Light Year - Hypernauts of the Absolute Elsewhere. 1975 USA-California (archival)

One of my great personal finds of the last decade was Light Year, whose aptly named album Reveal the Fantastic, brought about a new combination of sounds I'd never heard before. In my notes for that album I referred to Light Year's sound as a combination of Mahavishnu Orchestra and the Belgian group Cos. The ferocious fusion of the former meets the higher pitched singing and insouciant manner of the latter. And while researching the album, we learned that the San Francisco based Light Year was involved in Mingo Lewis' Flight Never Ending masterpiece.

And now 10 years after that release, comes yet another archival find. Being that it's (likely) from 1975, the heavy fusion standards of the day were still accepted. And sure enough, Hypernauts of the Absolute Elsewhere is clearly a follow-up to their debut. Excellent in every way, and their patented sound remains. Perhaps there's a bit more funk than prior, in particular 'The Legend of Myth', which points to the times. And there's no mind blowing 20+ minute epic here, though 'Firebird' has the same gravitas, at half the length and represents the album's best number. The first part of '3:30 Tomorrow' is a fairly dull drum solo, though it atones itself with some lightning fast guitar from Randy Sellgren to close off the album. In conclusion, if you loved Reveal the Fantastic, then you'll also want Hypernauts of the Absolute Elsewhere.

Ownership: CD: 2020 New Music-Green Tree. Was sent along with Time of Commotion (thank you!). Comes in a single digi-pak with poster booklet insert. It's about as informative as Time of Commotion's liner notes, and is more esoteric than useful. Minor gripe, as it's just great to have music like this still coming at us. 

Mingo Lewis - Flight Never Ending. 1976 USA

"Heavy symphonic synthesizer music with a lot of really happening rhythmic patterns" is how Mingo Lewis self describes Flight Never Ending. And honestly, there's not much more to add. But I will anyway. Mingo Lewis was New York City born and bred, son of jazz guitarist James Lewis. In 1970, Carlos Santana got wind of the legendary percussionist jamming in Central Park, and asked he join the band, which he did for the following four years. Following that, he hooked up with Return to Forever for their No Mystery tour in 1975, thus the similarity in sound was no coincidence including the funk track 'Trapezoid'. It also cemented an important relationship with one Al Di Meola, who not only recorded Lewis' composition 'Wizard' on his debut, but also repurposed 'Frankincense' into 'Chasin the Voodoo' on his Casino album (I can hear all of you now going "I knew I heard that song somewhere!"). Eventually Lewis relocated to San Francisco later in '75 and latched on with a hot, but unknown, progressive rock band known as Light Year that we only learned about a few years ago through the brilliant archival Reveal the Fantastic album. For the remainder of the tracks not listed, well you the listener are in for a treat. Read everything above, including the links, and you can figure out the rest. As my old friend Herky Jerky (MAP) says, this is one of the best 70s fusion albums ever made! Don't miss this one.

Personal collection
LP: 1976 Columbia
CD: 2017 Wounded Bird

I've owned this on album since the 1980s. I currently own a white label promo that comes with a biographical insert (and where some of the data I provide above comes from). The album has finally been reissued on CD properly by Wounded Bird.

Light Year - Reveal the Fantastic. 1974 USA (archival)

Today we have a real gem. And it's been out there for 4 years now, and I'm just hearing it for the first time!(?) I discovered it the old fashioned way: Research. This is the type of album I'm usually tipped to ahead of time by my loyal friends and researchers. So perhaps today I can return the favor? I hope so. I think all of my readers will adore this one.

An extraordinary find, Light Year were a band from San Francisco circa 1974 that played a cross between heavy fusion and progressive rock, with dominant female vocals. To me it sounds like the Belgian band Cos playing the music of Mahavishnu Orchestra! Yes... I'm serious - Pascale Son fronting John McLaughlin and crew. A 6 piece of guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, vocals, and percussion (much of it tuned). Mixing a Bay Area band with an additional percussionist will call to mind who? Yes, that's right, Santana. And guitarist Randy Sellgren certainly possesses that hyper kinetic electric technique of Mahavishnu John meets Carlos type sound. The music is jazz oriented, but with ferocious rock segments, in the same manner as Santana's "Lotus". And the final track, clocking in at a whopping 20:20, has a distinct space rock element - propelling the album to its greatest height.

And the story doesn't end there. And this is perhaps the most fascinating aspect for me; the liner notes don't mention it. And there's only one reference to it on the label's home page. And (lots of ands on this one...) this is how I discovered it in the first place: I recently bought a second LP copy of Mingo Lewis' "Flight Never Ending" which I have listed in the CDRWL. This copy, however, included a promotional insert, where it says (typing it out literally): "Mingo's band lingo (sic) is a tight, young outfit: Drummer Dave Logemen (22), bassist Eric McCann (17), plus the remains of another San Francisco band called Light Year which includes guitarist Randy Sellgren, synthesizer specialist Michael Kapitan, and keyboardist Kincaid Miller." The latter two are not mentioned in the CD liner notes (Mingo's album came out two years later) - but then again, neither is Mingo Lewis. Holy smokes - who knew??

This album is absolutely essential.

Personal collection
CD: 2010 Green Tree (Germany)

The CD comes in a nice digipak and features newly written liner notes (from 3 of the members), lyrics, and photos. The sound is excellent. The LP is a gatefold, though I haven't possessed one myself. I know that Green Tree has a somewhat checkered past, but this one is clearly legit, and a superb archival album. Buy this one before it gets away. Special thanks is given to Doug Larson, who I presume had something to do with this release.