Proyecto A (Spain)
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Category: Progressive Music Lounges
Forum Name: Suggest New Bands and Artists
Forum Description: Suggest, create polls, and classify new bands you would like included on Prog Archives
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=91333
Printed Date: April 05 2025 at 11:53
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Topic: Proyecto A (Spain)
Posted By: Guests
Subject: Proyecto A (Spain)
Date Posted: January 05 2013 at 07:37
I need someone to weigh in on this; it's an album from 1970 dedicated to planets of the solar system or the roman gods to be exact. With it's horn section and other stuff I did think of jazz but then again I think it's quite psychedelic as well so I didn't want to decide right away.  Josep "Kitflus" Mas' (ex-Iceberg, ex-Pegasus and usual contributor of Joan Manuel Serrat, among many others) first band. The band broke up after releasing this only album. He was 16 then. The following information has been provided by courtesy of Electrofuzzer of Sonidos En Órbita: "PROYECTO "a" is an album masterminded by Frank David, aka Frank Dubé. The names of the musicians involved are unknown (apart from Kitflus), since they all used pseudonyms. The album was recorded at the RCA studios un Madrid, yet most of the session musicians hailed from Barcelona. It was recorded in '69 and released one year later; in 1971 the single "A Plutón" (To Pluton) was released with alternative lyrics, replacing the word "Plutón" (Pluton) with "Putón" (whore or slut). In 1971 Frank David goes to Germany to make an electronic album called Blues And Electronics under the "The Frank David Selection" monniker, with Herb Geller and Okko Becker (of OKKO Sitar & Electronics fame) on the moog. The album was released on the defunct BASF label. |
Replies:
Posted By: yam yam
Date Posted: January 05 2013 at 10:19
Seems like a hash of early Psyche/Funk, with Jazz and Ethnic/World music. Lots of fuzz bass and guitar, a bit of organ, along with a horn section. Doesn't neatly fit into any sub on here to my mind, so next time Eclectic come past with their wheelbarrow I'd be tempted to just lob it in there and scarper!  Seriously though - this is amazing music for its time - nice find!
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Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: January 05 2013 at 12:51
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As a Catalan and fan of Iceberg this was really a surprise, completely obscure to me! Great find, I searched a bit but I could not find any better info than what you got already so it seems to be really obscure for everybody! The LP is selling in eBay for 200 euro! Not really my cup of tea musically but very interesting, I guess Proto-Prog or Psychedelic would have to be it?
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Posted By: DamoXt7942
Date Posted: January 10 2013 at 02:35
So glad we can check such an obscure combo. 
Thanks historian. ------------- http://www.facebook.com/damoxt7942" rel="nofollow"> 
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Posted By: DamoXt7942
Date Posted: January 10 2013 at 05:32
Psychedelic-based heavy-jazzy appearance with experimental weirdness and quirky electronika ... sounds strongly like Krautrock for me. Great find historian, nonetheless!
 ------------- http://www.facebook.com/damoxt7942" rel="nofollow">
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Posted By: Gerinski
Date Posted: September 04 2014 at 11:58
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I got access to this full album (it had 8 songs), a really obscure one even in Spain, and I also found some enlightening information written first hand from his mastermind Frank Dubé (alias Frank David). In the album credits the musicians used pseudonyms so nobody knew who played really in it. But Frank Dubé wrote this recently (Feb 2014) as a reply in a Spanish blog which had featured the album: "Proyecto A (they didn't let me call it Proyecto Apollo) was a simple and heartfelt tribute to the historic and heroic achievement of a human being stepping on a celestial body beyond Earth. The musical and rhythmic styles of the songs were not really anything new and ranged from Rock, Soul, Funky etc. that were fashionable at that time with the intention that they could be danced to in the emerging Dance Clubs. The unique and original novelty was that the melodies and harmonies used scales and tones which the Impressionist Claude Aquiles Debussy had already used to describe musically the endless to and fro of the sea waves in his Suite "La Mer". I tried to capture the cosmic weightlessness with the help of sound effects, handmade with a Binson Echo. 90% of melodies and harmonies were made on tonal scales that produced an amazing feeling, a little uncomfortable for some. We did not have synthesizers or other technologies so I went the old fashioned way, I went to the beach to record the sounds of the waves, I submerged a mic protected with a plastic bag into a bucket of water and blew through a hose to create bubbles, the launching of the rocket was the recording of a heating kettle starting up... The musicians in the recording were: Kisgay (real name Joan Giralt, Hammond), Aaron (real name Jose Antonio Muńoz, bass), Nator (* real name not given, trombon), Ortex (real name Jose Ortega, sax), George I (real name Jordi Camp, brother of Manel Camp from Fusioon, guitar), myself as composer and vocals, and an emergency session drummer (alias Rooby Dayand) who covered for Jordi Colomer from Iceberg who finally was unable to move to Madrid for the recording sessions. Brass was played by some musicians from the Madrid municipal band. (* note: in the album credits is also mentioned a percussionist by the alias of 'Jean Marc' of which Dubé does not give a clue) It seems that there are some fans who want to re-edit the vinyl LP and are looking for the owner of the master. On the cover of the single appeared the faces of Jordi Colomer, Josep Mas 'Kitflus', and Santi Pico who, together with Max Sunyer and Primi Sancho (* Colomer, Kitflus, Sunyer and Sancho were the musicians of Iceberg) had to perform "Project A" live, which never took to materialize. But it was Max, Jordi, Mas and Primi who, together with Juan Mena recorded 3 years later in the EMI-ODEON studios my "Project B" (never released)."   |
Posted By: yam yam
Date Posted: September 04 2014 at 16:11
A timely bump, my friend - and some great info!  It doesn't look to me as though this was ever added anywhere though. Guys?? 
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