Monster acid fuzz guitar alert! A much sought after super rare US '70s psych album loaded with trippy, languid West Coast styled fuzz guitar.
This is up there with , Mystic Siva.
Tracks
2 Winter Wind 2:55
3 Talk to the Moon 3:35
4 Chasing Now the Flying Time 4:54
5 Featheredge 3:39
6 Genena 9:21
7 Willow Creek 5:48
8 Give Life Another Try 3:51
9 I Walk to the Moon 4:30
10 Winter Wind 2:57
11 Chasing Now the Flying Time 5:11
12 The Saddest Song I Know 5:44
Reissue of US psychedelic ultra rarity recorded 1971/72. The original albums (a complete one and a one-sided) are legends for all psychedelic/garage collectors, only 25 copies pressed of each -- not many people have the pleasure of having seen a copy. The music is creeping slowly and sensitively in your mind, whether stoned or not ö it takes you wherever you want.
Those are the complete sessions, 55mins in mastertape quality presented the first time to the public. One of the best Psychedelic albums, playing in the same league as ,
, , Mystic Siva, Damon. Later the band changed into Trizo 50.Unbelievable that this extremely talented band didn't make it!!!
Download Link : (224 @ with artwork)
The sound is gentle psychy hippie-rock but with the odd heavier moments as witness the excellent slow burnin' psychedelic workout A Stumbling Dragon.
Other highlights the siren effects on the rocky Ride Me and the phasing and bubbling sounds on I'm Alive.
This is something else. After the lighter touch of the debut album, Rare Bird sounds like a real prog rock band the 2nd time around.
The riff on "Hammerhead" is a monster. The production is monumental. The sound is full of drama and dynamics, and lead singer Steve Gould sounds like he really means it this time.
Maybe not so much grandeur as their contemporaries ELP, but looking back, Rare Bird is absolutely the most interesting of the two.
A most essential prog rock album regardless of time and age.
And still no guitars, if Steve Gould's bass guitar does not count.
..
Line-up
1.
What you want to know (5:59)
2. Down on the floor (2:41)
3. Hammerhead (3:31)
4.
I'm thinking (5:40)
5. Flight (19:39)
- part 1. As your mind flies by
- part 2.
Vacuum
- part 3. New York
- part 4. Central Park
The Reviews
1
Rare Bird's second album "As Your Mind Flies By" turned out to be their classic release.
It's stuffed with a great 70's atmosphere and flawless songwriting. All the 5 tracks on the album are impressivly strong. "What You Want to Know" and "I'm Thinking" are melodic, organ-driven, early 70's progressive rock at its best.
The arrangements have lots of cool, twisted and varied organ-sounds and the vocals are great. The rest of side one is made up of the short, baroque-influenced "Down on the Floor" and the great, heavy-progressive "Hammerhead". The second side consists of the 20-minute "Flight".
This is one of those tracks that will make any fan of 70's progressive rock cry of joy. The first part of it is quite dramatic and classical-influenced, then it goes into a great jamming part with a choir and excellent duels between the organ playing of Graham Field and the twisted el-piano of Dave Kaffinetti. The two last parts of the track are energetic and heavy with the most perfect organ-sounds you can imagine.
With no doubt one of the best progressive rock albums from 1970.
Second album for RARE BIRD marking a wonderful contribution to the progressive rock genre. Without a question fans of organ and keyboard driven prog rock will love the music of RARE BIRD.
Their arrangements although centred around the keyboard work of David Kaffinetti offers some great drumming and bass interplay. Steve Gould s melodramatic vocals are a tad bit raw but I think fit the music perfectly and give it a nice degree of grit. Prog heads will love the side long 20 min long track "Flight" an ambitious four-movement track which surprisingly does not overshadow side 1 which is littered as well with 4 fantastic tracks.
For me the sound of RARE BIRD is a scientific cross of URIAH HEEP, T2 and ELP. "As You Mind Flies By" is pretty much a masterpiece and is an essential recording
) , electric piano and harpsichord ("Down on the floor"). The absolute highlight on this album is the 'magnum opus' "Flight" (at about 20 minutes), divided in four pieces. Part One contains propulsive interplay between drums and organ, Part Two has exciting duo-keyboardwork (swirling organplay), Part Three delivers a psychedelic organ (like early PINK FLOYD) and in Part Four is the focus on slow and sumptuous Hammond organ play (including excerps from RAVEL's "Bolero"), the vocals have a slightly hysterial undetone but fits perfect to the atmosphere.
One of the finest singers - songwriters in soul music.
Amazing album with 3 songs in R B top10. Bobby Womack is a soul music allrounder: he can scream (like James), talk deeply to the ladies (like Issac and Barry), he has the Al or Marvin touch when it comes to love songs, the honesty of Sam and Curtis, and the occasional Sly-like urge to wig out
1
Recorded in Memphis in the blackest of soul styles, Bobby "The Preacher" Womack's Understanding overflows with raw energy and emotion.
Blurring the lines between Southern soul, funk, and gospel, the album's rough edges reflected something fundamental about life in Black America and the need to reach for something higher. Womack had learned well from his idol Sam Cooke that the people wanted to hear about something besides love. In the gritty "Simple Man," Womack preaches to his brothers and sisters:"Hang on in there.
..we don't live on a hill, but we stand just as tall.
" At the time he wrote the songs for Understanding, Womack was a man of considerable talents who had too little to show for it in the way of successful solo records. An always in demand studio musician, Womack's influential guitar playing helped define such eternal classics as Sam Cooke's "Bring It On Home," Wilson Pickett's "Funky Broadway," Aretha Franklin's "Chain of Fools," and "Family Affair." By 1972, his singing and songwriting had matured to such an extent that only an act of God could have kept him from storming the charts.
"Woman's Gotta Have It," one of the album's three Womack originals, shot up to the very top of the R B charts in that golden funk summer of '72. This mid-tempo soul-funk ballad starts off with a sensuous bass line straight out of Marvin Gaye's With its simple message about how to keep a woman happy--"You gotta giver her what she wants when she wants it / Where she wants it / And how she wants it"--the song touched a chord with audiences like few other Womack songs ever have. A bubble gum-soul cover of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" was released as the follow up single to "Woman's Gotta Have It.
" While it managed to impressively crack the white-dominated Pop Charts, its mellow B-side "Harry Hippie" was embraced as the "black side" by black radio, driving it into the R B Top Ten (and, surprisingly, into the Top 40 on the Pop Charts). "I Can Understand It" is the album's funkiest and most complex track, made with timeless production values: a driving and loudly mixed bass/drum groove, a tight gospel chorus of soul sisters, lush touches of strings, and Womack's belting vocals and fuzz guitar. While this compelling Womack original never charted, New Birth turned it into a No.
4 R B hit when the band covered it in 1973. His most consistently satisfying album, Understanding captures Womack at the peak of his powers. This is the one to get.
" It was a number one single on the Billboard R B charts. In addition to the aforementioned song,
Womack also features a host of other granite numbers like "Ruby Dean" and "I Can Understand It." The latter, penned by Womack , was also covered by New Birth.Both versions are excellent. However,
Womack's version has a soothing effect as it employs a sensuous string arrangement while New Birth's rendition is rather funky, retaining a spirited horn arrangement. Womack's version was never a release."Harry Hippie" is a narrative about his brother and former bandmate Harris Womack. It checked in at number eight. The Ohio native's unique trait to calm a song with his blistering baritone re-surfaces on "Sweet Caroline," the album's third and final release.
For a song to be so sweet and gentle,
Womack enhances the flavor of this sentimental number with a heartfelt, soulful approach. It slipped into the Top 20 at 16. By all standards, this album is stirring.This album is a legendary one in the annals of Italian progressive music. Released in 1973, it combines heavy rock and classical music in a progressive style with mellotrons galore, bringing to mind a mixture of Deep Purple and ELP, but with a Pink Floyd influenced feel.
I want to explain carefully why I am ready to put Zarathustra in the same pantheon as In The Court of the Crimson King, Piper at the Gates of Dawn, Foxtrot, Close to the Edge, Thick as a Brick, and In A Glass House, among others.
Although it is not a seminal album like those noted above - and although it has some minor flaws (for example, the production is dated) - it nevertheless has a few things in its favor that far outweigh any minor quibbles, and definitely point to a legitimate masterpiece. it is portant to consider that Zarathustra was MR s debut album. It took Gentle Giant three albums to get to their first conceptual quasi-masterpiece ( Three Friends ), Genesis four albums to get to Foxtrot (and Supper s Ready ), and Jethro Tull five albums to get to Thick as a Brick and none of the debut albums by any of these bands was anywhere near the masterpiece that Zarathustra is.
Indeed, of the eight seminal progressive groups (Crimson, Floyd, Moody Blues, Genesis, Yes, Gentle Giant, Tull and ELP), only Crimson s Court and Floyd s Piper are equally great debuts (with ELP s debut coming pretty close). The Zarathustra suite itself is one of the most beautifully and carefully crafted compositions in the history of progressive rock, and I use the word carefully in its literal sense: i.e.
, that great care was taken. The band neither rushes into things, nor lets things sit for too long. Every section whether soft, smooth, slow and simple, or hard, rocking, fast and complex is constructed for maximum effect, with minimal (if any) down time.
Perhaps most remarkably, Galifi and the band are able to convey the story of Nietzsche s Superman (in both lyrics and music) quite well even if one does not understand Italian. For all of these reasons, Zarathustra stands on its own as an incredibly creative, often brilliant, and extremely early (if not seminal) concept suite.
What makes any album a masterpiece?
Obviously, there are the compositional, lyrical, musicianship, production and general execution elements. However, that is not enough. It must have something else: a quality that makes the album not only an exceptional achievement in its time, but also an achievement that transcends its time and, indeed, makes the album timeless.
Although, as noted, the production on Zarathustra sounds somewhat dated, it nevertheless transcends its time, and is not only a timeless masterpiece in the truest sense of that word - but an exceptional, historically important album, and an absolute must-have for any serious prog-rock collection.
2
"Zarathustra" is another controversial progressive rock album. Many claim that it is best prog album album to come out of Italy during the 70's, while others claim that it's just basic hard rock with mellotron thrown in.
I was quite moved after listening to "Zarathustra" for the first time because the themes, melodies, and mood-changes are really high-quality. The four awesome compositions (one is 20-minutes long) alternate from soft and delicate, to 70's heavy rock. In my opinion, "Zarathustra" is one of the best progressive rock albums out there.
News RSS