SYRINX

Formed by ex-Kensington Market keyboardist John Mills-Cockell, Syrinx were a genuine curiosity. Featuring a bizarre, early-synth driven sound augmented by just saxophone and occasional percussion, this Canadian trio issued just two albums at the dawn the seventies, before a lack of interest, poor record sales and internal strife resulted in their brief demise. Yet it's easy to see why. Despite producing a rather haunting, slow-burning sound on much of this self-titled debut, Syrinx's sound exhibits a studious and overly-earnest quality, making for an interesting but strangely unexciting experience. However, despite the longeurs engineered by Mills-Cockell's lengthy synth runs, there are occasional nuggets to be found on 'Syrinx', especially in one of the album's longer pieces. Called 'Chant For Your Dragon King', this ten-minute piece features one the group's more enchanting melodies emerging from a careful and cautious build-up, rewarding those listeners with the patience to stay with Syrinx's peculiar brand of early electro-rock. Elsewhere, the brooding opener 'Melina's Torch' at least starts proceedings with a dash of percussive drama, whilst the softly-meditative 'Field Hymn' walks a slightly softer path, with a warm and woozy feel perhaps at odds with rest of the album's autumnal edges. A strange experience then, this Canadian oddity burns bright with originality yet proves a rather daunting experience. Interesting, thoughtful music then, but it's not actually fun. STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2014

The 2 record prog/electronic canadian legend begins.

Yeah! That's it, only 2 albums!

This first one, self-titled "Syrinx" 1970, started the whole thing on its right foot. It is unmistakable, the kind of music "artists" propose, opposed to the "artistic" kind. The love for art itself, demands an interior discipline, which has no accomodation, for banalities like God money's rat-race. It is unmistakable, when musicians just compose, perform, record and release, because that is the natural cycle in any art form. Money is only parasitic in this part of the process, what follows is your choice.

Anyway, the freedom of creation in this kind of efforts, would be impossible to achieve without a clear notion of your own art. John Mills-Cockell had a very clear picture of to where he was heading music wise. This first album offers as a whole, a very serious amount of possible paths, so well attained, that this one , as their next effort, are hard to pin down to a single prog sub-genre, but also, kind of have to think of more divisibles to this equation.

All in all, it is more electronic in comparisson to its younger brother. It explores single-handedly (with a soloing synth), creative "metamorphical" melodic textures, which seem to have been stripped away of any kind of useless "electronic" paraphernalia, so many artist were tempted to use in that great era of "new" electronic gadgets.

No, on the contrary, in the true spirit of an artist, he will never sacrifice composition for mere innovation. Therefore intelligent compositions of attractive melodic lines, that move alongside a subtle almost invisible train of distant and hypnotic percussions, which never stop being creative yet low-keyed. Doug Pringle's sinuos and enchanting sax appears and disappears with elegance throughout the whole project (thus the connection many make of Syrinx also to the modern prog/Jazz scene).

A flawless, low-keyed, no paraphernalia, straight to where it matters, even though nobody notices, progressive/electronic masterwork. Which crosses over to other prog sub-genres, once in a while, in perfect balance!

****4.5 "the short-spanned electronic legend begun", PA stars