Monday, September 23, 2024

from Kha-Ym - 10 ''GMT (1979)


Even if due to a partly equivocal mix-up with symphonic rock, prog tends to get associated, as a whole, with big productions, lots of bombast and technology (as materialized in the form of such quaint apparatuses as those synth-cubicles); and yet, like any genre that developed some kind of grassroots appeal, even there you had your struggling artists, trying to make it out of their parents' garage. 
This is one such case; a lo-fi rudimentary stab at some form of electronic prog out of France, to which, in one of those ironies of history, the future can be kinder than its present ever would, as its dated technological markings can nowadays offer themselves to a lot of retro fetishism, whose focus on its primary objects of desire tends to benevolently smooth out the kinks of the package they came in. 
For my part, since synthesizers aren't exactly something that can in and of itself get my motor running, this record's potential charm (aside from the "It's alive!"-looking cover photo; that's good fun) lasts for about the duration of the first track, "Balance" - this, despite its rough beginning, where they sound like their compatriots Shylock having misplaced their tuner; but which they then make up for by going into unexpected overdrive. After that, I really needed the presence of some stronger ideas, that actually worked with the specific material circumstances in which this music was made, instead of making it feel remedial because they just couldn't get 'better' production values; but, then again, even with all the caveats, I suppose that (electronic) prog wasn't exactly the genre most fit to understand that it's not so much the production values you have, it's what you do with them. 

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