Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Saucerful of Secrets have an enduring charm about them. I will always remember singing "Bike" with the whole family in our flat in Copenhagen in 1982. Steve was 12 years old at the time. No wonder he turned into a prog connoisseur!

The Dark Side of the Moon deserves all of the accolades it has received since its release. It's magnificent.

Steve:

I was in elementary school when Dan started playing the hell out of this album in our house. We had lots of fun going to Sound Advice (a hi-fi store in Coral Gables, Florida) to sample new stereo gear and speakers, and it was common for customers to bring along their own albums. The Dark Side of the Moon was a perfect subject for such tests, as was Aja by Steely Dan. The album seemed so cutting-edge in those late 70s that I recall being genuinely surprised to learn that it was released in 1973 - a lifetime ago in my personal timeline as a pre-teen.

This album's impact on Pink Floyd's career should be obvious by now - I almost consider pre- and post-DSotM Floyd as two separate bands - but it also had a seismic effect on popular music itself. Similar to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, this was a rare time in popular music where the cutting edge of music coincided with mass popularity; Dark Side of the Moon remains one of the best-selling albums of all time. Albums like this still do occur, but it's a wonder when they do. Both the music itself and its societal impact should be taught in schools.

Genesis - Selling England by the Pound (1973)

Dan:

After moving to Miami in 1977, I kept hearing about a band named Genesis, like they were something special. As I read about them, one reviewer maligned their music as "ponderous Medieval suites." I took that as a positive and began investigating more deeply. 

I began with Trespass. Indeed, it was a Medieval suite replete with murderous wolves and threatening knives. I liked it. The following album, Foxtrot, was even stranger judging from the cover that pictured a red-dressed woman with a fox's head standing on a floe surrounded by sharks. Nursery Cryme also had disturbing cover art: a croquet-playing child poised to swing her mallet at decapitated heads. 

Despite their gruesome covers and themes, each LP contains great prog compositions, including gentler songs like "Time Table" from Foxtrot, "Harlequin" and "For Absent Friends" from Nursery Cryme, and "Visions of Angels" from Trespass. Each of these earlier albums tell compelling musical stories that helped to shape the emerging genre of progressive rock. 

Phil Collins had been with Genesis through all of the aforementioned albums (save Trespass), and frequently sang harmony vocals behind Peter Gabriel. He was given a rare lead vocal spot on Selling England by the Pound, on which he sang the brief "More Fool Me." Soon he would take over the band and adopt a more pop style, leading to outrage among dedicated fans but more album sales and popularity. I won't weigh in on that overworked controversy.

To my ears, Selling England by the Pound, is the best Genesis album. That's NOT because the earlier and subsequent albums were flawed in any way, but because Selling England is so good. It combines the narrative approach but anchors it in more contemporary English life. It includes the accustomed theme of conflict - "The Battle of Epping Forest" - which refers to a real park that is literally just outside many Londoners' doors. A modern version of Romeo and Juliet is the subject of "Cinema Show". The four lengthier tracks are superb in design and execution, beginning with the opener "Dancing with the Moonlight Knight," which nods to the Medieval themes of previous albums. 

"Firth of Fifth" is a masterpiece, highlighted by one of the most perfectly constructed guitar solos I've ever heard. It's not an improvised solo, of course, since Steve Hackett plays the same notes in live versions of the song. "Firth" also contains the best lyrics I've heard from Genesis, especially the closing line: "The sands of time were eroded by the river of constant change." 

Also noteworthy is "Cinema Show" which segues into "Aisle of Plenty" to close the album. I remember sitting with Steve after a long car trip. At home, I put on my Classic Records pressing of Selling England, side 2 as requested because Steve liked "Cinema Show" the best. I had to agree with the choice, even though I usually played side 1 to hear "Firth." Steve also clued me into the source of the deep bass notes that add to the drama of "Firth of Fifth;" he said they were pedals. I never knew what they were except I was sure they were not simply electric bass notes. Nice to have a living prog encyclopedia in the family!

Steve:

Like many people of my generation, my first exposure to Genesis was hearing their numerous late 70s and early 80s hits on the radio. Abacab, Three Sides Live, and Genesis were all extremely popular among my peer group, and I rarely heard any mention that there was a band before "Follow You, Follow Me". I was fully on board with this crowd (and for the record, I still enjoy the Collins years as much as I do the Gabriel years). Of course, I was aware of the Peter Gabriel era (Peter himself was making hits at the time as well) because I would see these oddly Medieval looking earlier albums in the record stores. At the time, seeing a track on an album such as "Supper's Ready" with its multiple sections and 23-minute length was decidedly not a selling point for me. I can still remember what it felt like to be neither impressed by nor interested in the supposed selling points of progressive rock, and that memory has helped me understand the mindset of average folks for whom majesty, complexity, and musical ambition really doesn't matter much. I still liked what I liked, and I was certainly exposed to a lot of progressive music thanks to Dan, but it wasn't something I was actively seeking at that age.

I got a fairly good introduction to the Gabriel-era stuff via Dan, which prepared me for the full-on obsession come my college years, where I had a similarly curious friend to discover prog with (Rob, mentioned elsewhere in this blog). Selling England by the Pound is widely considered to be one of the elite prog albums in the genre's entire history. Progarchives.com currently lists it as the #2 album of all time, based on an algorithm primarily driven by user ratings and reviews. I had not looked at the rankings for over a decade prior to writing that last sentence, yet I was confident that this album's stature would not have changed since that time.  

Even music fans not particularly into prog hold it in high regard. I believe this is because of the poetic yet approachable lyrics and the fact that the band had reached a peak in its ability to compose and arrange lengthy songs that told a story apart from (but in tandem with) the lyrics. Simply put, this album is surprisingly accessible and deals with very human emotions, fears, and concerns. The overriding theme, I believe, is that of wistful regret over a Britain that somehow lost its way - with vivid character studies of everyday people in a variety of settings, my favorite being the eccentric man obsessing over his lawn while wondering where it all went wrong in "I Know What I Like (in Your Wardrobe)".  

I still have a hard time following "The Battle of Epping Forest", the one song that is forever singled out as a weak spot on the record. Its only flaw, however, is that it makes you work a little harder to enjoy it - in contrast with the rest of the record, which goes down as easily as a nice cup of tea.

Caravan - For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night (1973)

Steve:

As mentioned in my commentary on In the Land of Grey and Pink, Caravan were among the first progressive rock bands I adopted once I had graduated from the "big guys" of Yes, Crimson, Genesis, Floyd, etc. and explored the lesser-known stuff. Caravan's If I Could Do it All Over Again, I'd Do it All Over You; In the Land of Grey and Pink; Waterloo Lily; and For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night were all frequent spins by both me and my chum Rob in that year at college. I have a pleasant memory of Rob and I listening to a Charlotte NC classic rock station at night, and noticing the DJ's selections were leaning pretty hard in the prog direction. We called the station and talked to him and made a request for some Caravan. "Caravan! I love them! What song?" We replied, "how about 'Memory Lain Hugh/Headloss'?" (from For Girls Who Grow Plump... hang on... all these long titles are making me tired). And he did - except he chose a different song from the same album, "The Dog, the Dog, He's at it Again", which was perfectly welcome as well because this album is solid all the way through.

On Caravan's 5th album, the band seemed to finally settle into a pair of shoes that they would wear comfortably for the remainder of their existence. Bassist and co-lead singer Richard Sinclair had left to join Hatfield and the North, leaving Pye Hastings as the primary composer and sole lead singer. A key new addition to the band was Geoff Richardson, providing ecstatic violin work that adds a good-time hoedown atmosphere to the progressive rock seriousness. There actually is a song called "Hoedown", though you'll never mistake it for New Riders of the Purple Sage with its 7/8 meter.  

Most importantly, the production values improved noticeably over their prior albums. There is a depth to the arrangements and the mix that gives the impression that this is a big budget mainstream album. Caravan were able to take advantage of this new sonic broth with consistently enjoyable songs that even your friends can smile and bob their heads to, while maintaining the element of surprise with unusual compositional decisions and exciting twists and turns. All this makes For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night the Caravan album that has aged the best for me. 

Dan:

Thanks again to Steve for turning me on to Caravan. For Girls opens with an exuberant suite of happy songs comprised as "Memory Lain, Hugh Headloss" and continues for the rest of Side 1, disturbed only slightly by the shifts to minor themes in "C'Thlu Thlu." Side 2 is basically two longer suites, similar to the wonderful "Nine Feet Underground" on Grey and Pink. "Chance of a Lifetime" appeals to me most, given its optimistic whimsy. It's also marked by a lovely viola solo by Richardson, who proves that he's not just a hoedown fiddler. "L'augerge de Sanglier" kicks off the final five-part suite that includes what I take to be the lovely "Pengola" before bringing the album to an exciting conclusion. 

Can - Future Days (1973)

Steve:

Prior to 1990, Can were a band I'd only heard about, lumped in with the German bands all callously tossed under the "Krautrock" umbrella, so when they finally made their debut on CD, I made sure to give them a try. Ege Bamyasi was my first, and it was not quite what I was expecting -- very repetitive and groove-oriented, it seemed on the surface to be the antithesis of the complex meters and multi-part suites that were part and parcel of prog. However, it did sound pretty awesome, so I continued to buy up their back catalog as it became available, even if I never considered them as a particular favorite. Even Future Days, the subject of this gushing review, only received an occasional listen at the time. 

It was a few years later that the details and the soul within this album hit me like a ton of bricks. That epiphany has stuck. If I had to name my favorite album of all time, this would probably be it.

These days, Can is an extremely hip band to name-drop. Their immeasurable influence on bands as diverse as Public Image Limited, Primal Scream, The Flaming Lips, and Radiohead (all extremely hip bands themselves) has put Can in an elite class of "influence" bands. And that is understandable. They were doing a sort of pre-trip-hop groove music all the way back in the early 70s, with studio sound quality that rivals that of their modern-day acolytes, despite having recorded most of it in their own studio on reel-to-reel tape with a minimum of overdubs. Still, Can can be an acquired taste for even the hippest of listeners. You can't blaze that many trails without leaving a bit of a mess in your wake, and Can could be difficult listening at times.

The key to their success (artistically anyway) was their tremendous skill at recording, engineering and editing the hundreds of hours of jams that were the band's daily work. Much of the credit for this goes to bassist Holger Czukay, a former student of Karlheinz Stockhausen, who took the curating and editing process as seriously as the music itself. Keyboardist/noisemaker Irmin Schmidt was also a Stockhausen student and had similarly sophisticated strategies in mind when crafting his parts and deciding what worked and what didn't. His role was laying beds of weird textures and chords to buttress the rhythmic storm of the ensemble.  Speaking of which...

No discussion of Can's incredible music is complete without heaps of praise laid on drummer Jaki Liebezeit who makes it all sound so easy. Indeed, you can listen to an entire album and realize you never stopped focusing on the drums (I do this with Led Zeppelin sometimes too). Guitarist Michael Karoli, much younger than the other guys in the band, was arguably the most conventional musician of the bunch, and helped ground their albums in a standard psych/rock language that improved its accessibility. That would still not be enough without the Czukay/Liebezeit groove machine sending your mind and body into a trance.

For me, Future Days is where the band's evolution over the previous 4 years reached a zenith and produced a sound that remains one of the most intoxicating I have ever heard. It is much mellower than any of their previous albums, but that mellowness is deceptive, as there is a continuous slow boil of tension just beneath the surface throughout the album. Liebezeit's work especially is incredible - extremely polyrhythmic, in the pocket, and yet quiet.

Each of the four tracks - one short one, two long ones, and one really long one - maintains the calm yet tense mood (upping the tension to a fever pitch at times, when needed) but approaches it from a different angle. Whether in a fun and playful hop ("Moonshake"), a foggy float through the clouds ("Future Days"), an exciting foot race through a dark forest ("Spray"), or all three at once ("Bel Air"), the focus and control of the band is felt throughout. Future Days is a remarkable achievement, which I highly recommend particularly to fans of adventurous modern indie rock. This was Radiohead's "Kid A's daddy", as one forum participant described it after I recommended Future Days to him.

Dan:

Years ago, Steve fed me a bunch of Can CDs, which I listened to dutifully but probably only played once or twice. I did not rip any of them into my digital collection. Within the past two years, however, I noticed that Future Days had been remastered and reissued as a Hi Rez download, so I asked Steve if he still had a copy I might revisit. Excitedly, he said Future Days was his all-time favorite album and brought me the CD and a new heavy vinyl pressing. The vinyl's sonics were especially impressive. We eventually "needle dropped" Side 2 of the vinyl into a lossless digital file which I combined with the rest of the Hi Rez tracks that I downloaded.

I'm glad I did so because I really like the whole album and agree with Steve's gushing assessment. Each time I play Future Days, I marvel at the discipline of the bass and drum lines, which never seem to relent. I'll also add mention of a key member of the band - vocalist Damo Suzuki, shown in the partial band photo with Holger Czukay. His vocals add a patina of mystery over the music on Future Days, whether he's chanting a lyric or just vocalizing wordlessly. 

Lastly, I recalled the name Holger Czukay from his two duets with David Sylvian: Plight & Premonition (1988) and Flux + Mutability (1989). Czukay's penchant for ambient creations elevated those albums from the snooze of traditional ambient, and it's now obvious to me why Future Days has such distinctive rhythmic juice.