JONATHAN

Jonathan is an obscure band from Germany with a meteoric career who lasted not even 2 years. They released a single album in 1978 selftitled issued by Bellaphon label. The band has only two musicians Helmut Grab responsable for Minimoog and all the various keyboards and electronics and Peter Garattoni the drumer. Well, what we have here is a combination of progresive electronic passages not far from Tangerine Dream with jazzy elements and some space prog aswell, the result is ok but it sounds little date it to my ears, and above all this album came to late when prog was in decline or better said was absorbed by other genres emerget in late '70's. For ex Funky's Visit is a good jazzy funk space prog with nice passages, Moved Earth is a spce prog quite nice and ending track Melotary is another worthy one, the rest are no more then ok. 7 pieces garace the album, practicaly not one is particular bad, but is not quite intresting aswell, is a tripy jazz/space electronic album that gone into oblivion. Little is known about this band and what musicians done after disbanding soon after the release in 1979. Good cover art

JONATHAN were a duo out of Germany who released this lone album back in 1978. Without question an Electronic recording with the former member of EULENSPYGEL adding drums while the other member adds a variety of keyboards including minimoog, synths and electric piano. We do get a couple of guests helping out including another keyboardist adding much of what the other keyboardist plays but also grand piano. He's on three songs while we get some guest bass on the one track called "Funky's Visit" and yes what is Funk without bass. This clocks in at a tidy 35 minutes over the seven tracks.

"Li Song" gets us started and it's drums we first hear as they slowly beat away before some growly synths arrive slowly pulsing then some spacey synths. I like this until another synth comes in over top leading and I just don't like the tone of it at all. Kind of ruins the song for me.

"Raising Winds" opens with sounds that hum as we get this sad cry from the synths I believe. A beat before a minute along with some twittering sounds. This is laid back and exotic sounding as it gets louder 1 1/2 minutes in. It kicks in fairly heavily before 2 1/2 minutes and the tempo picks up. Drums and synths lead the way. It's okay.

"Funky's Visit" is funky believe it or not but first we get an experimental intro that is brief. Then an active beat with growly synths and other synths take over. When the bass kicks in it becomes somewhat jazzy. I do like the bass here a lot. "Waters" opens with um water sounds. Synths join in with this catchy melody. An okay track.

"Moved Earth" is my favourite and I wish the rest of the album was more like this. We get some nice deep synths as grand piano and atmosphere join in. This is really good. I like the depth of sound. The drums kick in and before 2 minutes I'm head banging. This is like Space Rock. Interesting that it starts to wind down before 5 minutes as you'd think the song was done but after some brief silence it starts up again but now it's much different as drums and sampled thunder take over. I really like this idea especially with such a good drummer. Another change before 7 minutes as synths, cymbals and keys end it.

"Stormy Days" opens with the atmosphere rising as the synths and rumbling drums join in. Soon we get a steady sound of synths and drums around a minute. It turns experimental as drums and synths continue around 3 minutes in. Back to the previous soundscape but the synth tone changes as this plays out. A pretty good tune.

Melotary" ends it and it opens with drums as atmosphere and keys join in. The drumming seems to be random and marching-like. It kicks in rather heavily and the tempo picks up before 1 1/2 minutes. Great sound here, impressive like the song "Moved Earth". It does settle back down like the beginning 3 minutes in.

This might be obscure in part because the only re-issue was in 1993 but I also wonder how much demand there would be for it. A pretty good album overall and I really like that album cover.

Jonathan is a new discovery for me. German duo consisting of drummer Peter Garattoni (of Eulenspygel) and keyboardist Helmut Grab along with guests as needed. This was their only album, first released on the very obscure AAR label, then on Bellaphon. It strangely received a Greek release as well. Wonderful cover, totally '70s sci-fi, although if you look carefully, that's no sun, it's an apple. The Gibraltar Encyclopedia of Progressive Rock were rather dismissive of it, like it's not worth your time. Not in the least for me. It has that rather spacy feel, with Mini Moog, Solina String Ensemble, Fender Rhodes Electric Piano and Roland Synth, but I swear up and down I hear an ARP Pro-Soloist (he isn't credited to one, though). Unless the Roland (which they didn't specify which model) was capable of similar sounds. It's a rather underrated album actually worth getting. To my ears these guys seemed to have fun doing it, and it's true there isn't any huge ambition, it's all very enjoyable and that's what matters to me. "Li Song" has a rather Asian-influenced sound, kinda like Kitro but with more guts. "Raising Winds" starts off slow with spacy sound effects and then the drums kick in and they get down to business. "Funky's Visit" has a rather funky feel, with guest Emil Wirth providing funky slap bass. You can't imagine the traditional Berlin School electronic guys doing that! "Moved Earth" is a pretty typical sound for these guys. I don't find a single bad song on this album, although one wishes maybe a little more variety in synth timbre. Not exactly innovative or groundbreaking, but an enjoyable piece of late '70s electronic music and prog.