Friday, September 18, 2015

Pulsar - Pollen. 1975 France

Generally regarded as the weaker of the classic three 1970's Pulsar albums, debut Pollen is still an album very much worth absorbing. The album suffers from a muddy production and a certain immaturity towards songwriting. In its favor, however, is an exorbitant amount of atmosphere. I would classify Pollen as "heavy cloud music" (a new genre is born!), in which there's a pervasive melancholy that requires an intense introspection. Ironically the music is inspirational rather than depressing, and provides a perverse motivation. The track that best represents this motif is 'Apaisement' with the drawn out flute, acoustic guitar, organ, fuzz chords, thudding drums, string synthesizer, and the mumbling vocals in French. A rainy day in Lyon indeed. A wonderfully sad album.

Personal collection
LP: 1975 Kingdom
LP: 1976 Decca (UK)
CD: 2008 Arcangelo (Japan)

The CD is a mini-LP but is Musea's disc and features their booklet as well.
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownSeptember 18, 2015 at 11:40 AM

    Over time this has become my favorite. Just like the first Wapassou, the decidedly lo-fi production seems to add more charm than take away from the whole. That naievety also make is stand out a bit more than the more polished later records.

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    1. Purple Peak RecordsSeptember 18, 2015 at 1:05 PM

      I have to agree about Wapassou. That first album is magical. I think I'm still partial to Halloween when it comes to Pulsar. Side 1 of that is as good as any album in my collection. I'm not sure where Strands will fall, as I haven't given it a deep listen in many years. Even though I have 3 copies. LOL. Thanks Mike for the comment!

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