TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER

As we know, progressive rock music was born in the end of the 60's. During the 70's it was essentially a phenomenon that occurred in the UK. Despite of that, it also appeared in many other countries all over the world. But, it had an important expression in other European countries, especially in Italy, France, Sweden and the Netherlands. The most key Dutch bands at the time were perhaps Focus, Finch, Kayak, Trace, Earth And Fire, Golden Earring and Supersister.

Supersister was formed as a sextet in The Hague in 1967/68, albeit with the strange name of Sweet OK Supersister. At some point in the late of the 60's, "Sweet OK" and two band's members were lost. The four remaining members Robert Jan Stips, Sacha van Geest, Ron van Eck and Marco Vrolijk pursued with their musical project. With this quartet the band released three studio albums, "Present From Nancy" in 1970, "To The Highest Bidder" in 1971 and "Pudding And Yesterday" in 1972. However, after the third work the band broke up. Stips and van Eck, who wanted to change the band's sound more towards jazz, continued, Vrolijk and van Geest went their separate ways. With different lines up the band released two more albums in the 70's, "Iskander" in 1973 and "Spiral Staircase" in 1974, the last under the name of Sweet OK Supersister. In 2019 a fifth work was released, "Retsis Repus" under the name of Spersister Projekt 2019.

So, "To The Highest Bidder" is the second studio album of Supersister that was released in 1971. The line up on "To The Highest Bidder" is Robert Jan Stips (lead vocals and keyboards), Sacha van Geest (vocals and flutes), Ron van Eck (bass guitar and fuzz bass guitar) and Marco Vrolijk (drums and percussion).

If anything can be said about the successor of their debut album is that its 1971's follow-up, "To The Highest Bidder" is probably even better still, concentrating the band's considerable energy into just four numbers. It's hard to pick a favourite from the three lengthy opening numbers as they are all great. With their second work, Supersister have largely freed themselves from the Soft Machine influences and creating their own Dutch version of the Canterbury sound with a lively, slightly floating jazz rock with at times clear classical influences, especially with regarding to the keyboard work. This is accompanied by rather reserved vocals quite reminiscent of Richard Sinclair. Immediately upon its release, listeners and critics at the time were surprised by the progression the band had made compared to their first work. The songs were of decent length and the lyrics were also a lot more mature, if not more pessimistic. But above all, the band's sound seemed to be much more compact. Finally, the production of the album can be called an excellent work.

"To The Highest Bidder" has four tracks. The first track "A Girl Named You" is one of the band's very best tracks. It's a lively carousel ride made up of psychedelic, classical and jazz rock, with one leg still in the 60's and the other already in the progressive rock of the 70's. It starts with a lengthy instrumental section where the piano and flute play energetic themes and riffs before the track seamlessly changes form into the vocal part that features one of the most infectious and memorable vocal melodies the band wrote. The second track "No Tree Will Grow (On Too High A Mountain)" strikes completely different, darker tones than the opener. It's slightly untypical, being a slow and not all that complex ballad with a progressive edge. With the quiet and relaxed vocals to the more solemn jazz rock, flute sounds, vibraphone and Mellotron strings, the result is quite peculiar track. The third track "Energy (Out Of Future)" is possibly the band's most demanding and intricate piece. The music becomes very varied, sometimes quite free. Here they blend a complicated web of quirky themes, melodies, chord changes and rhythms, taking each style to the very limit. The piece offers the brisk, perfect interplay of the band, which rushes from melody to melody, from section to section and from sound to sound. This is a very entertaining piece, despite its length, which becomes a bizarre, electronic orgy of sound in the last few minutes. The fourth track "Higher" is very short, a contemplative and relaxed track, which is quite reminiscent of the somewhat more pop numbers by Caravan like "Hello Hello". This short light ballad seems like a very modest finale compared to the rest of the album. It proves that a big part of prog rock is also about contrasts, dynamics and variation.

Conclusion: "To The Highest Bidder" is really a nice work that can be recommended to any Canterbury lover. Overall, this is an album with great complexity. It's very unique and great what Supersister has developed here. This is an album that just oozes the joy of playing and delivers a work that is fun from the beginning to end. It's an album with many fine moments that are fun and clever too. But what it mostly accomplishes is to exorcise the band's interest in the studio experimentation, paving the way for more focused song writing on their next third work. If you're looking for an album that delivers a beautiful melodic and instrumental sound without being kitschy, you shouldn't go wrong with this album. So, this is a great album, an excellent starting point to further discover the music catalog of the group from The Hague.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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