Thursday, September 23, 2010

Confluence 4 Voyages1976

Here we have the final unavailable French Confluence album (chronologically the first). The second and third albums, Arkham and Chroniques Terrestres, were made available at mutant sounds some time ago. As far as I know this one was not before online, but it's nice to complete the work of this undeservedly unknown band.

"Quietly gorgeous French jazzy prog of a very airy, languid and spacious sort, often focused around the wistful cello work of Jean-Francois Capon, whose devastating outfit Baroque Jazz Trio recently had their one eponymous album reissued. One of France's great undiscovered treasures" is the surprisingly subdued description from mutant sounds of Arkham. I would say that it is actually chamber jazz, with a very well worked melding of chamber orchestra (a lot of violin, flute, cello, double bass) and jazz. Less rock is in this recipe. Unfortunately one of the jazz elements employed is the long tedious and boring jazz solo. I defy anyone to listen thru the last track without fastforward. This long "4 voyages" (through the sahara desert no doubt?) drags on quite too long before finishing in a gorgeous flute and violin passage using second notes on top of minor chords for that oh so plaintive effect. It is debatable whether the trip to that last 2 minutes was worth the wait.
I'll never understand why jazz musicians felt it was ok to throw in ten minutes of pointless, aimless soloing instead of taking the time to compose some actual music with structure and purpose. I mean live, it's OK since you're sitting there essentially with no choice to leave, but on an album it's unforgivably boring.

Anyways, having said that, it seems to be a live album on the basis of applause at the end of tracks. I think the composer is a genius, and obviously studied composition somewhere because his ideas are so interesting, the standout in 'songwriting' being the third track "convergences". So he could have, as in the chronique terrestres album, written more actual music versus improv.

These progressive musicians wrote a kind of music that has no rules, they use rock, jazz, and european classical in equal measure to create a whole that is perfectly harmonious and has no borders or styles. In my life I listened to modern classical, even Berg and Schoenberg, to jazz, to rock, and I feel like with this music I have come home, it has everything I have looked for in a lifetime of listening to music, all in one package. I hope you who enjoy this agree.
But when I come to work and on the radio I hear for the ten thousandth time "Signs signs everywhere there's signs" playing it fills me with despair at the human condition.
To return to Confluence, I think the next two albums are better than this one, esp. the final album appears to be the most accessible. A lot of the music in this one even I find a little hard going (almost atonal). At least it's not weirdly strange like the unobstructed universe I posted earlier.

On a personal note, I wish I could post more albums but time constraints are again a problem with wife returning to work as a spaceperson (astronaut) and two small children which I have a lot of trouble to get rid of. Surely when they finally go to school (1-2 years from now) I will devote more time to this "weird, weird strange hobby" (my wife's words) of sharing progressive albums from the seventies ("Long before I was born???" as my receptionist always says). A lot of people suggest to get a nanny but I wouldn't inflict these terrible, abnormal children, on any human being no matter how patient.


4 Voyages...

3L (Love, Live, Life) - "10 Chapters Of Murder - from Colin Wilson's 'Encyclopaedia of Murder'" {Japan} [1971]

750. LOVE LIVE LIFE + ONE: “Satsujin Juushou – 10 Chapters of Murder” (CBS Sony – SOLL-74002) (Record: Near Mint/ Gatefold Jacket: Near Mint/ Insert: Near Mint). Their follow-up to the highly acclaimed “Love Will Make A Better You”. Unlike its predecessor, “10 Chapters of Murder” is more progressive heavy rock tinted. Released in 1972,“Satsujin Juushou” is a fucking killer LP, taking off where “Love Will Make a Better You” left off and taking towards the next level of delirious madness, mixing outward bound jazzy moves with heavy progressive rock freak-outs and psychedelic incantations and private ecstatcies. Kimio Mizutani’s wrist-slashing fuzzy guitar licks wah’s through it all like a surgeon operating on some defractored brain, Hammond organ lines slice through it all and heavy horn sections give it a LSD soaked mid seventies Miles Davis kind of vibe you wont be able to recover from without leaving behind a piece of your sanity. Demented howling female laughing vocals pop on through at unexpected times, rendering the whole into an even more disjointed teeth-grinding frenzy, all fused in a cloud of smoke, making it a stranger fusion of fucked up eclectic jazz moves, with unhinged psychedelic rock jamming and transporting it into driven jams of explosive jazzed out cosmic rock. The whole disc is booming over with the proper ingredients for a musical outrage, fucking up with and fusing musical traditions and stranding in a hazy but potent universal horizon obscured by mind bending lysergic mutations and sweating out heavy psychedelics. In short this is a fucking MONSTER. One of the best and still undetected Japanese heavy psychedelic & transcendental jaw-dropping jazzy explorations, all embalmed into one cinematic epiphany meshed together into intoxicating boosted crescendos of crystalline hallucinogenic quivering sonic attacks. Head-spinning, mind-altering freeform psyched out jazz rock, a vicious musical beast from the east, still undetected, bloody rare and unreissued. Highest possible recommendation. Price: 875 Euro



*japanese title [meaning]
A-1 イントロダクション [Introduction]
A-2 ママを殺してなぜ悪い [Why bad do i kill a mom]
A-3 聖バレンタイン・デイの虐殺 [St. Valentine's Day Massacre]
A-4 霧の夜の戦慄 [chill at foggy night]
A-5 少女を煮て食う変態男 [hentai man eats girl boiled]
B-1 満月の夜はアベックを殺れ [kill the avec in the full moon night]
B-2 美しき毒殺魔 [Beautiful Demon poisoning]
B-3 西部大強盗団の女領主 [lord woman of Great gang in Western]
B-4 アウシュビッツの大殺戮 [slaughter at Auschwitz]
B-5 エピローグ(レクイエム) [Epilog (requiem)]

*pronounce title
01 introduction
02 mama wo koroshite naze warui
03 St. Valentine's Day no gyakusatu
04 kiri no yoru no senritsu
05 shojo wo nite kuu hentai otoko
06 mangetsu no yoru wa avec wo yare
07 utsukushiki dokusatsuma
08 seibu daigoutoudan no onna ryoushu
09 Auschwitz no daigyakusatsu
10 epilog (requiem)

市原宏祐 : Kohsuke Ichihara (sax fl, arr)
横田年昭 : Toshiaki Yokota (sax, fl)
柳田ヒロ : Hiro Yanagida (key)
水谷公生 : Kinio Mizutani (g)
直居隆雄 : Takao Naoi (g)
寺川正興 : Masayoshi Terakawa (b)
チト河内 : Chito Kawachi(ds)
神谷重徳 : Shigenori Kamiya (arr)

Introduction...
Hentai man eats girl boiled...
Beautiful demon poisoning...


Our thanks goes to Kohsaku ;)

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