Kit Watkins - Labyrinth. 1981 Azymuth (LP). Kit Watkins was the keyboardist for Happy The Man, and this album has his high quality trademark songwriting all over it. There's some wonderful melodic compositions throughout. The issue here is the instrumentation, production, and the sounds produced. Very plasticy. It's an early attempt at the one man band concept plus Coco Roussel on drums who might as well be a machine. One of the few times I'd recommend a re-recording. Would be interesting to hear Labyrinth as a full band recording with analog instrumentation. (9/1)
Darxtar - We Came Too Late. 2005 Nasoni (LP). Gatefold. Red vinyl. Sweden's Darxtar were one of the early proponents of the space rock revival of the late 80s and early 90s. I had a couple of their CDs back in the day, but I just couldn't get into their brand of space rock. I honestly can't remember how they sounded, though a dull Hawkwind leaps to mind. When I found this nice looking LP cheap at a Denver record store, I had to give them another shot. At this point, Darxtar are a song based rock band with psychedelic trimmings and textures. One can tell they knew who Dungen were, but they don't at all play up their "Swedishness", which is too bad. Darxtar most assuredly associate themselves with the UK branch of the space rock tree. They're not retro either, very much a band of the 2000s. With that in mind, the title doesn't really make much sense. The "born too late" phrase belongs to those who feel they should have lived in an earlier era. That's not this album. When I think of a retro psych UK band, my go to's are The Wolf People and Syd Arthur. Those groups are most whimsical, and yes, more psychedelic as a consequence. And this isn't retro space rock like Cranium Pie either. Seems like I'm really ragging on this album. It's not bad at all. Has a nice spacy late 70s / 80s Pink Floyd vibe about it. The guitar tone is pleasing and the playing more than adequate. Perhaps it's the lack of instrumental rave-ups that troubles me. It doesn't appear that Darxtar and me are ever going to have an enjoyment intersection. They have seven albums to date, plus I could stand to hear those earlier two again, so I'm not giving up on them. To note, the CD adds two more short tracks (~four minutes total) that are not on this LP. (8/28)
Priam - Diffraction. 2001 Musea (CD). I had this one in the sale pile but realized I never took down any notes to support that decision. Let's gives this title another go. This is their second album and very similar to their debut, which I did jettison out of here already. In hearing this again, one could easily draw a straight line to what Tiemko were doing a full decade prior. My loyalties, along with the time / place aspect most certainly favor Tiemko. Diffraction is an instrumental proggy fusion with focus on soaring electric guitar and digital synthesizers. The production is very much a 90s / 00's type of affair. Slick and glossy. Sax and clarinet do add a much needed dimension. There's not a lot of room left for invention in this space, as countless artists ran down the same path at the same time. Nonetheless, Priam provides the listener a very professional and personal take on a familiar style. There was a time when I tried to support every artist I could, and had amassed quite a collection of quality CDs. But I flat out didn't have the time for all of them. The mindset of the obsessive collector is beguiling. Real time it's hard to notice you're in it, until one day you look from afar, and say "how did I get here?" While I'm most certainly still a crazed collector, I have managed to tame myself a bit over the years. More goes out than comes in. In fact, it's pretty tough to get in here period. Which gets us back to Diffraction. I found myself enjoying this album. Just not enough. A common tale. Hence it's placement in the sell bin. Now I can justify why :-) (6/24)
