HARD N' HORNY

I remember to have seen a Wigwam album in a shop in my country in the early 70s. For what i remember of the cover art it might have been Nuclear Nightclub, but the fact that a Finnish band was selling albums in Italy means that their music was able to cross their country's borders. I have rediscovered them while looking for Pekka Pohjola stuff, and even if he's not in this lineup I've become curious about this band.

I don't understand what's the rationale about giving a title to something with a duration of 8 seconds, so let's forget it.

This debut is jazzy. "Pidän Sinusta" with its bass and organ base has a Canterbury feeling. I think to Caravan mainly. There's a similar instrumental on Waterloo Lily.

The organ of "En Aio Paeta", but all the song effectively, is on the same way of Procol Harum. I think that the cold athmospheres of songs like A Salty Dog fit well with a Finnish band.

The things start to be different with the highly experimental "Neron Muistolle; Hyvää Yöt". Free jazz piano, drums and contrabass with two persons having a dialogue in Finnish. It's where jazz meets psychedelia. Just a bit less eclectic than Ron Geesin.

Back to Procol Harum with organ, bass and choir on "Guardian Angel/The Future", the first song with lyrics in English. Respect to the British band the vocalist has a voice similar to Roger Chapman so the result is a nice but very dated psychedelic mix.

"No Pens, El Karsinoit" is a jazz piece with a bit of rock/blues influences. Surely one of the best things of this album even if not the most original, either with the clavinet in the final.

"Henry's...Mountain Range Or Thereabouts" starts over the last clavinet notes of the previous song. A contrabass and various percussions put the listener back to the dark and acid world of cold jazz until the song turns to folky. I hear echoes of Pentangle as the melody is folky, but it's the contrabass and the rhythmic section in general that sounds like Terry Cox and co. just more acid.

"Geographical And Astronomical Mistakes" sounds more beatlesian, instead. since the previous track we have just a single "epic" that for some reason is split into different tracks instead of being a single track logically divided in parts. This is particularily bad when you copy it on an mp3 reader.

"Highway Code" is a song of the end of the 60s, so still in the style of Procol Harum or Family. Whoever like this genre will like it. Since now it's a sequel of 2 minutes short songs.

"...Ghastly And Diabolical Mistakes" is beatlesian with a bit of jazz in the piano solo; " ...Cancelled Holiday Planes" is deep in the 60s (Moody Blues), as well as " ...Concentration Camp Brochure" (nice title) and "...Ears, Eyes, Girlfriends And Feet", its follow-ups.

"...Hard And Horny All-Niter" seems coming from Sgt Peppers, as the closer " ...Milk Round In The Morning".

In the end is an interesting document of its age, made more interesting by the fact that the band is not British, but surely it's not essential.

Good enough, anyway.