[engl] This is the third longplayer of AKA, the leading Indonesian rock band of the 70s and there has been a slight change concerning the overall direction. With the powerful funk rock of the opening title track, the dirty garage beat of the b-side opener “Skip away” and “Raja jalan”, some energetic up tempo soul pop you will find three exceptions to the rule and this implied soft rock and indo pop ballads for six out of nine tracks. And guess what, it is either the ongoing springtime in my heart or these folks really know how to pull it off even with lush pop harmonies that often touch the borders to the tear jerker field. “Crazy Joe” is a rather courageous album for adding those three rawer and more energetic tunes to the gentle plush of the pop tunes for either the power rock fans or the followers of fluffy sounds may be scared off. All those who dare to listen between the notes will find a massive load of delicate arrangements and rather striking melodies that will give you a good time in case you are open for it. This is rather solemn indo pop but it is well composed and executed by musicians who know how to throw in their passion even in with such dreamy clouds of sound. The depth of the arrangements has to be explored to show its entirety and the playing is just excellent. Even pop music can be enchanting. And if a band like THE BYRDS may go for pure country and country rock -and I really adore it despite being by far no country fan - AKA may do the same in the field of bombastic pop and soft rock for they really, really grab my soul with this. These melodies project pictures of greatest emotions into my mind and send me on a journey into a beautiful romantic love story. Well, if you’re in for some feel good pop rock music that still goes beyond the typical trash, grab a copy of this but beware; most titles are sung in the band’s native tongue and have this exotic touch despite all catchiness. I cannot say of whom this reminds me but fans of exotic pop like Baris Manco, soft rock like the late 60s to mid 70s HOLLIES and Eastern German emotional pop rock like KARAT and DIE PUHDYS may lay their ear on this. Not exciting just utterly beautiful.

[engl] A while ago their first album “Do what you like” from 1970 made a crash landing on my desk and is a great and joyful thing to listen to every once in a while. It combines earthy, heavily buzzing and fuzzed out rock monuments in the vein of the classic UK and US bands with a few tunes in the Continental European heavy rock style with big chorus lines and a bit of a pop feel to it thrown in for the good measure plus great melodic ballads and pop tunes in their native Indonesian language. It worked out from the start although both sides of the band’s repertoire went into completely different directions. This is a trademark AKA carried on through their whole recording career it seems for now I hold their fifth effort “Reflection” from 1974 in my hands. A beautiful reissue and you can bet, it is just different melodies and titles but it is the same wild crossover of styles with a change between each and every song. Lush epic ballads, powerful heavy rock, a great beat tune with a flowery feel that drags you straight to the dancehall and another epic, yet utterly heavy blues rock and psyche freak out track make this a colorful album to spin in my stereo. For the time of its release most of the tunes in Western countries would have been already retrospective except for the heavy rockers but everything here comes well performed and executed with passion and the stuff away from the more accessible pop sound will definitely swallow your brain into a gorge of swirling colours. Fans of 60s US west coast dream pop who may stand heavier tunes and devoted music lovers who go for the classic 60s and early 70s sound will go nuts!

[engl] Plus 3 bonus tracks! These folks were all England based but originated from quite a few former Commonwealth countries with many having African roots. Back in 1968 before they became DEMON FUZZ (The Devil’s child) the musicians started as a typical soul music group but following a trip to Morocco they had opened their minds and broadened their musical vision towards a conglomerate of jazz, African roots music, psychedelic sounds, blues, powerful rock and tinges of funk and soul music. The multi ethnical band felt like playing multi ethnically influenced rock for the club and festival audiences all over the UK who were craving for the next hot sensation. And despite their sensational musical vision and captivating compositions DEMON FUZZ never made it further than a cult band. Anyway, what they deliver here is progressive even for its time and still groovy and hypnotizing enough to fill the dancefloors of the most hip underground clubs. Great saxophone lines (or are these melodies created by a sax?) over polyrhythmic groove patterns will drive each fan of bands like SOFT MACHINE and COLOSSEUM nutz. You can bet. There is the mandatory cover version included here, “Another country”, originally played by THE ELECTRIC FLAG, which received another cover treatment from Leicester based heroes PESKY GEE! , later to be known as BLACK WIDOW. Both English bands do an awesome job on it and DEMON FUZZ get the most psychedelia out of their open jazz saxophone improvisations over a smooth, repetitive rhythm pattern in the long middle section. This tune must have been written by the Devil himself to deprive you of your soul. The soul is indeed what this composition has been all about ever since, the essence of soul music but the way it got spiced up with so many extraordinary and exotic elements makes it one of these ever flourishing youthful anthems of progressive rock and pop from the late 60s, the pioneer days of progressive music. The further you get on this album the more greatness you will experience. Fans of the jazz and rock amalgam of the Canterbury scene will definitely get excited when they stumble over “Afreaka”. Each not gets played with so much love and passion, with a nearly demonic lust and an irresistible joy of life despite some melancholic undertones. The progressive breakouts that flow directly into the one or another boiling psyche soul cauldron come as naturally as they can come. They belong here and are one color of so many. Go and experience this beautiful record yourself if you can take a strong alloy of PACIFIC GAS & ELECTRIC, SLY & THE FAMILY STONE, COLOSSEUM, WAR, GINGER BAKER’S AIRFORCE, MILES DAVIS, OSIBISA, BLACK WIDOW, IF and NUCLEUS.

[engl] Gwydion Pendderwen is one of the more chatoyant figures of the folk music underground and it is a shame actually that we have to label his works underground for what he laid down on both of his albums “Songs For The Old Religion” (1975) and “The Faerie Shaman” (1982). It was far above the average standard folk of his time, especially on this, his second album from 1982. The confessing neo paganist and environmentalist tried a different path seven years after his rather haunting debut album by mixing bluegrass, country, gospel and dixie into the classic folky singer / songwriter tunes of enchanting beauty. Most of the time the atmosphere on this album is rather friendly and lightweight in the sense of bright melodies and a cheerful mood on most tunes. Just take a walk in spirit through the garden of sound created by the delicate arrangements and rich, mostly acoustic instrumentation. Will you ever wish to return to what people consider as reality? I would doubt that. GWYDION for certain has the one and another moment of melancholy and musing but this is just a little shade of evening, the moment when the sky turns dark blue and the two worlds come as close as they could. This album breathes a flamy joy of life and you would not think it was shortly after that Gwydion Pendderwen lost his life in a car accident. The music presented on “The Faerie Shaman” literally swallows you like a river and you may ride like a Valkyrie upon the raging waters or dive deep inside and be enchanted by the magic world beyond the surface. This should have been a classic and it is a real gem for fans of PLANXTY, HAMISH IMLACH, DULCIMER, PENTANGLE and STEELEYE SPAN.

[engl] The late 60s seem like a lake of great music releases without a bottom to me. Whenever you think there is no way to go deeper into the mists of obscurity you stumble over another crown jewel from the inner sanctum of garage rock, acid pop and power psychedelia. THE LITTLE BOY BLUES emerged from the simmering Chicago scene of the mid to late 60s where the contemporary beat fused with elements of soul, jazz, blues and funk tinged with dreamy harmonies of the most colorful kind to become acid and garage rock. Sometimes both at the same time. You could literally experience the development of fuzz pedals in rock music spinning those old records including “In the woodland of weir”. The sawing opening chords of “Cathedral” make sure what you are about to listen to. The buzzing heavy guitars raise dirt hand in hand with a sluggish beat before a pastoral organ melody divides the tune into half and after that the seething maelstrom of heaviness overruns you once again. There is more than just this dirty caveman bluesrock you will experience when you give “In the woodland of Weir” a well deserved spin. “Seed of love” is a slow psychedelic pop tune with some wild and explosive fuzzed out lead guitar, wickedly insane flute kicking in from time to time and a bone grinding organ to contrast the thought provoking vocal melody and the dreamy atmosphere. “The great train robbery” comes to hit you straight into your face as the brutal proto punk anthem it is, an aggressive, furious rock eruption with a rather monotonous vocal line. And “Mr. Trip wouldn’t listen” with some sweet string section on a carpet of utterly distorted rhythm guitars howling and scrunching spiced with in some way desperate vocals will thrill you down to your bare bones. Hard garage rock for all freaks into US heroes such as THE SEEDS, THE COUNT FIVE, THE THIRD BARDO and THE MUSIC MACHINE or English cult acts like THE TROGGS, THE WHO and THE YARDBIRDS with some great outstanding songs on its score. A blast to spin!

[engl] First two albums on 1 CD! Some of us may still be familiar with Canadian Pop singer Terry Jacks who released an utterly successful yet greasy ballad called “Seasons in the sun” way back in 1974. It became an instant hit and it definitely possesses a depth and quality most pop tune writers and producers would go crazy for. But that was just a later milestone of Terry’s career as pop musician. Years before in the mid to late 60s he found his soulmate in his later wife Susan and following a series of live performances formed a beautiful band named THE POPPY FAMILY with her and a few like minded souls. What we talk about here is definitely the contemporary pop music of 1969 with a few turns into psychedelic fields. There are lush arrangements with accessible rhythms, string and brass sections to boost up the heart warming, gentle and joyful vocal melody of Mrs. Jacks on the opening track “That’s where I went wrong” and still you can feel the same sense of melancholy Terry Jacks spiced up his later evergreen hit tune with. “Free from the city” is clothed in a garment of Indian inspired sitar harmonies and drones, has a rather enchanting lead melody and a groovy, polyrhythmic fundament. One helluva acid pop tune that should have been a dancefloor smasher back in the day at each psychedelic club. A gentle Latin beat, sweet instrumental arrangements and Susan Jacks’ haunting vocals make up “Beyond the clouds”, a mellow dance where couples can get close to each other drowning within each other’s souls. Despite that it the overall mood is still a bit melancholic and desperate. Well, Terry Jacks takes over the lead vocals and the next song “A good thing lost” comes as a short and sweet country rock tune a band like THE BYRDS would have been proud of. Elements of French chanson, a waltzing rhythm, another deep and contemplative vocal melody sung with a burning passion and once more these lush and fluffy arrangements build the fifth track “You took my moonlight away”. Up to this point we have experienced several styles popular at the time the album has been recorded and we will certainly switch in between all these for the next couple of songs until we get to No. 12, “Of cities and escapes”. Two outstanding tracks for the meantime are “There’s no blood in bone”, track 6, a hot blooded, moody psychedelic pop song with fuzz guitar and mellotron lines supporting Susan telling another rather tragic tale and the mind-blowing “Happy island” with its tabla rhythms and sitar lines which remind you of classical Indian ragas. Still “Happy island” remains a Western society pop tune with a little psychedelic edge and comes as uplifting as the name suggests. This album has this timeless vibe of beauty many of the late 1960s records have. It is accessible enough for fans of pop and even country rock who would rather go for Doug Sahm and his SIR DOUGLAS QUINTETT than for JEFFERSON AIRPLANE, THE BOW STREET RUNNERS or THE SHOCKING BLUE but even their followers might find enlightenment in this album, which is rich on beautiful songs. A great discovery for 60s music lovers. Grab your copy while you can.

[engl] The 70s were the decade of progressive rock music of all calibers. And it seems not one country of this world was spared when the new kind of sound spilled over like a giant wave of inspiration. Even the European Eastern Block countries where rock music was regarded as subversive by the authorities had their share of rock bands with a hippie, heavy or freaked out direction. We recall OMEGA from Hungary, SBB from Poland or MODRY EFEKT from the Czech Republic and of course PHOENIX from Romania. The latter were the biggest rock music export of their home country but there were others with them building a solid spine for the still young and expanding rock scene. One of these nowadays rather unknown forces was PROGRESIV TM, a band not to categorize too easily. They loved big melodies with a yearning approach for the vocals, mixed up blues, folk, jazz and playfully twisted rock patterns. The guitar had a scratchy and fuzzy distortion that came close to what Tony Iommi ripped off his fretboard on the very early SABBATH albums even when the composition itself rather felt like a relaxed and jazzy ballad. What you get here on this debut album released in 1976 is a really captivating, well produced and even better played piece of rock music combining influences from everything that was cool at the time the band was formed, around 1972. Folky and catchy heavy rock like GOLDEN EARRING or JETHRO TULL, dreamy Eastern rock like OMEGA and PHOENIX, utterly grinding guitar power like early BLACK SABBATH and some wicked progressive freakouts along with jazzy breaks. If you are looking for a hot blooded and steaming, yet relaxed unique rock album from the 70s and can get along well with a band singing in its native tongue rather than English, grab this masterpiece.

[engl] The album here has originally been issued in 1983 and contains a wild and captivating crossover between Celtic and South American folk from the Andes plus many elements of traditional music from Southern Europe and some more contemporary singer / songwriter aspects with a mystical atmosphere. The playing skills of all participating musicians are enormously high and the distinctive vocals by multiple voices capture your attention in just a second when you take a closer listen to the twelve songs on this album. One or another step into pop music with a slight psychedelic edge that manifests in the use of a saxophone here or synthesizer there carries the compositions into the present time and makes certain that this is not just a fairy tale from ancient days but definitely vivid music to blow your mind with. From harmonium to pan flutes you will find all kinds of instruments backing the beautiful acoustic guitars and haunting voices. QUINTAL DE CLOROFILA remind me of a South American version of THE INCREDIBLE STRING BAND and several gypsy and folk acts from the South or South East of Europe. The whole album has a rather epic feel and drags you deeply into a colorful world of sound. Truly majestic and unearthly enchanting.

[engl] It does not usually happen that I get to listen to some gentle garage psyche with a dreamy west coast flair and tons of awesome fuzzed out guitars with lyrics in Korean language. And it does not often happen that the music has not been recorded and issued before 1977 when it clearly sounds like the best psychedelic power pop and garage stuff you could get in the UK and USA ten years earlier. In this case, SAN UL LIM, one of the most popular acts on the Korean scene has exactly this typical 1966 garage sound with fuzzy axes and some thin but sympathetic Farfisa organs. They released this debut album back in 1977 while the compositions actually have been conceived from 1971 to 1975. They heavily remind me of THE ZOMBIES, even though SAN UL LIM play in a way more direct fashion but they do have these heartwarming vocal melodies and are all in all gifted players. Their music presents the step from early beat to the heavier and darker garage rock which finally transcended into psychedelic rock and fans of this proto garage beat with psychedelic tinges that came out from 1965 to 1967 should go wild about this album. Other acts I could take as references are THE FLIES (UK, Pre T 2) and THE PETARDS (Germany). A lovely flashback to the golden age of music.

[engl] Yikes, this is great joy. Not so long ago I wrote a review on the reissue of their 1977 debut album and here we go with its successor from 1978. What this Korean garage / psyche rockers have created here is still more related to the music that has been played and celebrated mostly in the USA during the second half of the 60s. In a year where disco, punk and early heavy metal ruled, this flowery and trippy pop sound with fuzzed out guitars on flashing rhythms might have been outdated already despite the fact that the original US garage sound had a renaissance among collectors not long before and compilations like “Pebbles” were in high demand among new fans of this genre. One may doubt that these hunters for vinyl treasures even made the slightest effort to take a look towards Eastern Asia where SAN UL LIM came up with exactly that type of music. If they had sung in proper English, folks, people could have told me they were from California and this album was released in 1966 or 1967 at latest. They have a sense for pop melodies and beyond that for soulful ballads with heart warming melodies. Nice and sleazy organ sounds (Farfisa, not Hammond) add more color to the rather simply structured, yet effectively striking tracks and when the fuzz sets in even slower tunes start to turn into simmering maelstroms of utterly checkered harmonies. This is for sure not the only direction SAN UL LIM take on their second album. Some folky singer / songwriter elements have slipped inside their song selection and definitely remind you of a warm summer weekend in August 1969 when 500.000 gathered for the most important music event ever at Yasgur’s farm. Despite having chosen this rather straight direction for their music SAN UL LIM consisted of skilled musicians who execute their compositions with an obsessive feel and still with an iron discipline. The band had matured ever since the release of their debut album “Vol. 1” the previous year and you can hear this from the more excessive and obsessive playing, the increased rawness of the guitar fuzz and the slightly deeper, more thought provoking and sometimes even more aggressive melodies which digressed from the pure feel good pop music. What you get here is a delightful mixture of what was awesome at Western shores in 1966/67 and despite being a bit late SAN UL LIM still have the balls to shed the fire of passion in a way THE SEEDS, THE DOORS, THE STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK, THE ANIMALS, THE SHADOWS OF KNIGHT and even Nick Drake, Roy Harper and Bert Jansch did it a decade and even longer ago. Retro garage sound with style and soul, who could resist that?

[engl] Remastered! This cutie actually should be one of the crown jewels of British Folk music from the early 1970s but as things sometimes happen, the greatest art often gets its deserved praise not before the second spring. This is the case with SILVER BIRCH, a group which is still active in a different incarnation up to today. Their only album from 1973 was a beautiful affair with clearly structured folk tunes, mostly traditionals, based on haunting vocal arrangements and an all acoustic but very rich instrumentation with fiddle, acoustic guitars, harmonium, tambourin and bells for the rhythms, mandolin, weaving a fine-meshed lattice of melodies on which the enchanting vocals can find a solid footing. Close your eyes while you take a listen and get on a journey from the royal courts of King Arthur to the smokey pubs where the peasants celebrate their joy of life. SILVER BIRCH prove their dedication to this music with their vivid, passionate and often steaming performance, even in the most fragile moments. A grand piece of classic, song driven folk music that is highly recommended to everybody who loves acts such as MELLOW CANDLE, DULCIMER or the great late GWYDION PENDDERWEN.

[engl] Originally released in 1983 in former Yugoslavia this album is a truly undiscovered gem of ethereal folk music. Pesmi combines the old traditional melodies of Eastern Europe and the Balkan States area with the lush and enchanting instrumentation of the late 60s and early 70s folk with elements of progressive folk and singer/songwriter from England and the USA. This results in a highly mystifying and still easily folksy piece of exclusively acoustically instrumented music with haunting female vocals that seduce you with lyrics in their native tongue. “Pesmi” reminds of well known artists like PENTANGLE, STEELEYE SPAN, GRYPHON, FAIRPORT CONVENTION and even SIMON & GARFUNKEL , just with this very unique eastern flavor and bigger emotional gestures in the melodies. An utterly picturesque musical experience similar to a diving trip through an ancient sunken city in the wild ocean eons ago.

[engl] Detroit? Chicago? Well, no not at all. This 1968 release comes from a German band playing some lush and dynamic soul pop with an emotionally exalted vocal style that reminds a bit of Tom Jones at times. The songs range from powerfully onward grooving booty shakers to striking melodic tunes with great chorus lines that enlighten your spirit. When you take a listen you will realize these folks had a sense for the classic beat music of just a few years prior to this release and they really manage to lay down a steaming performance on this style actually already outdated back then. But since THE SOUL EXPLOSION spice up everything with a dark and brooding back street club atmosphere at the right moment, they could do what they want and always sounded exciting and fresh. I could not have told the difference between these krauts and any popular British or North American act in their genre. There is passion, sheer lust, a wild and animalistic drive and an ongoing groove that will mesmerize you. Technically this is a really solid group that knows to let loose when it is time to but mostly keeps the energy flow under control. I am certain that 60s fanatics who love the soul and early rock fusion of this era will go insane. It might be one of these typical exploito bands that were only studio projects done by the same musicians on several occasions for good money to be sold in the bargain bin to a willing audience. Well, we rather do not think further into that direction since the music that appears on “Soul fire” strikes your deepest inner self and sets your spirit aflame. The melodies are amazing and if you go and check the rhythms you will end up shaking without a chance to escape the everlasting pulse. This should have been enormously big. Think of later day ANIMALS, THE FOUR TOPS and the EQUALS all thrown into a mixer on full throttle, you might get something of a similar quality. Oh, Baby, c’mon shake it with me, yeah!