Mike's Top 30 Unreissued Titles (Part 6 of 6)

And last and only slightly least...

26. Association P.C. - Rock Around the Cock

This unfortunately titled and covered masterwork is maybe only marginally the best of the five Association P.C. albums, of which only one seems to be reissued in the still all too slow MPS reissue series, which seems to be dallying with mediocre titles at the expense of masterpieces like this one (although I should cut them some slack as they initially took one of these off the list.) This is a rather perfect example of what the Europeans brought to the American jazz rock movement, a little bit of freakiness, a slightly askew and dissonant electricity to it and a rise and fall like breathing. Like the Chris Hinze albums mentioned earlier in this series, Courbois and co. start mellow and bring most of the work to screaming climaxes of intensity, all with a fuzzy subtlety than enhances the whole. As a sidebar, lets tag on Erna Morena to this title which if it didn't make this top 30 was only a few slots behind.

27. Peter Frohmader - Spheres

The last of his three early cassette releases and unlike Jules Verne Cycle and Orakel/Tiefe, I believe this one was released privately. It's a surprisingly inside release for the experimentalist but Frohmader's one of those guys I'd always wanted to hear do something inside and this spacy masterpiece foregoes the usual dark, macabre atmospheres for something a bit more Berlin school and a bit more new agey. It's gigantic on resonance and even beautiful in spots and is nothing at all like the Cuneiform albums to come which also concentrate a bit more on pure electronics but take it in a much weirder direction. So how about a two CD release, JVC, O/T and Spheres. Am I the only one who wants this?

28. Makam es Kolinda - s/t (aka Szelscend Utan) (Reissued by Seven Seas 1989)

Apparently this once was reissued on CD in Japan in micro quantities, or at least I remember seeing the catalog number at a store once, but at a time when I could have nabbed any Japanese reissue I wanted this one went in and out with a bang and when a disc is this rare, to the point where you know nobody who actually owns one, you have to still count it in the unreissued spot. This was the first of at least two collaborations between Hungarian and post-Hexagone label folksters along with the more Cage/Riley-esque Makam ensemble and it's possibly the very best work by either group. Recorded in the early 80s it definitely cants towards the Kolinda direction but excels in that it continues the band's progression from the early albums into more angular and progressive directions to create a lively East European gypsy folk prog that's weird, mystical and unmatched in its field.

29. Carnascialia - st (Reissued by Mercury 2010)

Like the previously mentioned album, this is another that came out on CD (apparently under the names of the original musicians rather than the Carnascialia band name) and disappeared almost immediately. Along with members of Area, the duo created a bizarre late 70s avant-folk release with the typical Arabian motifs and weirdness that area also sported, lots of unusual modal riffs that flirt with high energy while remaning almost toe tappingly tuneful. Not exactly progressive rock, like most Italian albums this late (such as Venegoni e Co., the first Mauro Pagani etc) its experimentation is more a collision in various world styles that includes just enough rock to make it buzz as well as a Battiato-like penchant for exploration and collage. 

30. Clivage (Andre Fertier) - Regina Astris

An ancient and psychedelic world fusion with an impressive cover, the debut album of the Fertier-led Clivage, who released three albums, exudes the type of electricity built up from trancey type structures that got their cue from bands like Third Ear Band, Between, Oregon and Aktuala, Clivage approach the same formula from a more restrained base, with hints of classical music and jazz that would become more apparent on later albums, all of which I reviewed a while back here

Mike's Top 30 Unreissued Titles (Part 5 of 6)

21. Jukka Hauru - Information (Reissued by Lipposen Levy Ja Kasetti 2021)

Finnish guitarist with a Jimi Hendrix complex, like many guitarists had worldwide in the early 70s and perhaps half of his debut album has the overshadowing influence during some high energy workouts. The other half ranges between more songwriter oriented spots and some zanier moments, all of which manage to create an "in hold" dynamic that makes the guitar freak outs even more powerful when they show up. My review can be found here.

22. Peter Frohmader - Jules Verne Cycle

The Jules Verne this most reminds me of is 20,000 Leagues under the Sea due to a prevalance of bubbling synths. As I mentioned before with Orakel/Tiefe, this is one of the Auricle cassette releases and a mighty fine one at that, with an amazingly huge sound for the format, layered electronics and some great pulses moving it all forwars. It reminds me that the finest thing about Frohmader during so much of his early work is this great sense of science fictional imagination, one that never manifests as something geeky so much as mysterious, unusual and evocative. Often this one surpasses Orakel/Tiefe for me, depending on mood.

23. Limbus 3 - Cosmic Music Experience

A free music ensemble better known for the Ohr label album Mandalas (by Limbus 4), I've always preferred the earlier work due to its more vast atmosphere and instrumental panorama. Something of a precursor of bands like Aktuala, Between and the like, in this case the same-period albums by Don Cherry might also be a reference although like Mandalas, it doesn't have much in the way of jazz chops. Just a lot of drumming, droning, and varying noises by all sorts of instruments, none of them played particularly splendid, but nonetheless a beautiful chaos does arise from the collaboration. For now only a Germanofon bootleg seems to exist (and it's actually one of the better ones soundwise).

24. Zanov - Green Ray (Reissued by Groove Unlimited 2016)

Debut album by French synthesist who manages to create a Berlin inspired electronic album with some of the thickest analog sounds on record thanks to the ARP 2600, VCS3 and the like. IIRC the Green Ray's one of those theosophy inspired ideas and a Jules Verne book, all named from the solar phenomenon where the sun temporarily gets a green flash around it during sunset or sunrise. This differs from the usual Berliner style by the sequences being fairly slight for the most part and for an unusual dark atmosphere to it. Similar in ways to Wolfgang Bock Cycles when it's not in Moondawn mode.

25. Mars Everywhere - Industrial Sabotage

Review here. Great US mix of space rock and electronic tendencies and their prime effort.

Mike's Top 30 Unreissued Titles (Part 3 of 6)

11. Tortilla Flat - Fur ein 3/4 Stundchen (Reissued by Long Hair 2019) 

Tom reviewed these on his Reissue Wish List site and I'd have to agree that if they had been previously released, I'd have the SWF Tortilla Flat sessions very high on the list, perhaps in the top 5 even, they were truly that amazing and decimate most of the stuff that's come out on Long Hair. In many ways, actually, they kind of dovetail nicely with Kollektiv's own sessions and place the band in a much jazzier context than a lot of other German bands of the era, more Embryo, Eiliff or Etcetera than Kosmische or Krautrock per se. But I'm not forgetting the one very rare official Tortilla Flat studio album which is also a mighty fine piece of work, carrying over slight Canterbury influences to go with the German jazzrock sound of the time. And I think to some extent this illustrates one of the difficulties of getting some things released, a lack of inertia or kinetic movement, to get musicians who left work like this behind 25 years in the past to have the same enthusiasm over it as collectors who recently discover it. For me this is a hot potato for sure.

12. Peter Frohmader - Orakel/Tiefe

I could be virtually alone in this category but I find that the strongest music in the old Frohmader catalog was a series of three cassettes in the 80s, two of which, including Orakel/Tiefe were released by Auricle, a cassette label that may be holding back on a lot of the best unreissued stuff, in part because I believe they do CD-Rs of some of this material, but also because these probably appeal to very small audiences. But you could kind of cross classify a lot of Frohmader, there's the very early Nekropolis work, some archives that have come out since that cover a rockier period, and then the more composed work that followed on the heels of the Nekropolis material, and then these cassettes which hint but don't sound anything like the far more electronic duo of CDs that came out on Cuneiform a bit later. Undoubtedly these were a major coup for Auricle. These take that deep cyclopean, Cthulhoid early work into strange cavernous and experimental territories that I've always been surprised at when I go back to. Rarely did Frohmader sound this BIG.

13. Oriental Wind / Okay Temiz

I've flipped and flopped on whether I find this or the later Bazaar the best of the Oriental Wind studio albums, but there's something terribly immediate about the debut that's winning over as I write this. Like all of their material, this is all about the fusion of Turkish folk melody with Coltrane Spiritual jazz and here as on many of the later works there's a fine collision between the two styles, although it's essentially jazz when you think of the melodic structure setting up instrumental solos and then vamping back again. But this is a hot one indeed and maybe the best place to start on a reissue series.

14. Polyphony - Without Introduction (Reissued Gear Fab 2011) 

Polyphony was shrouded in mystery, I remember hearing about an unreleased two side-long track album that was recorded in 1967, then later it was 69 and later than that some time in the early 70s and by that time I was pretty convinced it had taken on something of the mythical at that point. Because this is a very early and distinctly progressive American album, that instead of having the usual Genesis and Yes influences, dipped back more towards keyboard bands like the Nice and Procol Harum while mixing it all up with the prevailing hippy schematic in the vein of Hair the musical soundtrack. The bootleg CD (or at least one) was a massive disappointment, with skipping errors built into the masters which meant even the improper release was that much more so. I think of this as a really important release for American progressive rock, but the word is this is among the more unlikely to be reissued titles out there, which is a crying shame. (ED: This title was reissued later by Gear Fab and Belle Antique)

15. The Fourth Way - Werwolf (Reissued by Harvest Japan 2011)

The best of the three albums by post John Handy musician and crew, the sort of singular jazz rock that didn't follow much of the same pattern many of its contemporaries did, with a more sinuous approach to playing that was still slightly reminiscent of the SF jazz scene of the late 60s but having moved on to what was a more distinct and individual style by the time they got to Werwolf. Considered something of a kozmigroov classic, perhaps a stretch given its progressive credentials, it's certainly a fine release no matter where you classify it, with great playing and the oncoming electric fuzz of the era. A CD of this one is long overdue.