PROGRESSIVE ELECTRONIC

The Quebec duo of Dionne(drums) and Bregent(keyboards) released to very good albums in the mid seventies. In fact both will get a lot of consideration if I get a chance to do my "best of" Electronic list. But before those back to back releases in 1976 and 1977, Bregent had released an album in 1973 with his brother Jacques who actually wrote and produced the album I'm reviewing today. But back in 1973 their idea was to take the lyrics of some of their favourite poets and make an album out of it. We get the dramatic and sometimes spoken words of Jacques to the music that his brother created which was often electronic and orchestral.

So after the duo of Dionne-Bregent called it a day after their second album, the Bregent brothers reunite to make a followup album to their 1973 debut. The dates attached to these songs are from 1970 to 1977, but by far most are from 1972. We get some different lineups on these tracks. Like their debut the vocals dominate, and often in a theatrical manner, but there's spoken words as well. The focus, like on their debut, are the lyrics of poets.

The bombastic opener and the ballad-like tracks that follow are not my thing at all. There are a couple of tracks though that made an impression on me beginning with "Les Mouillures" for that haunting atmosphere, but my favourite is "L'intersection" for that zeuhl flavour out of nowhere. And how about the female vocals and that ripping guitar. The drumming and guitar are outstanding on here by the way, but this is a very inconsistent album in my opinion. And not close to the quality of the Dionne-Bregent records.

By the way Dionne is on that short ninth track which was nice to hear. The cover art is the best thing about this album, and I'll stick to my two Dionne-Bregent recordings. And lastly, not knowing French certainly doesn't help me here when the lyrics are so important and the focus.

Claudio Milano is perhaps the most unconventional and boundary pushing artist that I know of. And this attitude is from top to bottom. From the studio albums he is on, to those legendary live performances that are as much about the visual as they are the audio. To even the packaging that the music comes, which has been so unique at times. One of his recording I own has a literal string tied in a bow around the cd package. This most recent cd comes in a glossy, mini-magazine that is about 8 1/2 inches high and almost 6 inches wide. Some ten pages or so of lyrics and info all in Italian, plus pictures. The cd is held in a clear plastic sleeve attached to the inside back cover.

Like Claudio who is honest to his visions, I feel like I too have been honest with my opinions. Especially when free physical music has been sent to me for review. Not swayed in the least by that, and Claudio knows this, but still keeps them coming. I decline free downloads, as my whole reason for being on this site is to have a place for my opinions of My record collection. I have zero interest in throwing up reviews for music I don't physically own. Of the fourteen cds I own that Claudio's on I have given 6 three star reviews, 6 four stars reviews(including this one), and 2 five star reviews.

I have really fallen for this album. And talk about unconventional! We have three very classy, world class singers and a keyboardist playing a live gig at a gas station in Prato, Italy. A city of around 200,000 people, and the second largest city after Florence in Tuscany. In a gas station?! Unconventional right? Claudio Milano sings on the longest and by far most adventerous track on here called "Dissolvenza" at almost 19 minutes. Milano as usual provides an incredible performance that is as varied as the song is long. He puts on a show, and this is the only song featuring our fourth member Teo Ravelli, who can play drums with the best of them and is also known as Borda. He is also an electronics guy, and it's this song that instrumentally does something for me with those electronics. I love the sound of them as they come and go throughout. This is the track that prog fas will appreciate.

The other three tracks are quite sparse instrumentally, usually piano only. This really is a vocal album which usually isn't my thing, but it is here. We also have Niccolo Clemente on vocals singing on track two called "Comparsa". My least favourite but I still like it. He adds his own piano and synths to his vocals, and is somewhere between the adventerous Milano track, and the mellow Nemo songs.

Lets talk about Alberto Nemo. My first spin of this recording left me completely taken with Nemo's vocal style and tone. He clearly is a spiritual man, from the way he dresses to the music he performs. His songs open and close this album which just seems so appropriate, tying it all together. He sings in wordless melodies like some of those traditional middle eastern singers, or even like some of the singers from India. I had an Indian co- worker who always had his music cranked, and I always complimented it. I'm for some reason really drawn to this style of singing. Slow moving with Alberto emphasizing every syllable, and holding the notes. So impressed.

A very solid 4 stars for this special release that I'm so proud to own. Thanks Claudio!

Another album by Klaus SCHULZE when he left, strange at first; less so when we know that this album is in fact the result of a commission dating from 2008 for a film!

01. INFINITY (part 1,2 & 3) with the dark, mystical, soaring, black start with brackish colored scents, yes dark I confirm; it progresses on airy droplets and a languid base before having a world variation by the oriental vocal; we find hints of Jean-Michel JARRE on the endless rise, a mysterious violin coming to cast even more doubt on the direction of the piece; latency and contemplation are required, the sound at the origin of 2008 is less austere, heavier and more pregnant 02. ALPHA in detached piece continues however on the line of the master by proposing a typical reverberation beginning, a plaintive air more than melancholic, we approach the meditative expiation here; a digression in fact

03. MULTI (part 1,2,3,4 & 5) dives into a sequence of more than half an hour with 5 parts; at the beginning it is different, but it is also a bit the same; we have to wait until the end of the second drawer to glimpse a desire to turn up the sound, the 3rd to realize that we have forgotten time and that the Schulzian sound still has an effect even after his death; yes these pieces are part of a work requested for a film soundtrack, but we know that Klaus is gone, and this sound resonates much more like a memory, a solemn hymn, a temporal hook beyond death, a bit like the famous library of Interstellar', but I digress; these multi-titles would be like multi-glasses allowing to communicate with Klaus, I digress, I dream, I soar, I start to believe it; the moment when I think I hear pads of his hands, he who was a drummer at the beginning; yes the 4th phase is indeed the start of the album by associating what made SCHULZE the creator of the linear, monolithic, hypnotic and dangerously mantranic sound; of the bass rhythming our brain with the treble pricking our heart, or the opposite; in short the final part is an extension that definitively buries us next to him to whisper his last notes, oh there this chronicle becomes subjective, unreal, incredible

04. META arrives, follows, a sequel, a redundancy, a passage with the velvety keyboards always, with this synthetic pad that sets the rhythm, makes you close your eyes and listen in a syncopated way to the musical framework reveal itself, again and again; this piece goes by faster, I wonder if I fell asleep as I often do for more than 40 years while listening to Klaus; yes his atmosphere is in my skin from now on 05. UNI (part 1, 2 & 3) with the electronic latency that continues at first glance, you need the second drawer to have one of these openings of which only he had the secret; an electro air coming out of a keyboard, another from a synth and the piece suddenly comes to life; a little about JARRE's spatial orientation again, ah yes he did good things at the beginning too; this long monologue of high syncopated notes that seem to fall on a still damp cement screed; long contemplative melody to approach the Heavens, again; the easiest piece to access on the edge of redundancy, lacking that little extra that imprints the electronic progression; in short the finale slows down the air, the pads become more present, the low sound is gone, the one that reassured by offering another nap and another replay because of the brain's escape. An album from 2024 that takes the time to last in a disordered world, a bit paradoxical. (3.5). originelly on Planèteprog on Facebook.

The 1970's was the golden age of progressive music. It actually started in the late 1960's after Sgt. Pepper and Brian Wilson's great push to use the music studio as an instrument, which he did so effectively with his Pet Sounds. Everything seemed to fall into place for energetic groups to take rock music to its extreme. Brian Eno did this with this release. In the mid 1970's the economy was experiencing inflation and Watergate had just been concluded in Washington DC. The US was in turmoil along with the rest of the western world. In the musical art world of English masters like Eno, he was only getting started. He wanted to go totally uncommercial and make true art with sound. I think he accomplished his goal with this record. It has everything in an avant-garde project. It is beautiful and sublime. It is 4.5 stars on my scale. No track is filler, everything fits and produces a grand whole with subtlety and artistic merit.

The second collaboration between Fripp and Eno is a more ambient and reflective statement which shows how Mr. Fripp started to excel with synthetic guitar and loops. Brian was a great teacher as evidenced by Robert's subsequent works of soundscapes. On this initial offering he delves deep into the emotional mind of pure sound and how it portrays feelings and thoughts without words. Eno released Another Green World in 1975 and EG Records released Evening Star that same year. It was the heyday for experimental rock music. Fripp took the idea that the guitar could express oscillation like the keyboard. It is a landmark record in this respect. 4 stars.

This time Claudio Milano releases a live album from a performance in a very unusual place, a gasoline station in a town close to Florence, together with two other vocalists and authors. They agreed to add this album to Claudio's discography on PA even if it's a sort of "split".

The first performer is Alberto Nemo who is also the pianist. "Frattura" (Fracture) is present at the beginning and at the end of the album, but the total time of the two parts together is inferior to those of the other two performers.

So let's start with "Frattura Iniziale (Initial Fracture). It's started by the piano. There's a lot of reverb, but I think it's just the acoustic of the venue. It doesnt sound like an electronic effect. Nemo's voice is strong and has some similarities with Claudio's voice. I must confess that I've had a doubt about who this singer is. Luckily the whole live performance is also on Youtube. Alberto Nemo sits at the piano dressed (or betteer, undressed) like a Sikh, and his vocals which I was struggling to understand are just vocalizations. It's a sort of fusion between Dhropal singing and Catholic chants. It may sound like a prayer, but the only intelligible word that I catch is "Matame" ("Kill me" in Spanish). The real meaning performance is well explained in the album's booklet (in Italian, sorry). I don't know whether an English version is available. In any case, the "vibrations" created by the voice and the piano can vehiculate the message, partially at least. My own consideration: being able to put the eastern and western souls together is a proof of the common roots of the Indoeuropeans. Traditional musics share their vibes from Ireland to Bangladesh.

Niccolo' Clemente, aka Whale, has a composing style similar to Claudio. This time his piano accompanies real lyrics. Not very easy also for an Italian. I interpret it as the appearance and disappearance of life on Earth. The mortal remains of an extinct mankind. The lyrics are not much long, but enough to make phylosophical references. In particular the sentence "Il Tempo ingoiato dalla tempesta dell'atomo" gives me the idea of an Universe totally indifferent toward us. It literally means "Time swallowed by the atom's storm" It's the alpha constant that changes its value and destroys matter and energy. Time remains but is no more useable. There are remains, but not the mankind. Very good instrumental piano coda follows.

It's now the turn of Claudio. Now there's electronic behind, An unusual loop is the base on which Claudio repeats four words several times before staring o use his voice as i knows: "Morte, Dissolvenza, Vita, Trasmissione" (Death, Fade, Life, Transmission). The multi-instrumentis and electronic maestro Teo Ravelli aka Borda creates very intriguing soundscapes also distorting the voice of Claudio, adding echoes and effects to the vocals. Listening carefully, it's like Claudio is singing acapella over an invisible (inaudible is better) chords progression. This atonal music may can be reconducted to a proper song...but why doing so? As usual the lyrics written by Claudio are harsh, row, intense and sometimes disturbing. And it ends with a catholic standard prayer before getting back to the initial four words, but with different interval, tonality and background toward the sudden end. Trying to interpret the poetry, I think there's a connection to "The Wall". Traumas and a consequent attempt to hide himself (I want to dive into an ocean of [&*!#]) until the decision to escape "With the voice of an angel I scream my interior void. I want to get out!". I see it like the desire of tearing down the wall. Of course it's just as I interpret it, I can be completely wrong. The key is more likely in the word Dissolvenza (Fade). Disappear, melt into small pieces of awareness in order to rebirth.

Finally, Nemo is back with his mixture of east and west backed by his piano. It's a reprise of the first track and an excellent conclusion of the performance that closes the circle. At this point we have experienced the wordless chant of the soul, the disappearance of the mankind into the void of existence, the death and the desperate desire of rebirth, to the return of the wordless voice of the soul.

Challenging but rewarding. It's a sort of journey to the abyss and back, in some ways similar to what Dante does in the Comedy's Inferno, which was the subject of the previous performance by Claudio Milano with "I Sincopatici".

Kubusschnitt was one of many obscure and unknown progressive electronic bands from the 1990s to the 2010s. Kubient II is their ninth studio album and one of their more recent albums. It's also one of their many albums with no reviews or ratings whatsoever. As for a rundown of the band and its history, there isn't much. The three partly constant members of the band are Andy Bloyce, Tom Coppens, and Ruud Heij. As I've mentioned, the history of this band, apart from line up changes, isn't entirely unearthed. What I do know is that a lot of their more recent albums were made by looking at archived recordings and bootlegs from fans and working on them into new albums. I can't confirm that this album is in the same case, but there is a high chance that it is indeed an inspired work. Unlike most progressive electronic, I heard a much more unique sound compared to other bands in the similar field. It's entirely one long, 37-minute song with a sound much more akin to sleep noise than electronic music. It just takes you on this long journey through Kubusschnitt's sound while still having enough uniqueness to keep you awake and the mind at ease. The song also draws influences from pure space music along with Berlin School and a low, constant concentration on the noise.    

The song opens with a continuous ambiance that will stay intact throughout the entire song. We get some actual electronic music within this opening, with distorted keyboard sounds completely different from other electronic bands. It has an almost metallic feel, with the songs inside moving in dynamics between scratchy and clean music multiple times. Most of the next parts up until some minutes later are just more ambient noises with very little accompanying ideas based around it. Kubusschnitt seems to be aiming for an experience rather than an actual album, which can be enjoyable but can drag when the song barely changes over it's full length. As for the experience I mentioned that they were going for, it's a nice journey that can reach into your mind. It flows nice; technically, nothing that can be defined as bad in my opinion; it just needs an extra twist of change within its borders. Around the twelve-minute mark, however, a new electronic system is implanted in the song, and it feels nice with it actually putting something in stone throughout the album. This area of the song can drag a little because they repeat the same structures a couple of times before moving on. We get more of the quiet atmosphere based around this project so far until right before the nineteen minute mark where the band begins to play some authentic electronic stuff with real yet almost unheard solos in the electronic systems. I quite like this part of the song as it follows a cobbled up but realistic idea of progressive electronic, which an enjoy a lot more than plain ambiance. This passage moves into the chirps of birds for brief moments, similar to the silent chirps on Phaedra by Tangerine Dream. Eventually the band ends this progression and moves back into the ambiance. The next actual bursts on this record are briefly at the twenty-seven minute mark, where there's a distorted synth solo accompanied by more of the bird chirps I mentioned, and at the thirty three minute mark where some strange mechanical noises echo into the realm of the song that strangely sound wet. It sounds pretty experimental, with the band somehow finding a sense of rhythm within these passages, and it continues until the end of the album.      

Kubient II can sort of sound like the description of a downer, so to speak. The song is entirely a soothing experience with no interruption between the thirty-seven minutes on the album. It's really relaxing in the album's confined boundaries, not really reaching anywhere within a progressive sense but staying within a mode of peace. Overall, it can just be narrowed down to an okay album. I can see no way where this song becomes really popular, and it's most likely to stay in the confines of the minuscule fan base of Kubusschnitt. It's an alright song; it fits in pretty well with the genre it's listed in, but far from essential. I'd say this is a light 3/5.

* originally written for www.jazzmusicarchives.com

Unorthodox Italian vocalist Claudio Milano's newest album, "Frattura, Comparsa, Dissolvenza," was recorded by a quartet with electronic artist Borda and two pianists/electronic artists, Niccolo Clemente and Alberto Nemo. Unlike many of Claudio's previous releases, the new one has nothing too much in common with the progressive rock of the 70s, which always was a strong Milano influence.

Just four pieces, 43 minutes long in common. Minimalist and liturgical atmosphere, dark and partially chamber. The opener "Frattura Iniziale" is Alberto Nemo's composition. Nemo began his career performing sacred music in chapels. Slow, dark, and minimalistic repetitive piano and Claudio's operatic voice together sound like church liturgy. Partially recalls Ran Blake's music. Beautiful song and the best on this album for my ears.

"Comparsa" opens with a dark and dreamy(gothic?) piano solo, and operatic Claudio vocals come soon after. Songs author and composer Niccolo Clemente adds vocals and electronics too. Claudio's vocals feel the space flying free. The same atmosphere of church liturgy and Gregorian chants continues.

"Dissolvenza", the longest album's composition, is more based on electronic effects sound. Claudio's vocal acrobatics pushes it towards a more leftfield zone. If the album's opener can be compared with chamber Ran Blake's works, "Dissolvenza" is closer to Diamanda Galas' music.

"Frattura Finale", the album's shortest piece, is written by Nemo again. Chamber piano, minimalist repetitive construction, and Claudio's emotional voice over it. The Mass is ended.

As always, Claudio adds a lot of philosophical themes and minds in lyrics (true, it's good to be fluent in Italian though). According to liner notes, the album was recorded somewhere in a gas station. Surprisingly enough, its acoustics recall more of a church space. Probably not an album for Claudio's prog rock side fans, "Frattura, Comparsa, Dissolvenza" shows his great alternative talent - an electro-acoustic minimalist chamber vocalist. Well done!

Clearly the most successful stage of Tangerine Dream was the so-called Virgin Years, between 1973 and 1983. Indeed during those years the band recorded several acclaimed albums like Phaedra, Stratosfear or Tangram, just to mention some of them. In the middle of this period there was an isolated experiment and this was Cyclone. This moment coincides with the departure of Peter Baumann, whose last presence was in the previous album Sorcerer. The band recruited and english multi-instrumentalist called Steve Jolliffe, who in fact was a band member in the very early years as a flute player, even before the recording of Electronic Meditation. The novelty was that Jolliffe would sing in two tracks and his aura would fly over the entire album. This fact divided the Tangerine dream followers. Edgar Froese, TD mastermind, said once talking about Cyclone "As far back as I can recall some people have thought we're geniuses and others have dismissed as a bunch of dumb knob-twiddlers". The truth is that probably the majority of TD fans dismised Cyclone and a minority love it. You can count myself between this minority. The album begins with what I think is a prog masterpiece of 13 minutes long called Bent Cold Sidewalk, with real drums, flutes and an extraordinary voice, all of it over the typical TD kind of music. Starting with a vocoder intro, the piece gets into a four minutes sung section. The voice of Jolliffe sounds amazing and the same goes for the melody line, which added to the kind of lyrics creates a sort of mysterious enviroment. After that the track flows into a fascinating instrumental section of six minutes long to then returns to a sung conclusion with the same motive than the begining. Amazing really. Second track is by far the weakest, sung again, luckyly it is the shortest piece of the album. Finally, Madrigal Meridian is a typical Tangerine Dream instrumental, very well designed, with a "train" rhythm pattern over which the synths make a great job. About this Jolliffe said "For Madrigal Meridian, Chris (Franke) worked out some nice bass and sequencer patterns, and we just sort of began jamming over the top of that". Highly recommended at least to give it a spin and check the feelings.

This would be the final release of the three recordings that Eno did with CLUSTER and HARMONIA while In Germany with Bowie doing his "Berlin Triliogy". The first release in 1976 was with HARMONIA called "Tracks & Traces" which of course included the two CLUSTER boys Roedelius and Moebius, along with Micheal Rother from NEU!. The final two recording were without Rother, and from what I understand came from the same sessions that included CAN's Holger Czukay adding some bass and hanging out with the keyboard guys.

I prefer the HARMONIA release the most of these three recordings, but of the last two I like the one I'm reviewing now the best. Released in 1978 we get about 41 minutes of music over ten tracks. Ambient is the word, but those three vocal tracks with Eno singing are my favourites along with that third track "Base & Apex". Just more going on with those pieces, plus Czukay plays bass on that fourth song that Eno sings on. Conny Plank is the fifth member you could say adding his incredible studio knowledge and helping in every way possible. Lots of atmosphere on this album along with piano leading the way. Mellow is the word, but in my world this is pretty historic stuff which is why Czukay wanted in on this.

"After The Heat" is far from earth-shaking, but this is a 4 star album in my musical world.