UNIVERS ZERO

4.5 stars. What a week I just had listening to this album and ONE SHOT's latest "111" both top ten albums for 2023 in my little world. UNIVERS ZERO continue to show that they take a back seat to no band when it comes to serious, complex and adventerous music. One of my favourite t-shirts is a "Heresie" one I own and that is a top five studio album for me by this band along with "Uzed", "Heatwave", "Phosphorescent Dreams" and this one "Lueur". Throw in "Relaps" and "Crawling Wind" and all of these are in my best of Avant list. Love this band and thankyou Daniel Denis for carrying on in 2023 some 9 years after "Phosphorescent Dreams".

It's been nine years but this four piece were all on that 2014 record. The keyboardist and bass player from that album have been replaced by Daniel and his Son Nicolas who plays bass here, adds some percussion and sings on one track while Dad besides his incredible drum works plays all keyboards. This is different though than "Phosphorescent Dreams". That album was so melancholic with high end stuff throughout. Honestly the guitar on both albums is minimal to say the least. It's those dark sections on "Lueur" that give a different vibe here, plus to my ears it's like Daniel has included things from various past records, like tying a bow on his band here.

I thought of "Implosion"more than "Phosphorescent Dreams" while listening to this. What I love about "Implosion" are those short dark pieces where it feels like you are being taken to somewhere that you don't want to go. Creepy with suspense and three tracks from that album that are like that are "Oozing", "Mirrors" and "Bactieria" while on "Lueur" it's "Migration Vers Le Bas", "Axe 117" and "Mister Chung". Then there's those classical tunes that bounce that really turn me off and "Implosion" has those while "Lueur" gets close to crossing that line but doesn't and "Phosphorescent Dreams" isn't even close thankfully.

After opening with "Migration Vers Le Bas" and feeling like I'm on this slow moving train to my worst nightmare we get the vocal track "Sfumato(Part 1)" and on my initial spins I'm thinking this could fit on John Greaves' "Songs" record. This is a 9 1/2 minute track with floating organ and the lyrics are repeated twice with a reserved voice but in between some powerful stuff. Classic UZ at 5 minutes as it turns haunting with piano and atmosphere. Dark is the word. "Cloportes" is that tune getting close to that bouncy, classical style we also get clarinet here. I like that it changes to more of a serious style with the light sound returning late.

"Rolling Eyes" is a feel good piece of music with guitar, bass, steady beats and keyboards. "Axe 117" like the opener is a dark trip bringing ART ZOYD to mind. It's quite unsettling around 2 minutes. "Sfumato(Part 2)" is a top five with those three short "Implosion"-like tunes and the closer. This is powerful and dark. How good is the drumming 4 minutes in with electric piano and atmosphere. The next track "Wavering" is another highlight. Again dark and in no hurry. Classic UZ 1 1/2 minutes in. So good. "Mister Chung" is slow moving and haunting. "Coda" is an outstanding closer but only 2 minutes long, still the drums and bass shine. Yeah those Denis boys are talented.

This is dedicated to Daniel's daughter Julia who is pictured playing Dad's drums in this package. Speaking of the package, the cover art, back cover and inside has this glossy splatter-like stuff on it. No difference in the texture when you feel it but it's unique. Like the circular swirls of shiny on the front cover. I'm just so happy with this one and the latest ONE SHOT, my kind of music folks.

The 11th studio album release from these Belgian Avant Gard/Rock-In-Oppostion pioneers, their fifth of the 21st Century.

1. "Migration vers le bas" (2:35) like being out on the Serengeti watching a pride of robot lions on the hunt. (4.33333/5)

2. "S'fumato (Part 1)" (9:28) opens with a progression of sustained swirling organ chords accompanied by bass and delicate cymbal play. The progression is played for four cycles before the very pleasant, high-register voice of Nicolas Denis (reminding me very much of ROBERT WYATT) joins in. At the three-minute mark the vocals stop and the full band launch into a thick, full-spectrum, ominous motif with some awesome piano, drum, and electric guitar play (sounding almost MAGMA-esque). This is great stuff! At the end the music returns to the calm, beautiful Robert Wyatt motif. My favorite song on the album. (18/20) 3. "Cloportes" (4:00) the Frenchified cross between YUGEN and KANSAS (sans mots). Lots of piano, time shifts, stop- and-go staccato syncopation, and accordion! (8.75/10)

4. "Rolling Eyes" (5:38) starts out far more melodic and "rock-without-opposition" than I'm used to hearing from this band. It's almost got an Irish / CHIEFTANS feel to it: both in terms of sound palette and construction. Again, I am so surprised to find so many catchy, fairly mainstream melodies sneaking in and out of this--until, that is, the electric guitar goes crazy at the end of the third minute. But then things return to a BBC soundtrack All Creatures Great and Small theme feeling. The drumming and guitar playing are the main things that keep taking the fairly gentle music off the rails a bit, but then it seems to always return to Tristan's main theme. Another top three song. (8.875/10)

5. "Axe 117" (3:33) as if a factory PA buzzer has gotten stuck repeating the same pulse of a note over and over. The other sounds are as if the industrial workers are trying to decide whether or not they should continue to work (some do) or wait for clarification and instructions. The pulsing buzz stops in the third minute and the workers all go back to their industrial routines. Entertaining but hardly pop music; more cinematic in a Fritz Lang kind of way. (8.66667/10)

6. "Sfumato (Part 2)" (6:11) sounds as if KEITH EMERSON had played with a avant garde/RIO orchestra. Not a pleasant listen but impressive skills and arrangement. (8.666667/10)

7. "Wavering" (3:51) slow cinematic music befitting an early industrial Fritz Lang silent film soundtrack. I like the fairly thin weave because I can easily give my attention to the performances of each of the individual instruments. The master-and-slave ominosity remains pretty constant from start to finish. (8.75/10)

8. "La tête à l'envers" (1:49) some elements of jazz-rock fusion and classic cinematic form (and Steve Jansen-like rhythms) work their way into this music. Nice little piece. (4.5/5)

9. "Mister Chung" (2:57) an interesting weave of airy horns and synth horns and sparsely populated percussives that are popular in Asian musical forms. A motif that never changes thus giving it more of an étude feel than a full-fledged song. (4.375/5)

10. "Dartafalk" (5:44) sounds like one of those 1960s French detective film-noir soundtrack pieces. Nothing to write home about but not bad. (8.75/10) 11. "Coda (2:02) drums and bass "funk" j-r fuze, UZed style. Displaying guitarist Nicolas Dechêne's inner Allan Holdsworth. My final top three song. (4.75/5)

Total Time 47:48

B/four stars; a decent and creative UZed album though it is not my favorite album of theirs--not even my favorite of the 21st Century (that would be 2010's Clivages), but still worth your while should you like their chamber orchestral approach to cinematic avant garde/RIO.

UNIVERS ZÉRO - UNIVERS ZERO, a fundamental Chamber-Rock reference in continental Europe, the "new European music" presents its new work "Lueur" (2023), on the eve of its 50th anniversary of sound creation. The new work marks the 15th record of works released. "Lueur" was published on November 3, 2023, on Belgian label Sub Rosa, in editions for download, CD and on vinyl (black and transparent). Lueur is played by: Daniel Denis [drums, percussion and keyboards] Nicolas Dechêne [guitars] Kurt Budé [clarinet and bass clarinet] Nicolas Denis [bass, percussion and vocals] After the fluorescent dreams, there is a shine (lueur) which may represent the result of at least a couple of years of work on the creative inspiration and complexity of their own sound aesthetics since the formation of the group. 1. 'Migration Vers Le Bas' reflects on a sound that evokes other parts of UZ's past work, with imposingly dark cadences, dominant percussion, dark voices, within a dark atmosphere in conjunction with the guitar. 2. 'Sfumato (Part 1)', a composition of almost 9 ½ minutes, begins with the organ displaying voices in an ethereal state like a glow from the darkness, a sound framework with a surreal aura, transforming together with the guitar, bass and clarinet feat in an allegro style, while the piano maintains the displacing harmony of the composition, the tension returns, a recurring, dark, nebulous lyricism, the singing returns, creating a calmer atmosphere 3. 'Cloportes' is more lively, with a jazz-rocker sound, even evoking the band's authentic style and its more creative chamber-rock. 4. 'Rolling Eyes', also with a certain vivacity and sonic fury, with instrumental arrangements within a vivid scheme. It highlights a good part of the way in which sonic technology and engineering is handled. The guitar generates dense vibrations. Up to this point, the two compositions are two sonorities of great impact. Excellent mix 5. 'Axe 117' is a composition that exploits the virtues of electronics with the sound of the same old UZ within an abstract, transition to another dimension that is still dark and dense. 6. 'Sfumato (Part 2)' the emotions of tension left by Part 1 return, with different brightnesses, creating an elastic space of those phosphorescent ones of the 80s, including a kind of polyrhythmic march 7. 'Wavering', returns the spectral haze in dark waves, spectral shadows with wonderful percussion, taking the composition to the maximum of UZ and its new sonic brilliance. 8. 'La Tête À L'envers' short piece of apparent jazz-fusion with progressive permanence 9. 'Mister Chung' of atmospheres with disturbing spaces of somber sound. 10. 'Dartafalk' emits sound with certain parts of progressive folk, exploring the veins of UZ in its classic attitude of the band. 11. 'Coda' creativity consists of flashes between guitar riffs, percussions of continuous optimism in the sound for compositions that show a close style, as if something should continue. "Lueur" is a work that puts a stop to the present of progressive music in the hands of the legendary band UNIVERS ZÉRO, current, creative and representative of new sounds in constant sound innovation from the darkest corners of the elastic soundtrack. Indomitable music continues its path in one of the most representative bands of the RIO- Avant/Prog of the 21st century.

Univers Zero was definitely a treat for me when I first stumbled upon their discography. Immediately, I was blown away by these instrumental maestros from Belgium. The darkness they bring to progressive rock is unmatched by anything that has come before or since. It was this flavor of prog rock music, with less insistence on the traditional rock tropes, (i.e. keyboards, guitars, etc.) that I yearned for. Their debut album is remarkable compared to the music that dominated the charts and waves at the time of its release. Disco and punk rock were just breaking through the surface, the golden era of prog rock was, in some ways, coming to an end. Then came Univers Zero; a band that could very well of been hired to re-compose a Murnau film score. Looking back, one can trace the seeds "proto-prog" laid, and see what the likeliest outcome would have been, (i.e., Yes, King Crimson, etc.). In 1977, there were minute signs that music was about to experience its most experimental and sonically intimidating innovations since Sgt. Pepper's in 1967. Krautrock, was, in essence, an earlier progenitor of the form, but did not take music as far as it could go, while still maintaining some air of modesty. Rock in Opposition did, in fact, achieve this endeavor, and Univers Zero was among that clarion call seeking to oppose the banality and platitudes of record companies.

Their debut album of self-tile, also known as 1313, is of unique import but does not stand tall compared to their other releases. What stands is a unique and unmatched sound that will continue to evolve and retain an equal balance between traditional rock and chamber orchestration. For this album, however, I believe they lean a little too far in the direction of chamber orchestration. That does not mean that there is not a flare of traditional rock overtones throughout the album. I personally enjoyed the textures on Ronde, Doctuer Petiot, and the 2009 bonus track, La faulx. I find these tracks combine for an excellent pastiche of chamber music while retaining echoes of rock and jazz overtones. Give this album a listen if you are genuinely interested in something left-field and unpredictable. You might be surprised.

Nothing short of amazing and certainly an RIO favorite of mine. Heatwave may not be regarded as their best, other than me. The band was on the verge of disintegrating with Daniel Denis writing two of the "shorter" pieces and Andy Kirk with the side-length and one "shorter" piece. Regardless I can't see any weakening of their music, it's just as challenging and uncompromising as anything they did before. While UZED clearly shows an electric approach, Heatwave expands on that. As usual it's really difficult to distinguish one cut to another but the music is so wonderfully off-the-wall I don't mind. Unusual chord structures and time signatures, blatant disregard for anything remotely resembling a pop hook, doing everything to not guarantee radio airplay and t that's what I love their music for. Of course this is not Rock in Opposition for nothing, totally challenging the rock status quo. This came out in 1986 apparently as a band released CD before Cuneiform Records made it widely available the next year. To think this came out at a time of MTV-friendly synth pop and hair metal this is as far removed from that as possible. While classic prog was floundering in the '80s, neo-prog took its place but not everyone came on board, RIO was at its musical heights in that decade and what Univers Zero did only proves that. Heatwave is an amazing album as far as I'm concerned. No such thing as a bad UZ album!

New Univers Zero album is always a great news to me even if this time it would be without the magnificent sound of bassoon. I was happy to see Kurt Bude still with the band as an active writer. I remeber talking to him after one of UZ shows when they played some of the new tracks. I've mentioned my favourite ones and he was pleased to say they were his, so from this day I keep an eye and ear on him :) And he defenitely delivers here. The more rock and less classical oriented sound isn't as revolutionary as one may think. Phosphorescent Dreams is still full of unimitable UZ sound. Chamber rock at it's finest. 4,5 stars.

This archival collection of live pieces from Univers Zero doesn't replicate any one particular show - but it does capture the sound of an era, with its tracks bridging the gap between Uzed - in which the band were still playing in a chamber rock style reminiscent of the sound of Ceux du Dehors - and Heatwave, in which they adopted a chillier, more synth- washed style.

This musical transition is perhaps best observed in the fantastic 1985 rendition of Heatwave's second-side epic, the ever-magnificent Funeral Plain, but it is apparent throughout the collection, and that makes this a decidedly worthwhile pick for anyone who's already sold on Uzed or Heatwave by themselves. If you like both, you'll like this, if you like one but are unsure about the other this might help you see where the one you're less keen on is coming from.

While the small nation of Belgium was notably left out of the first wave of the progressive rock boom of the early 70s, the land between France and the Netherlands redeemed itself in the latter half of the decade with excellent bands like Cos and Aksak Maboul making a mark on the scene. Of course, no story would be complete with the most successful of the Belgian prog bands of all, namely UNIVERS ZERO which was a part of a new dense and challenging type of avant-prog chamber rock that was a vital ingredient in the ultimate antithesis to the punk and disco scenes that was called Rock In Opposition. While the band's first two albums '1313' and the even darker and scarier 'Heresie' implemented a new stylistic approach that mixed heavy rock elements with mostly acoustic instrumentation with major influence from Bart'k and Stravinsky, the band sort of developed a musical style that hit a musical cul-de-sac by reaching its logical conclusion.

Starting with the band's third album 'Ceux Du Dehors,' UNIVERS ZERO starting lightening up the gloom and doom and marked a major stylistic shift that adopted more electronic sounds, various ethnic musical scales as well as a more eclectic palette of compositional fortitude. Essentially a musical collective with a rotating cast of members led by founder / drummer / chief songwriter Daniel Denis, UZ continued to change its sound drastically without leaving behind the off-kilter angularities that made its particular brand of avant-prog so utterly unique. After 1981's 'Ceux Du Dehors,' UZ embarked on a relentless touring schedule and delayed the released of the fourth album for three years. The four track EP 'Crawling Wind' appeared in between but it wasn't until 1984 that UZ unleashed a new album in the form of UZED. The title basically refers to the initials of the band's name UNIVERS ZERO. The letter U plus ZED, another name for the letter Z in many European nations.

Denis was the only member left of the lineup fo the first three albums and therefore UZED developed a very different sound due to the emphasis on different instrumentation. Andre Mergen's cello and sax playing are emphasized as well as the more aggressive sounds of Michael Delory's electric guitar playing techniques which were a stark contrast to UZ's previous guitar sounds of former co-founder Roger Trigaux. Also new to the band was keyboardist Jean-Luc Plouvier whose role was teased out into completely new experimentations which would be further explored on the band's following album 'Heatwave.' Despite all the changes, the compositions overall are firmly rooted in the classical musical settings that earlier albums implemented. Likewise the dissonance and atonality are scattered around in abundance but not in a suffocating manner. The album seems to balance the darker mood settings of earlier albums with more moments of uplifting splendor.

Perhaps the most immediate distinction from what came before is the heavier use of rock instrumentation and bombast along with a much easier to follow melodic approach that implements not only infinitely less darkened musical scales such as the Middle Eastern influences on the opening 'Pr'sage,' but also a more focused effort on more cyclical loops that add something to latch onto rather than the long drawn out meandering passages that enshrouded the mysterious musical canvas on 'Heresie.' The shortest track of the album 'L'Etrange Mixture du Docteur Schwartz' may clock in at slightly less than four minutes but rocks the house with an incessant pummelation of the drums and an equally feisty attack of the piano stabs, clarinet assaults and rampaging time signatures run amok at reckless high tempo velocities. Likewise Christian Genet's bass slapping is off the charts as he channels his best Christ Squire and really lets loose.

'C'lesta (for Chantal)' distinguishes itself with guest musician Marc Verbist contributing haunting violin sounds and Delory providing the heaviest doses of electric guitar on the album including an unexpected solo near the end however the track starts out bereft of rock elements for the first few minutes as a choppy piano performance ekes out a lugubrious violin and occasional percussive drive. It's not until the last couple of minutes that the track turns to the dark side with an industrial sounding mechanical drive which allows the guitar off the leash and proceeds to go friggin bonkers. 'Parade' is the cheeriest track on board with a 'somewhat' less darkened approach but still performs the expected knotty angularities in a relentless stampede of time signature workouts and instrumental interplay. The track with its rock elements can remind more of King Crimson at its most energetic moments with the usual chamber rock instruments on board. The hairpin twists and turns also conspire to create one of the more dramatic tracks on UZED.

The final 'Emmanations' is not only the longest track on UZED which by clocking in at almost 16 minutes blows away the running time of the rest of the tracks, but also is clearly the highlight. Given the proper time length to slowly percolate slowly and ratchet up the tension, this closer unleashes the newly discovered use of electronic synthesizers in the UZ sound to nurture an ominous stormy cloud cover of sound while the usual chamber rock elements struggle in the dark to find the right riff to latch onto. Once a groove and a riff are found, the instrumental interplay pretty much follows a repetitive cyclical melodic construct that relies on an infinite series of variations to paint a dramatic soundscape. Not to say that twists and turns do not occur but the track is amazingly stable given its sprawling domain over the album's run. The most startling change of the entire album comes just past the 12 minute mark of 'Emmanations' where the it abruptly turns into an industrial echoey soundscape with muddied vocals whispering from the darkness while a drunken violin emerges from the backdrop. A frightening rhythmic pulse evokes more of the sounds of early Einst'rzende Neubauten than anything out of the UZ playbook and ends the album with while presaging the band's next move.

UZED may have lacked the uniformity of its predecessors (especially the first two albums) but made up for it in its sheer audacity to simultaneously explore new sonic textures in myriad directions. While generally considered a transitional album, UZED nevertheless successfully fleshes out many of the subtle aspects that the band was striving for and while not quite reaching the electronic based apex that 'Heatwave' would achieve, the brackish waters of the former acoustic chamber rock elements along with the heavier rock guitar and synthesizer sequences makes for an exciting avant-prog journey throughout the album's five diverse tracks. At this point Denis proved himself to be a master of reinventing the sound as he conducted a whole new cast of characters to bring the early Rock In Opposition sounds into the new decade. While UNIVERS ZERO would never recreate the stunning perfection of '1313' and 'Heresie,' albums like UZED only proved that the intricate creative fusion of classical, chamber music and progressive rock had hardly been exhausted at this point and that in many ways the avant-prog scene was only getting started. A tough listen for sure but ultimately worth the effort.

The third album by the Belgian chamber avant-rock band UNIVERS ZERO followed in the footsteps of the avant-garde ominous dread that the self-titled debut (aka "1313") and the spine-tingling "Hérésie" presented with all the stunning musical maestrohood on steroids, however CEUX DU DEHORS (translates as "Those of the Outdoors" or "The Outsiders") found inspiration from the darkened world of H.P. Lovecraft's most demented works after someone left some of his short stories in the recording studio. Much of this album revolves around those occult and darkened themes set to the musical complexity and labyrinthine avant-prog angularities that had made the band stand out from virtually the rest of the entire musical scene in the late 70s.

As with the previous two albums UNIVERS ZERO was centered around the stable quartet of Daniel Denis (drums and percussion), Guy Segers (bass, clarinet, vocals), Michel Berckmans (bassoon, oboe, English horn, vocals) and Patrick Hanappier (viola, violin, vocals) and joining the ranks were the new talent of Andy Kirk joining in on piano, harmonium, organs and vocals. In addition there are three guest musicians that spice up the album with a violin, cello and hurdy-gurdy all which prove to add some of the most haunting and blood curdling sounds that can be experienced in the world of recorded music. While the band would begin to shift their sound on the following "Uzed," CEUX DU DEHORS can be thought of as the last of a dark mythological trilogy of the band's origins only continues the journey with even more precision and skill.

While "Hérésie" explored the absolute limits of impending doom and ominous nihilism and perhaps ranks as one of the scariest sounding albums of all time, CEUX DE DEHORS starts out on a much lighter note at least towards the beginning with the almost festive "Dense" starting things out with more emphasis on fiery circuitous rhythmic drives that allow the classical chamber orchestral sounds to ping and pong and resonate in astounding tight-knit precision. The light hearted melodic flow is almost exuberant in its medieval-tinged folklore burbling to the surface. The track which is one of two that exceed the 12 minute mark (the other being "Combat") may start off as a jittery caffeinated romp but five minutes in the band revives the eerie gloomy chamber rock drones and classical minimalism that can raise the dead and then proceeds to mix the two moods together displaying an uncanny ability to juggle these opposing musical tones.

While tracks that follow "La Corne Du Bois Des Pendus" and "Bonjour Chez Vous" tend to focus on the fiery instrumental acrobats that focus on the extremities of chamber rock and classical wizardry while the album ebbs and flows through angular labyrinthine compositions that zigzag unexpectedly and utilize unorthodox tempo changes and jagged riffs that find the most jarring ways to ratchet up the tension, CEUX DU DEHORS slowly but surely drifts off into the same nightmarish musical perversity that "Hérésie" excelled at in freakish perfection. In particular the last three tracks starting with "La Musique d'Erich Zann" there is more focus on classical minimalism such as that by Philip Glass and the Krautrock motorik rhythmic drives as heard by German bands like Neu! only set to a classical orchestral performances that take a little jazz improvisation and industrial bleakness and funnel it all down into some of the most ominous hair-raising sonic terror that will never allow you to look at the bassoon and oboe in the same way. The way this track starts is like a haunted pasture with freaky imitations of sheep freaking out.

The bleakness continues with "La Tete Du Corbeau" and the closing "Triomphe des Mouches" which ends the album in utter contrast as to how it began. Perhaps these latter tracks were leftovers from the earlier sessions before the band decided to lighten things up a bit? Regardless, CEUX DU DEHORS is another amazing album by UNIVERS ZERO that displays an even more uncanny flock of bird randomness in the tight instrumental interplay and an even more unbelievable mastery of using sonic juxtapositions to create the maximum fear factory. While the album pales only in comparison to the phenomenal perfection of the first two albums and the inconsistencies of stylistic approaches that differentiate the beginning tracks from the end, it's really not that big of a deal when the music presented on every track is of this amazing caliber. On CEUX DU DEHORS, these Belgians proved that they indeed could craft the perfect soundtrack for the Dark Fantasy perversions of Lovecraft and in the process make it sound so ridiculously natural.

If you ever really wonder what Rock in Opposition sounds like, or if someone asks you what it is, then you put on an album by Univers Zero. That's about as good of an introduction as you can get. Of course, it branches out in all kinds of sounds and styles from there, but it's still a good start.

This album is all about traditional, orchestral style instruments, only not in an orchestra as much as in a chamber ensemble. But even then, you don't want to make the mistake of thinking you are going to be listening to baroque style music, think more along the lines of impressionistic music. Seeing as how the band cites Bartok and Stravinski as influences, then that should give you an idea of what you are going to get here, but with more contemporary percussion than with orchestral style. Throw in different string instruments like violin and cello, harmonium and some brass, then an occasional guitar and bass, and you got the idea.

This is definitely not rock or pop in any regular sense. If you are familiar with RIO or Avant-prog, then this sound is something that you are used to hearing. But, as this band is one of the pioneers of the sound, they are the ones that helped establish the genre. Expect complex melodies and time signatures with a lot of dissonance. Also, on this album at least, things are more raw then they would be in some future albums.

Many compare Univers Zero with Art Zoyd, and the comparision makes sense, at least in AZ's early stages. UZ is a lot more tight sounding as the music is more structured where AZ is more improvised. This album, called 1313 for the catalogue number, is not as dynamic and a bit rougher than their future releases would be. But it is still top notch quality music, much of it inspired by works of Lovecraft and other dark artistry. The music definitely fits that niche. But, some may also think because of this that the music is soundtrack style music. That is a mistake. It's much more complex and is not tied down to imagery, but much better composed with a structure.

Of course, this isn't music for everyone, but mostly those that have a love for avant-garde style classical music or for those that love adventurous music of any genre. Highly recommended to RIO/Avant Prog lovers as an essential album.