CD Weedout - the rest

What this section tells you are the styles that I've been either loading up on or don't have that much to begin with. Especially on CD. A lot of these LPs I've been talking about lately will likely exit at some point in the near future. I've just been having too much fun crate digging and enjoying the sounds. Many will be lifetime keepers, others will eventually fall by the wayside. Jazz funk (or any kind of funk) is the fastest grower in my collection, and I haven't let go of anything in that space. Vintage hard rock / AOR is hot. Psychedelic music - both new and old continues to delight. Proggy/tech thrash is another area I still have excitement for. Fusion is hanging in there nicely as well. 80s music like new wave has been revelatory given that I shunned it initially. But that collection is almost entirely on LP. And of course, old school analog prog will always be my favorite I think. Whether it's vintage or recent.

OK this catches me up on this project from 2022. I've been able to keep up real time this year. I hope I can keep doing so. Also this exercise did have me pull back about 10 CDs that hadn't sold yet. I didn't mention them, so we'll either get them in a future roundup or maybe they will get their own feature after all!

Flairck - Variaties Op Een Dame. Polydor (1978). Is it progressive, classical, jazz, or folk? The answer is yes. I'm not sure how many of the Flairck albums I'll keep, but the debut can go. A little too highbrow for me (and I've got plenty of real classical these days). This was the only one I had on CD - the rest are on LP.

Aktuala. 1993 Artis (1973). I never got into this band that much, though I owned the first 2 albums for a while. Pretty much an Italian Third Ear Band. I struggle enough with the original English group by that name.

St Germain - Boulevard. 2002 PIAS America Classics (1995). Believe it or not, I'm quite fond of Tourist, one of those "unique" albums in my collection. Unique for me that is. This one, though, is too clubby for my tastes.

Som Nosso de Cada Dia. 2001 Columbia (1977). I was certain this would be a hidden gem in my collection. Considering I've been all in for Brazilian music, jazz, and funk. Not to mention their progressive rock heritage. Should be a slam dunk. Not at all. Unfortunately it's very commercially oriented soul for the most part. One of the most disappointing revisits of the last year.

Time. 1993 Croatia (1972). Like the Som Nosso, I was certain this would be a hidden gem. Early 70s vintage hard rock with organ from Croatia? Sign me up! But nah - it's fairly garden variety for this kind of music. More like those identity-less North American hard rock bands operating during this same time frame. The "gray area" reissue didn't help matters.

Tarkus. 2007 Get Back (1972). Like the above really - right down to the barely legal reissue. This is a highly revered bonehead hard rocker. Given that it's from Peru helps, but not enough.

Pescado Rabioso - Desatormentandonos. 2008 Microfon (1972). Let's throw one more on the disappointing hard rock pile. This one was just too bluesy for me to get my arms around. It's a trademark sound of Argentina, but some were better at this style than others.

Side Steps - Points of View. 2001 Musea. Solid modern fusion effort from Japan. Unfortunately I have a lot of solid modern fusion efforts from XYZ. I had a few by this band at one point. I'm down to Verge of Reality (2005) so we'll see how that goes eventually.

Purson - Desire's Magic Theatre.

Comus - First Utterance. 1971 England

Here's an album that, in today's world, would almost have to be considered "common fare". And yet it wasn't always that way. Not by a long shot. I'm completely fascinated by the transformation that First Utterance has had in the public eye. As such, I don't need to write anything further about the music - there are hundreds of reviews out there - many of which will say what I would say. So I'm going to talk about its rise in popularity (see Notes section below). I personally think that many of these "once obscure" progressive rock albums will undergo a similar trajectory in history. We may not be alive to see it, but it's my prediction that the progressive rock movement will not be viewed with the ridicule it received in its own day, and perhaps even now as we are about three generations in. But every year, it seems more and more acceptance is being projected onto certain albums - by a younger generation. Those who would have more of an objective viewpoint of music from the past (while no doubt struggling with their own contemporary sounds, just as any generation does).

Let's talk about the popularity of the album. RYM - which has hundreds of thousands of users - ranks First Utterance as the #18 highest rated album for 1971!!! What? I don't think I have to announce to you all what a great year 1971 was for music. Many argue it was the greatest year ever for music, and I may be one of those. But there's First Utterance with an extraordinary 4.01 rating with 3,533 ratings and 202 reviews (I have 5 stars on it myself). The majority of RYM users are much younger than myself. If we go to Gnosis, which is a select group of raters with a progressive rock slant, First Utterance comes in at 8th place (stripping out the deluxe issues) (my current rating is a 13 - though sometimes I give it a 14 depending on my mood - both equate to an RYM 5 star). I find all of this utterly fascinating. In 1988, First Utterance was no different than many of the albums that I eventually collected over the years: Obscure and long forgotten except by a select few diehards like myself. And here in 2014, Comus' debut is truly a "cult classic", an album that is ranked amongst the most known and heralded albums of its time (Zeppelin, Sabbath, Stones, The Who, Doors, Pink Floyd, Yes, Tull, etc...). No doubt First Utterance is musically unique even in the context of obscure 1971 albums. One has to ask, though, how many others will rise in a similar fashion in our lifetime? I could see an album like Algarnas Tradgard taking hold in a similar fashion (though it's already at #140 for 1972 which is phenomenal in of itself).

Just like the master painters of the past - sometimes the best works weren't praised until long after their passing. Comus got a head start on that at least.

LP: 1998 Get Back (Italy)
CD: 2002 Victor (Japan)
CD: 1989 Teichiku (Japan)

The original on the high class Dawn label is housed in a fine gatefold cover, and the second photo shows the full original package with insert. Hard to imagine now, but this was a $100 record in the late 1980s (I have the catalogs to prove it), and only sold in mail order lists that you may have lucked into finding in the back pages of Goldmine. Still far beyond my budget in those days. By the time I did have some disposable scratch, this album had already gone up exponentially. And it continues to do such. The selling price of the album in the second photo? $2,700. While this was an exceptional copy, the album generally sells for well over a thousand dollars in decent shape.

---So it's always been a rare album - therefore how did it get to be so known? Your first inclination might be to think via CD reissue - but that's simply not the case either. The first legit CD (1989) was on a little known Japanese label called Teichiku. It was a straight jewel case, and didn't even have a backplate. And it was a bitch to find back then. It took me a couple years to source one, and it wasn't cheap. It wasn't until 1995 that BGO finally put out a proper reissue that was more readily accessible. But even today, the majority of the CDs on the market are high priced Asian imports.  I personally upgraded to the 2002 Victor mini-LP, which is a beautiful rendition of the cover. I would recommend, though, that you consider one of the Arcangelo mini-LPs as they feature a second disc with the Diana EP. The 2005 CD pairs First Utterance with their inferior second album To Keep From Crying, and also includes the Diana EP. This would appear to be the definitive CD reissue. As for LP reissues, the Italian label Get Back was the first to market (1998). And it was a splendid exact replication that did include the Diana EP as a separate disc (which is why I didn't upgrade the CD). I bought that copy upon release, and that along with the Victor CD is my personal collection.

Talitha Qumi - Despre Cuvinte. 1996 Romania

Not sure I can describe Talitha Qumi any other way than this, but would you believe Eastern European free folk meets early 1970s Italian progressive rock? Atman meets Errata Corrige meets Pholas Dactylus meets Sensations' Fix meets Nu & Apa Neagra meets Museo Rosenbach. Yea... I didn't think you would believe me. This album has the reckless abandon of the early 70's era, something you rarely hear today. Usually it's measured and calculated nowadays. An absolute gem of an album.

Ownership: CD: 2005 Soft

Recently the original cassette from 1996 has emerged as the source. So that proves its provenance which I wasn't sure about initially.

2/7/13 (new entry)

Atman - Personal Forest. 1993 Poland

Atman were perhaps the original freak folk band from Eastern Europe. Personal Forest is about as psychedelic as any album ever released, and yet it's not entirely clear if that's what the band were striving for. In fact, it takes a bit to get going to be honest. It's not unusual to see folks call this a "world music" or, even worse, a "new age" album. It does start off by giving that vibe, but as the album goes deeper into the middle, or forest as it were, the album becomes incredibly intense, and is truly a trance inducing album. Voices, strange homemade and ancient instruments along with tribal drums take the listener to places formerly not discovered. All of Atman's albums are recommended, but none came close to the brilliance of Personal Forest. And that also includes the post-Atman group The Magic Carpathians.

Ownership: CD: 1997 Drunken Fish

Originally released as a cassette under the moniker Theatre of Sound Atman.

1999; 2/15/10 (new entry)