from Annexus Quam - Beziehungen (1972)

No one can hear you scream in space, we know, but judging by "Trobluhs el e Isch", a cool space-free-jazz number, Annexus Quam were determined to prove you could hear them skronk. Alas, after the launch, and unlike all those sci-fi movies filled with audible space battles, the absence of atmosphere wasn't having any of it, so they just ensconced themselves back in the ship, in a room with no view, feeling deflated, and biding their time with some generic improvs that took very little from their imagined surroundings. 
Not to make any other sort of equivalence, particularly of a moral nature (this record is certainly doing no harm), it's just like the ultimate form of affluence porn that is seeing the richest men alive burning up the ill-begotten (however legally, which actually makes it worse; that a social system can foster the extreme individual accumulation of wealth that can only be collectively produced) rough equivalent of some poor country's GDP to literally take to the skies and happily watch the planet they contributed to exhaust, preparing for their great escape to Mars, reject the rest of us down here on its crust like human grafts: I fail to see any good reason to leave Earth for this.

from David Shire - The Conversation (1974/2001)

 

As usual for soundtracks, even for one of Coppola's (discreetly) greatest films (beware, spoilers ahead), The Conversation suffers from consisting mostly of minor variations on a main theme. Even when it breaks free from it, for a couple of snappy jazz numbers, it kills the mood produced by said theme which, in itself, is fantastic, and (like that final panoramic shot, going back and forth, as if mimicking a security camera, of Gene Hackman playing his sax in the middle of a presumably bugged apartment futilely ripped to shreds) perfectly embodies the film's atmosphere of ultimately resigned surrender to all-pervading suspicion, surveillance, menace and paranoia (obviously, a now unrelatable 1970's problem). Still, once is enough. A few variations do try to reach for some unusual tools, venturing timidly into musique concrète, but all of it is always cut short by a constant return to that inescapable theme, whose recurrence could even be said to bear a certain thematic pertinence. However, when its execution follows (no matter how tastefully) the principle of least artistic effort, it can still make you rapidly feel that, like good old Gene, you're just being made to run around in circles.

from Bacamarte / Mário Neto - Sete Cidades (1999)

 

from Bacamarte - Depois do fim (1983)

Mário Neto was obviously a skilled guitarist, but that's not enough to elevate this rather generic 1980's brazilian prog affair (where there's not even anything specifically 'brazilian' to begin with). While it has gained something of a cult status within the 'community', I actually think the album Neto released in 1999, Sete Cidades, where he gets to show off all he wants, has a higher ratio of interesting compositional and instrumental bits; even if, overall, it is clearly under-produced (maybe to its own benefit) and marred by similar problems as this one, mostly its all round lyrical ingenuousness.

Anyway, it's actually funny how, for a genre that's reputed for being complex and pretentious, you often get in these records a single track that demonstrates, by contrast, how often proggers dialed back the adventurousness they were capable of, to meet some sort of commercial expectations, thus aesthetically cancelling what the genre was supposed to be all about. Here, it is "Controvérsia", which, if you can give some of those badly dated farty moog sounds a pass, is a short instrumental track that possibly has as much musical moxie as the rest of the album combined, because, apparently, the market ruled that having a girl sing corny melodies about the end of the world (no matter how topical that keeps getting) over synth chords with some soloing in between is "progressive". I beg to differ.

from Modern Music Band - Modern Music Band (1972)

Here's one of those 1970's bands whose eagerness to be "modern" (which this swedish outfit equated with putting together some brass/hammond-driven proto-progressive pop-rock songs, à la early days Chicago) actually entailed that their music quickly sounded rather passé. Neither exciting nor offensive, all the songs just pass me by, and the instrumental breaks aren't given enough time to showcase anything other than standard competence, which is a shame, because, judging by the progressive jazzy intro "Betjänten", if the band had been left to their own design, without having to pay lip service to some hey-I'm-hip vocalizing, I could see this being an album I would be happy running my mouth about.

from Amoebic Ensemble - Limbic Rage (1995)

Proto-avant prog, of the pseudo-gypsy wedding persuasion, that can't help but feel somewhat incomplete without the proper week-long reception - that is, with the exception of "What I Did Last Summer", that does its best to implant you with the false memory of having been there and partying so hard that you can't remember a single thing about it - which I don't, so it must be true, because that is the way of the world now.

from Rui Júnior - O Ó Que Som Tem? (1983)

There is usually no deeper chasm between the relative enjoyment musicians and spectators can get from a musical performance than the one produced by an all-(unpitched)-percussion collective - that is, except the one resulting from hearing it on record, and this isn't the album to disprove that. There was some instrumental variety in this portuguese ensemble's kit, which could make for a decent showcase - although it all surprisingly lacks rhythmic punch, as if their neighbors had threatened 'next time' they would call the cops -, and the opener "Recolhimento", beginning with some welcome chants and bagpipes (that could have made a difference going forward, but only return, too little too late, in the final tracks), making it sound like you're following a medieval procession of monks into a recondite forest for some cabbalistic rituals, can give you hope that maybe there'll be something more to this; but then you enter a clearing, everyone takes off their cloaks, and it turn's out it's just a bunch of dudes arranging themselves into a more worldly drum circle, so, either be ready to pick up a djembe and join in, or you might want to bring some aspirin along just in case.

from Video Liszt - Ektakröm Killer (1981)

I too can change, and my outright rejection of 1980's electronica may have been vaguely mellowed with time; but if you throw some robot voices in that mix, you are still going to lose me. As such, while "Pictures of Machine Men" and "The Tube" sound like this could be a more interestingly dystopian take on Kraftwerk's computer dreams (which may be explained by Richard Pinhas' acerbic presence here), the rest just seems to announce that the future will not only be soulless, but cheesy as hell (which may explain why Pinhas hid behind an alias here) - and also powered by some strange implements (you might want to watch your back there). Of course, speaking from the future, I could nonetheless give Video Liszt high marks for prescience (and a fun name); but then again, and against the mainstream critical rationale of giving props to anyone for being a precursor to anything, I fail to see any merit in the aesthetic anticipation of worst case scenarios.

from Os Tubarões - Porton d’ Nôs Ilha (1994)

This was the final album from the mythical group out of Cabo Verde, that soundtracked its independence days, following the demise, in 1974, of the dictatorial regime that ruled Portugal and its crumbling colonial system for nearly half a century - it's not for nothing that a pivotal scene in Pedro Costa's Juventude em Marcha [Colossal Youth] consists of little more than an old construction worker, Ventura, listening to their song "Labanta Braço", on a scratchy record, in the slums where people from Cabo Verde coming to Portugal in search of a better life often ended up, as little more was needed to express how political freedom does not automatically cancel out racialized social inequality and economic exploitation. 

While the album isn't bad per se (none of theirs are) it does feel overproduced and stereotypical of many a 'modern' studio recording of African music from the 90's - which means you'll be better served by any of their previous records, whose vintage electric instrumentation has aged far better. 

The final track "Mi ma mi", though, the only one by lead man Ildo Lobo, is a fine morna, that drew a moat between itself and all that came before, and was as such a clear demonstration of why he had to go the solo way from here on out, to record the absolute masterpiece that was to be Nos Morna.

from Art Zoyd - Faust (1995)

 

After their days of chamber-prog to watch cities burn down to the ground to (so you might want to keep those records handy these days), Art Zoyd progressively (or 'regressively', to be precise) stopped letting their music speak for itself (which it did before, with remarkable dramatic acuity, without any need for captions or visual aids) and began sidelining it to a supporting role, as mere accompaniment to grander productions - the sort that can bring a vaster audience your way, perhaps with no specific interest in your music (so, really, why bother continuing to work at it as much), but with a sure taste for 'events', the bigger the better. 

This soundtrack to Murnau's Faust (1926), designed to be performed live accompanying screenings of the film, is one example of that. Make no mistake, I would attend that venue; not only since any excuse to re-watch the film on the big screen would always do, but because Murnau's masterpiece would surely have no trouble in carrying the music along (rather than the other way round), and lend it some of the life, imagination, and pathos it lacks. 

In itself, though, this is a typical product from Art Zoyd's multimedia days (at least their subsequent modern classical days could be a bit more challenging): minor key atmospheres that go nowhere, failing to stand on their own without a silent movie being projected in the background, or a light show to distract you from the absence of musical colours other than synthesizer grey. 

Yet, as the Zoyds themselves could still occasionally prove, even according it a functional, subordinate role, the music really needn't be so stale. "Gates of Darkness 2", for instance, still manages to pick up on that Zoydian state of emergency vibe, with their trademark rumbling bass lines ushering panicked masses to the catacombs. 

Obviously, even that doesn't bring anything new to the table, but when what you're offered going forward is essentially defined by the absence of what was once there, it's inevitable to appreciate more whatever remnants of a crumbling past we can still get.