BETWEEN FLESH AND DIVINE

Masterpiece of prog rock in an era where you least expect it: the early 1980s. 1979's "Crossing the Line" was their debut, but "Between Flesh and Divine" is regarded as their best album. ASIA MINOR was a French band consisting of Turkish musicians playing mid to late '70s style prog in the vein of many of your favorites: CAMEL, FOCUS, KING CRIMSON, GENESIS, even PULSAR. The instruments consists of vocals (in English), guitars, flute, bass, drums, and keyboards (Elka Rhapsody string synth, electric piano, Hammond organ, Mellotron, Minimoog).

On the opening cut, "Nightwind", the band starts off sound deceptively like OZRIC TENTACLES, but that's just for a few seconds, before you know what you're listening to is symphonic prog. Here you get some great guitar and flute work, and some atmospheric passages. Here the vocals are very much like CAMEL's Andy Latimer (not to mention the flute). "Northern Lights" starts off rather mellow, heavy on the string synths, with some space Minimoog to go with it, but then the music gets more energetic, with the end part resembling GENESIS. The rest of the album is of the same high quality, and I very highly recommend this album. Great stuff!