Sahara Sunrise is the debut album from Sahara, but is really the second album from the renamed Subject Esq. The album opens up brilliantly on 'Marie Celeste' with the most powerful fuzz bass entrance one can imagine. Then it settles into a fine melodic progressive rock groove. 'Rainbow Rider' follows a similar pattern and contains some beautiful melodic passages. 'Circles' starts off incongruously as a country track, but finishes nicely with what we used to call "rural psych ". The 27 minute 'Sunrise' is extraordinary and packs many ideas into that long time frame. This is a complex work that requires close study. Sahara Sunrise is an album that has aged beautifully for me. Much - much - better than I recalled.
Ownership: LP: 1973 PAN/Ariola. Stunning colorful gatefold with lyrics and photos/paintings in the centerpiece. I purchased this online in 2000, and it's the first time for me to hear this copy (!). Initially I found the Peters International US version at a Dallas record show in the 80s, but it was pretty beat, and I didn't enjoy the contents because of it, and sold it off way back then. Later I bought the Ohrwaschl CD in 1994, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the last time I heard this album, some 28 years later!
There are a lot of nuances with the release of this title, and I believe Discogs has the date wrong. There is no copyright date on the original, just the album notes saying it was recorded in autumn of 1973. However, the US press is clear in that it was copyrighted in 1973. The odd thing is that the Peters release was from 1974, so it seems to have flowed that the original was too. But Peters (most known as a major distributor of imports to the US) came after the fact, similar to Billingsgate. Another quirk is that the original is titled Sahara Sunrise, whereas it's denoted only as Sunrise on the Peters copy. There's also a UK version on Dawn - released in 1975 - that is also titled Sahara Sunrise. Just to add to the fun, my copy is a later pressing with the XOT (instead of IT) catalog extension (was also not on Discogs, but we just added it). What a mess. The photos you see are this copy.
1/11/22 (new entry)
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