INDO-PROG/RAGA ROCK

He then relocated to New York City and worked as a studio musician as well as performing on TV commercials and then more education at the Juilliard School of Music where he worked with Morton Feldman and another Indian classical musician Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. ROBERTSON's biggest claim was to discover the reality of two qualitative polarities of positive and negative music and that the basis of the style of 20th century classical music based in the language of musical disharmony was had a negative effective on the human condition. If that's not far out enough ROBERTSON also claimed that with his debut release DAWN that he created the very first new age music on the one hand and the first death metal on the other. Ok, i think someone was hittin' the reefer a tad too hard during those heady years of "enlightenment"!

ROBERTSON was a gifted genius in many ways though. He wrote the first American instruction manual for the Indian tabla in 1968 and even got it published. In 1969 he moved to San Francisco where he recorded DAWN, an album that mixed the sounds of raga rock with various experimental electronic sounds, nature recordings, sound collages and various vocalizations provided by ROBERTSON's wife Suzie Robertson. ROBERTSON himself was a talented multi-instrumentalist and on this album he covers the 80-string guitar-zither, organ, piano, celesta, harp, tabla, bells, claves and jaltarang. Guest musicians provide flute, tambura, harp, bass guitar, drums including hand drum, steel drum, gong, chimes, hand bells and vocals by various others.

It's a rather short album with eight tracks that barely exceed the 32-minute mark but the album showcases an interesting mix of psychedelic-to-the-max escapism, exotic journeys into foreign lands through ethnic influences ("Belief") as well as rapid fire collage effects ("When?") that offer some interesting contrast. Interspersed throughout the album are intermittent nature sounds such as bird calls mixed with sampling effects of trains and other field recordings. The begins and ends with the album's longest tracks. The title track opens and at 9 1/2 minutes long and features the most new agy sounds that clearly display that ROBERTSON indeed prognosticated many of the strands and techniques that would coalesce into the new age sounds that emerged in the 1970s. This is probably the most uplifting and "hippie dippy" sounding of the tracks. It also showcases a cool way of implanting the sounds of the zither into the context of extreme psychedelia.

The closing "Belief" is a journey through many soundscapes ranging from ethnic encounters to droning repetitive sound loops with field recording sampling. In many ways this reminds me of some of Godspeed You! Black Emperor's finest moments. It's a dark journey through many motifs but generally stabilized by a monotonous atmosphere. The middle tracks are shorter and to the point. "Why?" is a short recording of bird sounds and chaotic ambient sounds while "Contemplation" throws a curveball with a heady organ drone accompanied by energetic drumming and a few bass guitar licks. It sort of reminds me of something Silver Apples would dream up. "Where?" is another short connective track that features a sitar and chime that lasts less than a minute. "The Candle" continues the raga rock with a sitar and some chiming however this time Robertson's wife offers a poetic recital. This track reminds me of many of the poetry based electronic soundscapes COIL would eventually conjure up. "Gateless Gate" is another dark sounding track that sounds like a drum circle with many percussionists at a drug fueled party.

DAWN found a released on Quincy Jones' Limelight Label and although some of ROBERTSON's claims about the his erudite theories may sound farfetched and hard to swallow, one thing is for sure and that is that he knew how to craft a very interesting album that featured many facets of world music, psychedelia and experimental recording techniques. For anyone familiar with many of the experimental artists that followed throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s and beyond, it's obvious that many of them (COIL, Godspeed, Codona etc) most likely encountered this fascinating album that takes you on a mystical journey through various sound effects, musical scales and collection of rhythmic contributions. The album flows quite nicely with each track standing out without ever losing the overall psychedelic detachment. While lumped into the world of raga rock, this album provides much more than some blissed out guru simply noodling away on the sitar for a half an hour's time. This is brilliantly composed music that is top notch and easy to hear how the world of new age followed in its footsteps. Excellent!

And while Luis usually does it all he has a guest adding synths on a couple of tracks along with female spoken words and vocals on the closing section of that final track. In the "big hello" section he mentions Nik Turner, Daevid Allen(RIP) and Dave Schmidt. We get eight tracks and it's under 59 minutes. Two instrumentals including the opener "Glass Glyph, Optics" which is a top four. Spacey and drifting music that does become more energetic after 4 minutes. The other instrumental is "Tentacles" another top four. Add "Mandrake Scream" and that sampled mellotron, such an uplifting track plus "Most Beautiful" with that gorgeous sampled mellotron again, and it's so uplifting, and we get the bonus of electric piano which was a surprise.

The closer "Shells" is really good at over 9 minutes bringing to mind "Obscured By Clouds" by FLOYD. The sitar and ethnic sounds are strongest on the title track and I'm not big on it. Some tasteful guitar here. It's okay. "Heavenly Bodies" threw me for a loop with the lyrics. Keep your sex life to yourself please. Spiritual music? I will stick with "Muzak" which I have in my "best of" Psychedelic section because it is simply an incredible release. This hints at it for sure and maybe I'm being too hard on this record but 3.5 stars is all I got.

Those are Apple snail shells on the cover. No idea why? This is the least sounding Raga of the three I own.

It's like ethnic folk music really and I don't have the patience for it. I did think it was cool naming a track "Colemanwonder" it's only 3 1/2 minutes but opens with two Ornette Coleman pieces and ends with a Stevie Wonder bit, all unrecognizable. The opener and closer wre well over 10 minutes and this is where they stretch out but again I don't have the patience. Some might call this spiritual jazz because of who is involved and I should have mentioned this was released on the ECM label and that is a good home for this band, of course OREGON was there at the time.

They released three studio albums with this being the debut from 1979, and most feel this is their best. I do not like the album cover.

Also he's following up his master work "Muzak" which is almost impossible, but man in one sense he went beyond expectations. Look at the detailed front and back cover art with the symbols, pictures and words. This is the philosophy of Luis and it's incredible to look at, the detail of it all.

I picked this up cheap recently and am so impressed with the package. A thick liner note with lots of pictures of the instruments Luis plays along with his studio and we get the lyrics etc. He says hello to Nik Turner and others. There are two guests adding spoken word parts but that's it for guests. I have to mention the opener "I Am Utopia" which instrumentally is so impressive with all that's going on. The chorus is right out of THE LEGENDARY PINK DOT'S playbook.

The next track that really impressed was "Rings Of Smoke" with the mellotron and spacey sounds, this one has spoken words in it. The thing is a lot of this doesn't work for me but it's all good if you what what I mean. Lots of layering at times which I like but sometimes the vocals when they are soft or especially when they are whispered I'm just not as into it. Did I mention there's a lot of music here? A triple album back in the day, as I've said many times this would have made one killer single disc if I could pick the tracks.

There is a lot of ethnic sounds on here, especially sitar and tablas but more. The opener of disc two is a great example of this. A feel good sound here and it's called "Moving Mandala". "Trance Dance" is interesting, maybe not the lyrics but the way I feel like I'm going in circles listening to it. Nice depth to it as well. Electronics rule the day on "Specialists Of The Invisible" and it's dark and spacey too. The guitar on the next two tracks take the spotlight before mellotron takes that role on the closer. Luis also uses samples of water etc. on this album and I'm surprised at how prominent the synths are in the various ways he uses them.

This in my opinion could be the album Luis would point to as the one he is most proud of. I just have a feeling with all the detail and work he put into this. It's like his philosophy on life is on display with psychedelic music as it's soundtrack. It's too inconsistent to go 4 stars for me here but check out "Muzak" where the greatness never leaves the recording.

SATWA was the duo's sole collaborative album that they recorded in 1973 and was based around the dueling aspects of Lailson's 12-string viola and the trichord which is a popular zither that Lula picked up in Morocco. While officially released under the moniker LULA & LAILSON the project was known as SATWA as well. While technically a duo, SATWA included Robertinho de Recife who played lead guitar on the track "Blue do Cachorro Muito Louco." While primarily an instrumental album, a few vocal parts spring up randomly. While solely expressed in terms of acoustic psychedelic folk music, the ten tracks were inspired by all musical forms of the era including rock, folk, blues, psychedelia and Indian ragas with the sitar being the only other instrument to be heard on the album.

The original album is quite rare. It was recorded on the 11th of January 1973 at the Rozenblit studio and limited to a scant few copies distributed completely independently and later Lula would come to find out that his approach was a first in Brazil which makes this one of the nation's first indie records and all of this despite the fact that Rozenblit was a record label as well. Despite its extreme rarity the album has achieved a veritable cult status as a very important milestone in the Brazilian recording industry and has remained an underground favorite release however with the renewed love of all things psychedelic from the 60s and 70s across the entire world, SATWA has been reissued issued both on vinyl and CD since its initial release.

This is a magic mushroom type experience and features two guys simply strumming away lush chords in jamming fashion with the only break from the monotony coming from Robertinho's guitar soloing on the bluesy acoustic rock track "Blue do Cachooro Muito Louco." This is one for the trippers as it sounds like campfire songs being played in the woods with no worries about embellishments to spice it up. Its a bit underwhelming as an active listening experience but gently pacifies the soul if played as background music. It's one of those hippie anthemic types of album that represents a time and age of innocence before the world got all gnarly on us. It's an interesting artifact from the Brazilian subculture and may even appeal to those who love folky jams on acoustic instruments not often heard together but it's a little too tame and stripped down to be essential. Reminds me of some of Leo Kottke's American primitivism guitar strumming. It's an interesting blast from the past but not as mind blowing as some make it out to be.

Now simply known as SHAKTI, the new version of the band features English guitarist, bandleader and composer John McLaughlin along with original member Zakir Hussain on tabla and konnakol. The rest of the gang is new to the original SHAKTI experience however vocalist and konnakol player Shankar Mahadevan from the Remember Shakti is back and ready for action. The band is rounded out by Ganesh Rajgopalan (violin, konnakol) and Selvaganesh Vinayakram (kanjira, mridangam, ghatam, konnakol, composer, producer, arranger) and together they forge their Indo-fusion into the 2020s with a completely new album titled THIS MOMENT. Most notable as a veritable live band with seemingly indefatigable quantities of energetic fortitude, SHAKTI has also embarked on its first tour in quite some time.

THIS MOMENT is about an hour's worth of musical magic with its eight majestic tracks clocking just over the 57-minute mark. Expectedly rooted in its past, THIS MOMENT eschews the traps of trying to live up to its former glories and instead anchors itself firmly into the here and now of the modern era with an impeccable production job and a less frenetic pace which allows the musical performances to exude a wider variety of moods, tones and textures. Noticeably absent is the great Mahavishnu John McLaughlin's virtuosic acoustic guitar bombast which dominated the band's three 70s releases. THIS MOMENT is more contemplative, more reflective and focuses on soft sensual motifs that then erupt into traditional North meets South Indian traditionalism.

In fact the album is shockingly devoid of guitar parts altogether with only the occasional electric guitar prominence of McLaughlin and rather steeped in tabla and vocal trade-offs with the violin providing the pyrotechnic wizardry that McLaughlin once showcased. While the earlier SHAKTI albums focused on the virtuosic possibilities of mixing American jazz with both Southern and Northern Indian traditionalism, THIS MOMENT is more about expanding the musical paradigm and adapts the Indian playing styles to other forms of world ethnic music, the most unexpected coming from the Celtic jig sounding "Las Palmas." The tracks unfold with haunting ambient and atmospheric intros before time signature-rich outbursts of tablas and vocal trade-offs ensue. Given the downplay of the guitar aspects, THIS MOMENT sounds much more like a traditional Indian album than anything in the world of rock music.

If you approach THIS MOMENT from the perspective of it being the album that follows "Natural Elements" with its amazingly wild and untamed frenetic approach, you may be disappointed but after several attentive listens i've found that the magic in THIS MOMENT lies very much in the ancient Buddhist principle of simply being in the "now" of things and approach this album for what it was meant to be within the era it was released. Despite the rather mellowed out approach (as expected due to the aging actors on board), there are still amazing feats of time signature workouts showcasing that all of the musicians on board are more than capable of remaining at the top of their game but the emphasis is more on the expressive changes that offer a greater range than previous works employed. Yeah there are moments where i'm thinking just get on with it already and the album is far from perfect but overall i have found myself loving this album much more than i possible thought i would. Overall a really satisfying SHAKTI album for this late in the game so many decades later.

My biggest complaint with the music here is that once they lock into that groove early in the song they stick with it. And I'm not big on this style of music as it is but I certainly agree with the critics that this can be boring. We do get vocals which are quite strange sounding but I must admit that the closer "Tante Olga" is where the vocals actually take the song to another level. And I'd call it that Krautrock level with one guy singing out of the one speaker while the other talks and laughs(clearly stoned) throughout the song. Again they get an idea and they won't vary from it but this is the song I appreciate out of the six.

A lot of acoustic instruments here but some bluesy guitar at times. Singing and speaking are in German. Worth the 3 stars but yes this one is lacking in my opinion.

The end result sounds an awful lot like a prototype for Univers Zero. That isn't something you might expect given the musical influences that feed into their work - medieval folk, traditional Indian music, a touch of psychedelia here, a larger dab of free jazz and avant-garde classical there - but between the dark atmosphere, the "chamber rock" instrumentation, and the unconventional approach, it very much feels like a prototype for the sort of territory that Univers Zero, Art Zoyd, and Present would eventually explore.

Careful listeners may also detect elements of avant-garde classical music and free jazz deep in the DNA of this bizarre musical chimera, but really there is little precedent for Third Ear Band besides the group's own debut album; Univers Zero or Art Zoyd would later revisit some of these territories (listen to the start of Water, for instance, and tell me you can't imagine those ROI stalwarts doing something similar). Like its predecessor, astonishingly ahead of its time.

There is a certain raga influence - right down to Glen Sweeney using tabla for much of the album - but it's far more artfully handled than the usual "add a bunch of sitar to some psychedlic pop" approach that the Beatles-imitators of the era would run to. Instead, the band use the repetitious and hypnotic aspects of Indian music as merely one tool in their portfolio, with aspects of free jazz, avant-garde classical, and folk music all blending together.

The downfall of a lot of experimental music lies in becoming so obtuse as to be inaccessible, or so technical as to lose sight of feeling. Not so here; Third Ear Band clearly have a very specific mood they wish to evoke here, and they communicate it adeptly. At the same time, the material is intricate enough to reward mutiple listens. The overall impression is of a free jazz band transported to the medieval era, and that's an intriguing enough proposition to keep the album interesting for its running time.