M144

I'll skip the 2 first tunes I consider passable and focus on what I find the most interesting elements of this album.

Saxophone piece 1 is a short and interesting instrumental, a jazz tune dynamic, fast, so fast we could almost consider it as a transitional piece.

Marsfesten is much more psychedelic with its psalmodic female choruses, the structure is noticeable with an alternate of rocky parts and psalms with a "vague music theme" both at the beginning and the end of the tune.

Antique Peppermint beats it all as strong psychedelic jazz instrumental and psalmodic voices.

Indre Landskab is clearly a classic rock with a strong riff, the sustained presence of harmonica, and a wah pedal.

Jizzlou is simple, efficient, not a masterpiece but a really nice track and a good blues-rock.

lo and behold! We have Saxophone Piece 2, it has a more grating side which makes me think of Captain Beefheart in his Trout mask replica (curiously released the same year!), we are more at the borders of the bruises, Avant-rock, and experimental in some way.

Medardus starts with a row of trumpets, quite masterful and worrying, then comes the chorus, and in the end, a song clearly structured in several parts that best shows what is BURNIN RED IVANHOE, a jazz-psyche rock band whose borders are frankly erased in some of the tracks, this one is the best proof I think.

Larsen is another sympathetic psychedelic tune, sung in English, with extensive use of the wah-wah pedal, and flute.

Oyizl is a longer instrumental, absolutely jazz, the highlight is the drum solo, very demonstrative.

Ivanhoe In The Woods revolves around a trumpet version of I can get no (satisfaction), this pastiche is quite amusing but fail to stand out.

Ida Verlaine shows quite well the blending of pure blues-rock and psychedelia

Inside, is again a short but pleasant instrumental lead by brasses which announces the final track.

...and the end is psychedelic with Ksilioy, the longest piece of the album, a bit lackluster in my mind.

As we have seen, M144 is a varied album in its style, it is an album with uneven content. There is a good psychedelic base - blues rock and we venture throughout the tracks into pure jazz-rock, even pure jazz, psychedelic rock, or proto-prog. Some pieces are well-posed in their kind, without leaving it, and others see a fusion of the kinds sometimes happy other times more hazardous.

Overall, it's a good rendition for a debut album, it has many elements of proto-prog but is still kept in a primary category of jazz/proto-prog, it is still a very good demonstration for this period. Many tracks are self-explanatory and kept my attention, somewhat the album is a bit marred by some dull compositions that fail to enter any category or to blind correctly with other styles. 'eager to see what the following albums have in store for us...

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