Prog Nosis


“Angela likes Demis Roussos, Tony likes Demis Roussos, I like Demis Roussos. And MARCO ROSSI would like to hear Demis Roussos. So, please do you think we could have Demis Roussos?”


You know those people whose very existence just fills you with wonder and joy? Demis Roussos kind of has that effect on me. I first became aware of him when ‘Forever And Ever’ charted in the mid-70s on a wave of ouzo-fuelled Greek package holiday euphoria.


Commendably, ’70s womanhood – not least Abigail of the titular party – swooned over his careworn cocktail olive eyes, burst- mattress tonsure and bog brush beard despite the fact that the be-robed falsetto crooner essentially resembled a fully laden banquet table beneath which a frightened lady appeared to be literally bleating for deliverance. And then there was that terrific story about him solicitously singing to the passengers on board a hijacked jet. I often idly


definitively psychedelic, with their weeping cadences, musique concrète tendencies and indigenous instrumentation. That’s bouzoukis, to you and I (Yeah, bouzoukis to you an’ all). ‘You Always Stand In My Way’, meanwhile, features an indescribably hysterical vocal that sounds as though it was recorded by someone with a gun at his head who has only heard rock music once, over a telephone with an appallingly bad line. It’s just incredibly brilliant.


Moving right along, one heartily welcomes the about-time-too appearance of a decent CURVED AIR compilation, namely the 2-CD Retrospective: Anthology 1970-2009 (Repertoire). The chilly elegance of their high-born prog owed much, in the first instance, to the


“So make your mind up. Is it the end of the world or just five o’clock?” Aphrodite’s Child look at three different things.


probably wasn’t as solid an idea as I had first surmised. I might still write it anyway just to give myself something inevitably thankless to do, so if you’re a female pal of mine don’t be surprised to receive a research email which reads: “Apart from the fact that prog is naff, tedious, silly, interminably indulgent and undanceable, what is it that you don’t like about it?”


Bai, it’s another top month for reissues. Hot on the stack heels of Curved Air comes a brace of sweetmeats from HIGH TIDE, these being ’69’s Sea Shanties and ’70’s High Tide (both Esoteric) – their entire recorded output, notwithstanding their contributions to


Denny Gerrard’s Sinister Morning album. Infuriatingly underrated, High Tide were a showcase for the unruly talents of violinist Simon House and guitarist/vocalist Tony Hill – an ex-member of The


Misunderstood, and therefore a man with a hotline to divinity. Stomping all over Britain with wah- wah shoes on, they made the most colossal and thrillingly grimy racket: a combination of The Stooges’ noble we-came-to-rock


ethos and the black-hearted improvisatory tumult of late-period Cream (‘Death Warmed Up’, ‘Futilist’s Lament’). ‘Walking Down Their Outlook’, meanwhile, is the best West Coast song never to have had so much as a sniff of San Franciscan nights; and sometimes that dexterous and unexpectedly sensitive second album sounds like the best thing I’ve ever heard. Their name lives on wherever hefty stoner prog is championed: but be sure to note what a great, distinctive vocalist Tony Hill was, over and above his instrumental nift.


And so to stupendous Swiss nut job acid-trance trailblazers BRAINTICKET, whose cast-iron reputation in Krautrock circles belies an international line-up based around Belgian keyboardist/flautist Joel Vandroogenbroeck. Psychonaut, from


’72, and ’73’s Celestial Ocean (both Reactive/Esoteric), come on like a stirring cross between The United States Of America, Ramases, Gong and the exact moment at early free festivals when the lysergics kicked in, the clothes came off and the sitars came out. Psychonaut’s ‘Like A Place In The Sun’,


speculate upon what a surreal day that must have been for all concerned. When I belatedly discovered that Demis had a nefarious past as the bassist/vocalist with a psychedelic band from Greece, I was of course sold on the man for life. APHRODITE’S CHILD (for it is they) have just been treated to a brisk remastering of their first two albums, End Of The World and It’s Five O’Clock (both Esoteric). The title tracks from both LPs, and indeed ‘Rain And Tears’ and ‘I Want To Live’, were substantial hit singles


throughout Europe in 1968-69, forging an erroneous image of the band as soft-centred, slightly gloopy balladeers despite some memorably surly sleeve photos that seemed to say,“I keel you”. Left to their own devices, Demis, keyboardist Vangelis Papathanassiou – yes, that Vangelis – and drummer Lucas Sideras were in actual fact gloriously bloody weird. Nineteen- Sixty-Eight’s End Of The World in particular provides a compelling argument in support of the notion that Greek psychedelia is a credible sub-genre. ‘The Grass Is No Green’, ‘The Shepherd And The Moon’ and ‘Day Of The Fool’ are definitively Greek and


classicist leanings of violinist Darryl Way and keyboardist Francis Monkman: and let’s not forget original drummer Florian Pilkington- Miksa, third only to Basil Rathbone and Drachen Theaker in my personal pantheon of Names I Wish I Had Been Given At Birth Despite The Fact That My Mates Would Still Have Battered Me. Chiefly, of course, there was vocalist Sonja Kristina. While there’s simply no getting away from the fact that she was as inescapably attractive as a magnetised lottery cheque, she deserves considerably better treatment from posterity than merely to be remembered as prog’s sole pin-up. Her voice had (and still has) an appealing, euphonious, frail-but-tough quality about it, and she was (and still is) capable of crafting singularly thoughtful lyrics. Check out the lovely ‘Screw’ – which isn’t about what you might think it is – the cautionary ‘Melinda (More Or Less)’ and the acid-folk delicacy ‘Elfin Boy’ for starters. That terrific ’71 single ‘Back Street Luv’ still sounds imperiously urbane, cool and somehow European. Sonja, unbeknownst to her, was going to be a central pillar in my


planned dissertation on Ladies In Prog: more specifically, why there effectively weren’t any, sadly, either on stage or in the audience. I even pitched this as a book synopsis to Millsy, our editor, but the kindly old-fashioned look he gave me persuaded me that this


with its questing waves of Hammond and Carole Muriel’s mechanistic voiceover, is like a sighting from the Hubble Space Telescope of an asteroid belt entirely composed of grooviness. Controversially, I’m saying Celestial Ocean is even better: beautiful, bubbling, deep-fried techno-ethnological larkishness of the first water, with bonus insanity peppers.


All of which brings us up to Now (Repertoire) by the rejuvenated JADE WARRIOR.Against formidable odds, founder Jon Field, original vocalist Glyn Havard and über-handy latter-day bassist Dave Sturt have put together something which actually builds upon


the head-swimming transcendence of those magical ’74-78 Island albums. Their trademark deployment of jarring extremes is still intact – from the barely-there ‘Tall Trees’ to the atonal crunch of ‘3am Meltdown’ – and their ability to immerse the listener in a fully-realised soundworld is as acute as ever despite their having moved on from the instrumentals of yore. For sure, one may always feel the absence of late guitarist Tony Duhig, but one senses flautist/percussionist Field’s reassuringly tasteful hand on the tiller throughout.


www.esotericrecordings.com www.repertoirerecords.com


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