ITT: Forgotten masterpieces

File: chomp.jpg (75KB, 452x447px) Image search: [Google]

75KB, 452x447px

Pylon - Chomp (1983)

Probably stretching the boundaries of "forgotten", but whatever. More polished follow-up to their debut Gyrate, which was kind of like an American Gang of Four. This one is less sparse than their debut, with better songwriting. Absolutely adored by REM (they covered Crazy as a b-side).

File: MI0000287308.jpg (86KB, 500x500px) Image search: [Google]

86KB, 500x500px

folky singersong/writer. Beck's father wrote the string arrangements.

>>70709940

Also, he's the brother of Penelope Spheeris (director of Wayne's World and the The Decline of Western Civilization documentaries).

File: Screen Shot 2017-01-30 at 8.50.31 PM.png (363KB, 618x619px) Image search: [Google]

363KB, 618x619px

"The Brothers Sandole" are pianist Adolphe Sandole and guitarist Dennis Sandole, who is probably best known as an early jazz educator. Among those who have studied with Dennis are John Coltrane, Art Farmer, James Moody, Pat Martino, and more recently, pianist Matthew Shipp. "Modern Music from Philadelphia," recorded and released in 1955, is one of the few studio recordings made by either brother, and mixes compositions by both in its set of ten tracks. The compositions are played by an octet including such notable players as Art Farmer, Milt Hinton, and George Barrow, among others.

Adolphe contributes the majority of the compositions, seven of the ten tracks, and his have a distinctly West Coast sound, reminiscent of the cool bop of the celebrated "Birth of the Cool" sessions. His harmony, however is pretty advanced, and the music takes some nice, unexpected twists. He also has an ear for counterpoint and large horn section serves him well as he is able to balance multiple moving lines among them. Perhaps the best example is "The Boys from Istanbul." Contrapuntal lines and modern harmony blend wonderfully with the beboppy approach and phrasing. "Arabu," though less contrapuntal has some nice, subtly dissonant harmonies in its horn voicings.

>>70710042
Dennis contributes only three compositions to the recording (and two of them are very short) but they are all quite remarkable. "Perhaps One Touch Of..." is a melancholy ballad, with the multiple independent horn lines, creating a shifting layer of harmonic texture that sounds influenced by 20th Century classical music (Bartok comes to mind). Here Dennis takes his only solo of the album, and though it is fairly short, he proves to have quite a different concept from any other guitarist I can think of who was recording in 1955. "Grenadine" is just 40 seconds long, but is jam-packed with knotty counterpoint, crossrhythm, and attractively dissonant harmony. "The Tamaret" is Dennis's final compositional contribution and clocks in at one minute. This piece fits in more with the "cool" aesthetic of his brother's pieces with a laid back swing, however the harmony is still quite striking.

The solos by the band are somewhat hit-or-miss, but they are often quite short, and clearly not the focal point of the album. Farmer gives several good trumpet solos, like on "Arabu" or "Pieces of Eight," and alto saxophonist John LaPorta gives a nice solo on the latter tune as well, but George Barrow on bari sax and Teo Macero on tenor don't sound especially great.

Nevertheless, the solos are all passable in the context of these startling original pieces. Both brothers seem to have a clear goal in mind for the sound of this ensemble, yet they accomplish that goal in slightly different ways, giving the program a bit of contrast. The music sounds influenced at some points by other contemporary composers and arrangers including Gil Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Stan Kenton, and at times Charles Mingus, but the two brothers seem to have developed quite a unique approach to harmony. The generally rather average soloing on the album may hold it back from being a masterpiece, but the album is an undeniably strong statement from these two conceptualist brothers.

File: lola v stain - ikona.jpg (110KB, 600x600px) Image search: [Google]

110KB, 600x600px

lola v stain is a project formed from ex members of the aporea art collective, whose only musical recording is the RYM-famous "Na Rekah Vavilonskih". most of the members of lola v stain eventually went on to form the far more famous, and academy award nominated, anastasia who are relatively well known in their native macedonia. Ikona is the somewhat better of the two albums put out by lola v stain and it's an interesting mix of macedonian folk, byzantine church music, and ritual industrial. unlike either aporea or anastasia it also has an almost jazzy freeform/improvised feel that is quite unique among ritual industrial.

File: Man_or_Astroman_-_A_Spectrum_of_Infinite_Scale.jpg (56KB, 209x209px) Image search: [Google]

56KB, 209x209px

Man or Astro-Man? is more or less a novelty act, combining samples from old b-movies with surf rock. For this album, they drop the samples and try to do post-rock. It isn't a complete success (the track that's nothing more than a printer is especially bad), but I'm feeling generous, and I'll give them points for trying to do something new.

>>70710610
>>70710042
well these certainly sound interesting, this is a great idea for a thread

File: aquelarre.jpg (217KB, 800x800px) Image search: [Google]

217KB, 800x800px

Aquelarre - s/t (1972)
255 ratings on RYM and I don't know what the fuck "bolded" means

Argentinian psychedelic prog rock with some absolutely stellar guitar and keyboard work. It pops up in sharethreads on here every so often and is truly an underrated classic. Every song is perfectly balanced in its instrumentation with adventurous but not indulgent solos and it's just fucking fun to listen to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8AuYmID4wc
speaks for itself, may not be too forgotten but i feel it isnt appreciated enough.