z.a.r.p.e.k. (O-Z) XIII

Top three would have to be Univers Zero's "Crawling Wind", Thinking Plague's "Moonsongs" and Walter Wegmuller. Mind you that Floyd album has to be part of this so i'll call this a top four and pick one later.

After a little doobious thought, I'm voting for Walter Wegmuller's Tarot.  Trippy.

infocat wrote: Weird, unlike previous z.a.r.p.e.k. polls, where I know at most one of the albums, I own six of these! I vote Erpland.

Nice ! 

HolyMoly wrote: I'll give Moonsongs a vote, one of my favorite TP albums.  Warheads, Etude for Combo, title track.... three classics right there.  As much as I like In Extremis (historically my favorite, but nowadays I dunno), the earlier stuff really benefits from Bob Drake's input.  There's a certain roughness to his playing that keeps the album on edge.  After Drake left, his successors were pretty much virtuosos, which is great, but something was kind of lost with no Bob.  And I'm drawing a blank on the singer's name, but I really like her work with the band on this album and In This Life. Hard not to vote for Ummagumma, but .... when you get down to it, Ummagumma is kind of a BS album, being half live and half solo experiments.  Don't get me wrong -- a fantastic album by one of my favorite bands, but if I were to make a case against it, I'd bring up how they kind of side-stepped the issue that they really were still kind of confused and uncertain after Syd left.  Ironically, though, it's that very confusion that makes early Floyd so compelling to me.  Somewhere along the way, they must have said, we may not have a clear direction right now, but let's just poke around and see what works.

Love Moonsongs ! Gave it 4.5 stars and probably only rate "In This Life" by them higher, another early album of theirs. I like your evealuation of the early ones too. They do "sound" different and the word you used "roughness" is a good way to describe it.

Nogbad_The_Bad wrote: Well this is a tough one, I have seven of these and like them all, could easily vote for either Ozrics, either Thinking Plague or the UZ, Ummagumma is one of my favorite Floyd albums as I love the live material. I'll vote for Present, the CD is excellent but the DVD that comes with it is out of this world.

I have a feeling you were at that show.

Mellotron Storm wrote: HolyMoly wrote: I'll give Moonsongs a vote, one of my favorite TP albums.  Warheads, Etude for Combo, title track.... three classics right there.  As much as I like In Extremis (historically my favorite, but nowadays I dunno), the earlier stuff really benefits from Bob Drake's input.  There's a certain roughness to his playing that keeps the album on edge.  After Drake left, his successors were pretty much virtuosos, which is great, but something was kind of lost with no Bob.  And I'm drawing a blank on the singer's name, but I really like her work with the band on this album and In This Life. Hard not to vote for Ummagumma, but .... when you get down to it, Ummagumma is kind of a BS album, being half live and half solo experiments.  Don't get me wrong -- a fantastic album by one of my favorite bands, but if I were to make a case against it, I'd bring up how they kind of side-stepped the issue that they really were still kind of confused and uncertain after Syd left.  Ironically, though, it's that very confusion that makes early Floyd so compelling to me.  Somewhere along the way, they must have said, we may not have a clear direction right now, but let's just poke around and see what works. Love Moonsongs ! Gave it 4.5 stars and probably only rate "In This Life" by them higher, another early album of theirs. I like your evealuation of the early ones too. They do "sound" different and the word you used "roughness" is a good way to describe it. Man the live part of Ummagumma i'd give 5 stars too, love it ! The studio part is an acquired taste no doubt.

In with Nogbad here, I'm going to cheat as well and vote for the Present album/DVD `Barbaro'! The album itself is a chilly, oppressive and stony monster. but THAT DVD....out of this world. Takes a few minutes to kick in, but when it does, it's the most intense, hypnotic vile and downbeat music...very addictive and emotional listening/viewing, I love it. If I could afford to lose any more, I'd be tearing my hair out watching it!

Have to say, though, both the Ozrics albums are among their best, and two of their most defining works, they're sure to both see some love in this poll!

Aussie-Byrd-Brother wrote: In with Nogbad here, I'm going to cheat as well and vote for the Present album/DVD `Barbaro'! The album itself is a chilly, oppressive and stony monster. but THAT DVD....out of this world. Takes a few minutes to kick in, but when it does, it's the most intense, hypnotic vile and downbeat music...very addictive and emotional listening/viewing, I love it. If I could afford to lose any more, I'd be tearing my hair out watching it! Have to say, though, both the Ozrics albums are among their best, and two of their most defining works, they're sure to both see some love in this poll!

Love your description of that DVD Michael, i would go out and buy it because of your words if i didn't already own it.

John, funny you mention Unit Wail, I bought that a couple of months ago from Greg Walker but haven't given it a proper listen yet. When Greg's updates show up, I tend to just buy several of the purely instrumental albums he gets (I've got a friend who prefers 100% instrumental albums, so I'm always on the lookout for smething to recommmend to him), and hope for the best! Usually end up with something interesting!

I'll dig out the Unit Wail CD now and give it a listen over the next day or so!

Actually, just giving the opening track a spin now, what a dramatic, swirling Zeuhl run with nasty distorted guitar! I'll keep at it!

UPDATED - John, several tracks into the Unit Wail album, it's really good! Man, even the jazzier stuff on it like the third track `Télété' has a really bent and off-sounding guitar/keyboard unease to it!

Edited by Aussie-Byrd-Brother - January 02 2013 at 15:15

Some very good choices here, I usually tend to go with the more obscure ones but this time I have to go with the Floyds. I never thought of Ummagumma as a directionless album, It's just a band experimenting with what they have. Haunting acoustic songs aside with pure heavy psychedelia, this is one of their albums who affected me the most, I don't know why but it just did.