LIVE AS LONG AS / SPANISH GUITAR

Even into the 1970s Omega`s music continued to be derived from `60s psychedelia as much of their early seventies output in the English language on the German Bellaphon label were reworkings of tracks originally written and performed in their native Hungarian language. As they matured in the early seventies they also began to acknowledge the UK art rock movement and their music from this era has been compared to everything from the Moody Blues to Uriah Heep.

In the early seventies, because Hungary was still a Soviet bloc country, they were restricted creatively as evidenced with the controversies which arose over a 1972 Hungarian live LP. A recording contract in 1973 awarded by Bacillus records, a division of Bellaphon, in West Germany allowed them some more freedoms namely signifigant improvements in equipment, state-of-the art music production and marketing resources which would eventually secure them a following in western Europe. Riding on the wave of three moderately successful LPs produced by Peter Hauke in Dieter Dierks studio in Cologne, a second Omega single was released in early `75 which was culled from their third English LP for Bacillus, Omega III.

The two tracks reflected two sides of the band as well as their 60s psychedelic roots. The first side featured one of their songs which had already become a hit in their native Hungary the year previous entitled "Addig Elj !" or "Live As Long As". It proclaimed peace and prosperity and sounded like it could have appeared on the UK top 20 charts in 1967 such were the psychedelic overtones, updated only by a delightful little moog synthesizer solo. The B side, "Spanish Guitar", was selected from three possibilities from the same LP to reflect the moody side of the band`s music. Featuring spacious mellotron sweeps and a mystical theme which were the rave of artrock in the early seventies, it was very much in step with contemporary artrock although it was somewhat more expressive and sullen, dispensing with the musical complexities favoured by western bands such as Jethro Tull and Genesis.

Although there is nothing exceptional here ( they could have come out with a more attractive sleeve ), it is nonetheless an interesting collector`s piece in that reflects the approach of marketing an eastern European rock band to western audiences in the mid-seventies.