HORIZONTE

You've probably heard it before. . . while checking in

This release from 1977 is German band PSI's only legacy in terms of albums. Their classification in the jazz rock sub-genre is entirely appropriate, although the jazz side of their music is much more pronounced than the rock. There are no thundering rhythms or screaming horns here, this is lounge jazz pure and simple. It is the sort of music for whiling away a few hours in soft romantic lighting, with nothing much to do.

The music is roughly evenly spilt between the sax playing of the wonderfully named Wilfried Kunkler, the mainly funky electric piano or keyboard player Mathias Frey, and the jazz guitar of Volkmar Zimmermann.

The best track for me by some way is the 8 minute "Breikopf", where the band actually infuse a degree of energy into the music. Here, we border on the rock side of jazz, but never actually take that leap of faith across the wall.

Listening to this album of what is unquestionably pure jazz, it does lead me to ponder where the boundary between prog and jazz actually lies. For me, while this album may contain elements used in prog, there is nothing which is actually prog here at all. That is not to say that prog fans will not enjoy it. Those who enjoy the looser sounds of bands such as Brand X and perhaps Soft Machine may well find this to their liking.

For the rest of us, the music here is inoffensive and pleasant. The musicianship is clearly highly competent, something which shines through even though the album was recorded and mixed in one week. It is in the end though unchallenging and far from attention grabbing. This is the sort of music you will hear in the background in a hotel lobby.

With the sheer amount of Jazz Rock and Jazz Fusion albums released in the late seventies it's almost like getting woken from a sleep when a gem like this shows up. I'm so much more into consistent records over ones that have a lot of highs and lows. I'm also a huge electric piano and bass fan and man both are incredible on here. A five piece band out of Germany this was their sole release from 1977 after playing and jamming for almost 3 years prior. The keyboardist is the sole composer here and we also get sax and guitar with the sax being the more prominent of the two. How about that album cover! I mean this should be on a classic Krautrock album shouldn't it? One of the more inventive and freaky pieces of art I've seen. I mentioned I like consistent albums, well when all the tracks are good with no weak links I would say this fits the bill. I can't even pick a top three, they're all so good. The bass player is credited with vocals but it's just a yell on the shortest piece on here. This is all instrumental. We get some spoken word samples to start "Breikopf" but other than that it's all about the amazing instrumental work. Love these compositions.