The Other Prog

An August night, the 26th, 1973. In front of the stage at Reading Festival, Britain's most important festival, an enthusiastic crowd awaits the arrival of Genesis, led by Peter Gabriel, who, buoyed by more than sixty thousand copies sold of their latest album "Foxtrot", are on the closing dates of a hugely successful world tour.
A few hours earlier, in front of the same stage, a perhaps smaller crowd had watched Ange perform: their "Le cimetière des Arlequins" had come out only a few months before, yet in terms of sales back home it had nearly doubled those of Genesis. The day before, it had been the turn of Finland's Tasavallan Presidentti and France's Magma; before that, Germany's Embryo and the Netherlands' Alquin. Italy was represented by Premiata Forneria Marconi.
The following year, the Dutch band Focus, led by the dazzling guitarist Jan Akkerman and flute virtuoso Thijs Van Leer, headlined the festival's closing night. Two months earlier, at Roskilde, the best of the progressive scene had been summed up by England's Camel and Henry Cow, Denmark's Secret Oyster, and the Netherlands' Supersister.

Progressive rock was a transnational phenomenon, one to which every country contributed its own colourful and original scenes, all in dialogue with one another. In the years when Pfm was crossing oceans for American and Japanese tours, musicians from the socialist East — Polish jazz-rockers SBB, their compatriot Czesław Niemen, and Hungary's Omega — managed the no less arduous feat of crossing the Iron Curtain to bring their music to listeners in Sweden, Finland, Germany and England.
Here in Italy, prog is often portrayed as a dazzling two-horse race: the UK and Italy. In the minds of many rock fans, our country is the only one able to rival the homeland of Genesis, Yes, King Crimson and Emerson Lake & Palmer.
What a point of pride! Even those who aren't particularly enamoured of the genre struggle to hide a certain satisfaction in knowing that, to this day, Japanese collectors still raid auctions and record shops in search of priceless relics from the one era in which Italian rock — and Italian rock alone! — made a universally acknowledged contribution to an entire genre and its worldwide developments.
A fine fairy tale, no doubt about it. Nostalgic, identity-affirming, comforting: little, cunning Italian David defeating the mighty American Goliath (who, to be fair, barely even showed up to the contest…) by means of Banco, Orme, Pfm and Area.
The facts, however, tell a somewhat different story. Italy is far from the only country where progressive rock produced varied, mature scenes; cult albums still highly sought after by collectors; and bands capable of selling records by the truckload or crossing the Channel in pursuit of glory in the genre's motherland.
The Italian scene really was rich and singular: we haven't written this piece to deny that. But the exceptional nature of that circumstance has, in our country, become a cumbersome fig leaf with which we hide from ourselves the sheer scale of other national scenes. With this piece we'll try, if not to remove that fig leaf entirely, then at least to push it aside and shed light on what it has long kept covered.

The value of difference

Two seemingly opposite temptations threaten to undermine the value of such a wide-ranging overview. On one hand, there's the urge to dismiss as "provincial" anything that appears, at least on the surface, belated, imitative or rough around the edges (in recording quality, performance skill, or stylistic coherence and maturity). On the other, there's the temptation to abandon all critical judgement and, with the zealous generosity of the most incurable enthusiasts, turn every obscure rarity — however amateurish the recording — into an unmissable "lost continent" to be rediscovered in the name of prog.
These two paths, seemingly at odds, share a common bias: the idea that there exists an "ideal progressive" — roughly coinciding with the sound of British symphonic bands of the early Seventies — against which the output of every other corner of the globe must be measured, whether to emphasise its shortcomings by contrast, or to argue that, if you dig deep enough, its traits can be found even in stylistically distant works.
In fact, it's precisely the distance and peculiarity from the canon of English progressive that make the national scenes developed "on the empire's periphery" so interesting, each the product of a different political, socio-cultural and record-industry context. Everywhere in the world, progressive music meant stylistic hybridity, the breaking down of barriers between "high" and "low" culture, a search for the surprising: a generational, transnational need, to which each country nonetheless responded with a different blend of genres, influences and musical backgrounds.

So we find countries where the rediscovery of local folklore was the main force that shook up, and then broke, the cages of imported rock'n'roll or the stagnation of national pop: this was the case for Sweden's rich and early prog scene, centred on Nordic folk; for Israel's, intent on consolidating a composite cultural identity by incorporating Mediterranean, Central European and Slavic traditions; for a Romania trying to slip through the mesh of anti-Western censorship; and for a post-1975 Spain seeking to shake off the forced cultural homogenisation of the Franco era by reworking its rich regional heritage.
Elsewhere, a similar catalysing role was played by jazz, and especially by its most recent and multicoloured offshoots: jazz-rock and fusion, seen as ideal territory for overcoming the barriers of genre, language and ideology. Countries beyond the Iron Curtain such as Poland and Czechoslovakia developed some of the most exciting jazz-rock scenes of the era, finding a way — not without friction with the censors — to engage with the musical circuits of the Western bloc. In Belgium, split between Flanders and Wallonia, Canterbury-style jazz-rock produced bands born from the meeting of French-speaking and Flemish-speaking musicians; in Québec, fusion, often tinged with Celtic touches, became a means of standing apart from Anglophone Canada while simultaneously breaking free from comparisons with the French "motherland"; and in small yet firmly Atlantic-facing nations like Denmark and Norway, the jazz idiom ultimately served as a bridge onto the international scene.

The most representative Italian, French and English progressive bands defined their style in near-opposition to the blues, rejecting its harmonic form, and to psychedelia, shedding its more lysergic, free-form aspects: the absence of this opposition is instead a defining trait of smaller, more peripheral scenes (such as Iceland's), where bands might devote one track to baroque pop, another to hard rock, and others still to original hippie/classical hybrids. The continuity between psychedelia and progressive (and in particular jam rock, space rock, ethno-jazz and so on) is even more surprising when found in countries of considerable size, economically advanced and well informed about Anglo-Saxon developments: the examples of Japan and West Germany, however, show that — by changing the spark and the surrounding conditions — even mature, complex scenes can end up structured around entirely different pillars.

Different beginnings, different endings

Staying on the subject of sparks: some of the distinctive traits of national scenes — especially the ones least explainable by a country's political and cultural context — can be understood by borrowing the concept of the founder effect from evolutionary biology. In a large population descended from a small number of ancestors, the chance genetic tendencies of that original group end up amplified. Applying this dynamic to music, the direction a local scene takes in its mature phase turns out to be a consequence of the traits that defined the style of its founding bands — perhaps less accomplished, but, at least in the most worthwhile cases, remarkably inventive. Getting acquainted with the Jefferson Airplane-indebted, jazz-inflected proto-progressive of Mad Curry thus becomes essential to understanding the rapid evolution of the Belgian scene toward a Canterbury sound, as it sought an escape route from the baroque, "post-beat" style of the slightly earlier Wallace Collection. Similarly, the eclecticism and American sympathies shown by the Danish scene can be traced back to the original sin of Burnin' Red Ivanhoe, among the first non-British bands to develop their own prog formula — drawing inspiration, among other things, from the soul/jazz/rock of Chicago Transit Authority. The path taken by the thriving Yugoslav scene would certainly have been different without Time and Korni Grupa showing that you could go beyond the four-minute hard-rock song by injecting it with jazz and funk, and it's hard to imagine the entire zeuhl subgenre spontaneously sprouting on French soil without the obscure "genetic mutation" of jazz-rock represented by Christian Vander's Magma.

So far we've mostly discussed the traits by which national scenes diverged most from the English paradigm. At the opposite end of the originality spectrum, however — especially from the middle of the decade onward — were numerous bands devoted to far more calligraphic aims. Between 1973 and 1976, British artists like Genesis and Camel completed the canonisation of a "quintessential" progressive sound, clearly recognisable and, all things considered, imitable. This paradigm proved a great stimulus for a second generation of bands, whose style came into focus later by revisiting these structures and atmospheres. While in England this second wave proved rather unlucky, given the shifting interests of labels, audiences and critics (penalising names such as England, Skywhale and The Enid), the delay with which attention toward imported trends blossomed abroad meant that, outside the UK, the ground proved more fertile — commercially speaking — for both seasoned prog bands and newcomers alike.

The late progressive that emerged in "not-too-peripheral" countries such as Germany, Austria, Norway, Argentina, or on the other side of the Iron Curtain, in Hungary and Poland, grafts itself onto already codified models, yet displays sonic traits that make it unique and — in some ways — even a forerunner of developments that would only take hold in the UK during the Eighties. What worked in favour of these "latecomer" bands was above all the technological development of synthesizers, which made available instruments with far greater potential than those of the early Seventies.
The turning point corresponds chiefly to the advent of polyphony: the ability to play several notes simultaneously on the same keyboard opened up unexplored expanses of electronic atmospheres to musicians. The sharp distinction that had characterised bands of the classic period fell away: harmonic accompaniment — previously entrusted to "electric" instruments with limited timbres such as Mellotron, Hammond, Rhodes and Wurlitzer — and the melodic part — until then dominated by monophonic Moog and ARP synthesizers — could now be married in cascades of synthetic chords, projected moreover across a potentially infinite sonic range. The first fully polyphonic synths, the ARP Omni and the Polymoog, hit the market in 1975, but the true protagonists of this Copernican revolution in prog were actually string synthesizers, their cheaper and more limited precursors. The Eminent 310, the Solina String Ensemble, the Logan String Melody (to name just a few of the most famous) were conceived as synthetic equivalents of the Mellotron, clumsy "orchestra substitutes" that soon proved capable of an entirely new range of evocative possibilities (it's the Solina that gives "Wish You Were Here" and "Animals" by Pink Floyd their unmistakable drizzly sound).

With a formula seemingly indebted to the style of Camel and Genesis, a nostalgic mood dictated by the conviction of arriving when the game was nearly over, and the new expressive possibilities of string-synth chords exploited to drip melancholy and grandeur, records released "past their time" by acts like Eela Craig, Anyone's Daughter, Exodus, or Pablo el Enterrador turn out, paradoxically, to be strongly original and unwittingly ahead of the traits that would come to define the neo-prog era.

The Progressive World: What Boundaries?

Progressive is, in rock history, the first genre to achieve truly worldwide diffusion. Rock'n'roll, beat and psychedelia had certainly reached the most disparate corners of the globe: very rarely, however, had the import of Anglo-American styles and hits (often in translation) produced varied and original scenes capable of breaking free from a purely imitative dynamic to define local schools with their own maturity and characteristics.
As already seen, there are numerous cases in which progressive established itself on a national scale not on the back of British models but thanks to the independent way local bands elaborated their own desire to transcend genre boundaries.
Sometimes the transition to progressive was led precisely by the leading bands of the beat phase, who, tired of rehashing models that weren't their own, chose to broaden their scope beyond the verse-chorus pop song by incorporating elements closer to their own cultural identity. Consider Poland, where the genre was introduced by the aforementioned Niemen and by Skaldowie, both with a past close to beat sonorities, but where it ended up merging with the "sung poetry" scene, influenced by cabaret, tango and local composers.
Even the classical crossover phenomenon, which marked the genre's early days in many European countries (from the Canarios' Spain to the Collegium Musicum's Czechoslovakia), holds more points of interest in this respect than the condescending attitude with which it's often treated today might suggest: by reconnecting pop-rock music to the classical tradition (and, in some cases, to national Romantic schools), it marked on one hand a turning point compared to the profitable but stifling mechanism of translated covers, and on the other an important step of "re-territorialisation" of rock, which at least partly abandoned the rock'n'roll/blues schemes of African-American origin to find roots more in tune with the musical heritage of countries that, from mere spectators, were preparing to become protagonists of its history.

The progressive spirit infected dozens upon dozens of countries around the world, but the map drawn in this article shows obvious gaps compared to an ordinary geographical atlas. Some of these are easily justified: except for anglophone South Africa, no African country had, in the period concerned, rock scenes varied enough to develop a genuine progressive movement; Middle Eastern music was oriented towards formats and dynamics essentially alien to rock, while the Indian subcontinent was already dominated at the time by Bollywood soundtracks, which experimented with the use of rock, but not enough to push it in the direction examined here. Pre-revolution Iran was a westernised, modern country, but it had no way to develop a prog scene, being decidedly more oriented towards a blend of Persian tradition, modern singer-songwriter craft and psychedelic rock. We have no record of prog albums having been released in Antarctica — and what little was produced in Greenland turns out to be entirely negligible.
A separate discussion is owed to the "Second World" governed by communist-inspired regimes. As already seen, in several Eastern European countries artists managed to maintain contact with developments beyond the Iron Curtain and, despite the difficulties tied to Party censorship, gave rise to original and thriving progressive scenes. In most of the other nations dominated by "real socialism" this was not possible. In China, rock was essentially unknown until the Eighties. In Cuba, rock artists were banned from 1960 to 1966 as a result of the revolution and, even afterwards, heavily marginalised by the Castro regime. In Vietnam, the US military presence up to '75 brought the southern part of the country into contact with rock music; however, this contact did not translate into the birth of a local scene. Finally, in the Soviet Union the cultural embargo against any expression of capitalism translated into a ban on rock that proved almost unyielding until 1980, becoming milder afterwards, though not free of occasional crackdowns. A few records tinged with progressive rock did come out, but one cannot in any way speak of a local movement in the Seventies, which is why we intend to present these rare exceptions in a separate article.

Among the records featured in the article there are none from Italy or from English-speaking countries. While the exclusion of our own country and of Great Britain is explained very quickly (they are the two nations that are always talked about), less obvious is that of the United States, Australia, Ireland, anglophone Canada and so on. The fact is that, paradoxically, these are precisely the most provincial countries in the prog galaxy: within them, satellite scenes of the British one developed, possessing no identity of their own but living (aside from rare exceptions like Rush) in a purely imitative dimension of the English model. The situation in the United States is particularly curious: right in the years of the genre's greatest development, bands like Kansas, Boston, Journey and Styx codified so-called arena rock, which combines hard rock, pop and prog elements but cannot be exclusively traced back to any one of the three styles. The genre took the American spotlight and channelled the delusions of grandeur of many bands that, elsewhere, might otherwise have devoted themselves to progressive in the commonly understood sense. It's no surprise, then, that the few groups who deliberately chose the path of prog in the strict sense adopted a decidedly calligraphic take on English models, and that even the handful of worthwhile bands scattered across the vastness of US territory (Cathedral, Hands, Starcastle, Yezda Urfa, Fireballet, Happy the Man) met with scarce or non-existent commercial fortune.

The selection we offer is certainly not the only one possible, nor the best. We could have included more jazz, or excluded it altogether. We could have been more lenient with proto-prog or stricter with the emulators. We could have pushed the time frame further. We could have brought in all of prog folk rather than just its more electric strand. For the sake of concision, we chose to limit ourselves to 151 records and to try, as far as possible, to represent the plurality of national landscapes.

SWEDEN

It's no surprise that, in the homeland of social democracy, "progressive" music plays a leading role. As early as the late Sixties a "progg" current (with two g's) developed in Sweden that, in continuity with the demands of 1968, combined boundary-breaking music, singer-songwriter craft and anti-capitalism. The label, however, was applied to a vast array of "antagonist" bands, often linked to university activism in towns like Uppsala and Lund, and only occasionally related to progressive as it would be understood abroad. While broadly folk collectives like Arbrete och Fritid and outfits devoted to a sui generis post-psychedelia (International Harvester, Älgarnas Trädgård) are hard to place within prog proper, the movement nonetheless includes a few artists whose output falls squarely within the boundaries of this article.

Sweden's scene is in fact still considered today one of the leading scenes of European progressive. The marriage of rock and traditional folk that animates several of the main proposals (Kebnekaise, Ragnarök, Bo Hansson) would become an essential model for the many bands of the Scandinavian prog revival and would lead to the rediscovery of the scene starting in the Nineties. Less visible but no less valid is the broad jazz-rock strand, which includes, alongside the exceedingly progg Samla Mammas Manna, other "borderline" bands such as Kultivator (leaning towards avant-), Kornet (decidedly closer to the fusion of Weather Report and Passport) and Archimedes Bedkar (a sort of Scandinavian counterpart to Germany's Embryo). (M.Sgrignoli)

Bo Hansson – Sagan om ringen [1970]

Samla Mammas Manna – Klossa knapitatet [1974]

Andreas Aarflot – Det rivna pianot [1977]

Darkness, dissonance and feverish rhythms are also central to “Myrornas Krig” (“war of the ants”), the only LP by Myrbein (“ant's leg”, of course) from Östersund, in north-central Sweden. The album's blessing and curse alike is the band's naive approach, evident in the blend of compositional chaos and obsession with intricate interlocking structures, or in the mix of great ambition and studied craftsmanship, which reworks, in a heavily keyboard-driven style, ideas drawn from King Crimson, Zappa, Magma, Henry Cow and nascent post-punk. One could call it a mixed grill of "proggy" leftovers, wildly out of step with the times and none too well recorded. A fair point, but in truth the record's dynamic, cerebral, zigzagging character makes for a listen that's fun, stimulating and full of surprises. (M.Sgrignoli)

NORWAY

The Norwegian scene of the Seventies appears more modest in size than those of the other Scandinavian countries. The distinctions between psychedelia, hard rock, jazz and progressive are weak, and it is partly thanks to this that original, captivating sonic solutions were born. Initially oriented, then, towards a peculiar hard-prog synthesis, the scene over the years filled up with bands linked to the local jazz scene, already quite prominent on the world stage at the time thanks to leading figures such as saxophonist Jan Garbarek and guitarist Terje Rypdal (who, with the triptych "What Comes After"/"Whenever I Seem To Be Far Away"/"Odyssey", would come remarkably close to King Crimson, albeit on the avant-garde side). (M.Sgrignoli)

 

Junipher Greene – Friendship [1971]

Junipher Greene's debut is generally considered the first true Norwegian prog album. In truth, a few others had already come out that moved in similar territory, tinged now with blues, now with psychedelia, now leaning a bit toward hard rock. Elements that are indeed present here too, along with a good dose of soul and a few folk touches. The fullness of the songwriting and the quality of the recording, though, mark the leap that separates an embryonic work from a fully mature one. The title track is a monumental twenty-six-minute suite that unwinds through effects-laden guitars, jazz- and funk-inflected bass lines, atmospheric layers of electric organ, and drumming capable of driving hard yet, when called for, of swinging sly. Kudos to singer Helge Grøslie's English. (F.Romagnoli)

Høst – På sterke vinger [1974]

Born in Knapstad, a village of a thousand souls lost amid Norway's forests, Høst were one of the many bands that, in the first half of the Seventies, made it hard to tell where hard rock ended and prog began. On this debut album the quintet relies on the voice of Geir Jahren, capable of the same lyricism as the most philosophical strain of hard rock (David Byron, Ronnie James Dio), and on a pair of electric guitars, played by Lasse Nilsen and Svein Rønning (the latter also sporadically on keyboards). Six of the seven tracks hover around the four-minute mark, yet still feature riffs armor-plated riffs and non-linear structures, a tonic for anyone who loves Wishbone Ash or even just Black Sabbath. The overall standard is high, with an undeniable peak in the nine minutes of title track. (F.Romagnoli)

Ruphus – Let Your Light Shine [1976]

After two albums of symphonic progressive rock, vaguely Yes-like, Ruphus, led by the renowned keyboardist Håkon Graf, veer towards a jazz-rock that is as polished as it is bold. Produced by the legendary avant-jazz guitarist Terje Rypdal, famous for the magmatic austerity of his constructions, "Let Your Light Shine" actually turns out to be almost the opposite in spirit: decidedly close to easy listening, it's an album with an sound airy and disciplined sound, with tracks that are melodically limpid and rhythmically engaging, often built on rising climaxes and lush flourishes of Rhodes, string synthesizer and ARP (played by Rypdal himself). Rounding off the formula's celestial quality is the crystalline voice of singer Gudny Aspaas, which brings some passages to within a hair of Nucleus's "Labyrinth". (M.Sgrignoli)

Vanessa – Black and White [1976]

Starting out in 1975 with “City Lips”, funk-tinged psychedelic jazz-rock with a faint whiff of library music, on their second and final album Vanessa reset the lineup (losing, among others, Håkon Graf, who turns his focus to Ruphus) and convert to the gospel of Soft Machine post-“Third”. The band's mainstay remains reedman and composer Svend Undseth, who on “Black and White” plays sax, clarinet, flute and guitar. A clear admirer of Hopper and Ratledge's zigzagging themes, in borrowing their tones and trajectories he chooses not to abandon the funk drive, here even more muscular and biting than on the debut. The result is cerebral, geometric pieces, superbly performed yet very free-flowing, constantly surprising with melodic flashes and rhythmic jolts. (M.Sgrignoli)

 
DENMARK

Fueled by a lively post-psychedelic scene and the beacon of the Roskilde festival, Denmark is among the first countries to develop an autonomous progressive scene. The poster for the festival's first edition (1971) clearly points to the key bands of the Danish proto-progressive phase: Burnin' Red Ivanhoe, Midnight Sun, Culpeper's Orchard, Dr. Dopo Jam (the first of these would also find some recognition in the UK). Like their forerunners, the bands that followed would also be marked by a remarkable eclecticism, which often makes them quite original, even if hard to pin down to the stylistic tenets of “pure” prog. (M.Sgrignoli)

Burnin' Red Ivanhoe – W.W.W. [1971]
Formed in 1967, Copenhagen's Burnin' Red Ivanhoe immediately embraced a blues rock streaked with psychedelia and jazz forms made possible by their broad horn section. Through the very early Seventies, it's above all Karsten Vogel (saxophone, organ, piano, and author of most of the songs) who pushes for richer instrumental interplay, balancing post-psychedelic fire with Chicago Transit Authority-style jazz-rock. This original proto-prog synthesis also finds success in Britain, and the band becomes the symbol of the Danish scene. Their fourth LP, “W.W.W.”, marks their peak of maturity in 1971: the following year the band splits, and several members go on to form Secret Oyster. Reunited in 1974, they resume releasing albums, including the excellent “Shorts” from 1980. (M.Sgrignoli)

Secret Oyster – Astarte [1975]

In 1972 Karsten Vogel (sax), Jess Stæhr (bass) and Bo Thrige Andersen (drums) of Burnin' Red Ivanhoe join forces with Kenneth Knudsen (keyboards) and Claus Bøhling (guitar) of Coronarias Dans: thus Secret Oyster is born, a jazz-rock supergroup with international reach. Their own albums offer a lively jam-rock style with undeniable progressive shadings, though their hard-rock and psych traits make them a tricky fit for this piece. Things change with “Astarte”, a work composed for the ballet “Vidunderlige Kælling” (“splendid bitch”): here the whirl of instrumental ideas and the wide range of influences condense into evocative, well-structured pieces, with skillful use of recurring themes and melodic elements of great impact (in several passages, Camel come to mind). (M.Sgrignoli)

Coma – Financial Tycoon [1977]

Decidedly out of the ordinary is the sound of this quintet from Fredrikshavn, in North Jutland, where heavily marked acid rock (or even proto-punk) elements form the backbone of an unmistakably prog approach. Nursery-rhyme quirks aside Zappa-esque of the two title track, it's the sax that acts as the "narrating voice" of the album's jagged melodies on this debut, with trumpet (occasionally) and guitar (always) providing counterpoint. The guitar's tones are truly unusual: dry, rough and often dissonant or acidic, wouldn't look out of place on some radical post-punk record. The drums too play on dryness, with a lean, jazzy snare that recalls the very earliest King Crimson. Essential listening for fans of the shaggier side of progressive (see Jan Dukes De Grey). (M.Sgrignoli)

Hinn íslenski þursaflokkur – Hinn íslenski þursaflokkur [1978]

Pekka Pohjola – Harakka Bialoipokku [1974]

Wigwam – Nuclear Nightclub [1975]

A former member of Piirpauke, a large ensemble whose excellent prog folk leans more toward jazz than rock and thus slips outside the already broad boundaries of this feature, bassist Ilpo Saastamoinen released a single solo album, one that represents the point of maximum convergence between the distinctly Finnish approach to progressive rock and the avant-prog wanderings of neighboring Samla Mammas Manna. The tracks on "Joutsenen juju" ("The Swan's Trick") are indeed playful, shape-shifting, and quite close to "total music," though decidedly tilted toward jazz-rock, traditional echoes, and the harmonic obliquities inherited from Sibelius. As with Pohjola, the atmospheres are often veiled in an indolent nostalgia, taking on an autumnal quality that — we might say today — vaguely anticipates vaporwave. (M.Sgrignoli)

NETHERLANDS

Compared to its neighbours, the Dutch scene has a somewhat less flourishing undergrowth, offset however by the presence of a few names of real stature. Besides heavyweights Focus, Finch and Alquin also achieved decent international visibility. Earth and Fire, Kayak and Flairck (the latter the inventors of a highly distinctive language, somewhere between folk, jazz and chamber music) had to make do with solid success on the domestic front instead. Less fortunate during the genre's golden age, the Canterbury-inspired Supersister are today among the most beloved bands among enthusiasts. (M.Sgrignoli)

Earth And Fire – Song Of The Marching Children [1971]

Symphonic progressive rock, jazz and classical echoes, a female voice with an evident folk grounding: this is the winning formula of Curved Air and Renaissance, but also of the Dutch band Earth & Fire, whose masterpiece "Song of the Marching Children" actually predates the work of both British acts. Five tracks in all, including the sprawling title suite, which reveal on one hand the strength of the bond between early progressive rock and the sound of Jefferson Airplane, and on the other how the genre's typical convolution is not inherently at odds with pop-style melodic effectiveness. The record also astonishes for the heights of evocativeness it wrings from the Mellotron's sound, the true co-star of the album alongside Jerney Kaagman's flute-like voice. (M.Sgrignoli)

Focus – Focus 3 [1972]

Thijs van Leer (vocals, flute, organ), Jan Akkerman (guitar), Martin Dresden (bass), Hans Cleuver (drums). Impossible not to name a lineup like this in full, given the imagination and technical prowess on display. Focus were one of the most famous Dutch bands of the Seventies, thanks in particular to the album “Focus II” (“Moving Waves” in the English-speaking market) and its single “Hocus Pocus”. Even more creative and abundant, though, is this largely instrumental double LP that followed it. To the quartet's typical baroque hard prog is added the jam atmospheric funk of “Answers? Questions! Questions? Answers!”, and the tour de force “Anonymus II”, where every member pushes their solos to the very limits of human capability. Number 1 at home and top 10 in the UK.(F.Romagnoli)

Supersister – Iskander [1973]

Supersister are perhaps the best known of the continental “Canterbury” bands. On their most famous record, the 1970 debut “Present from Nancy”, they blend jazz-rock, pop and odd time signatures with a nostalgic, laid-back touch that inevitably recalls the work of Hatfield and the North and their affiliates. Over the years, though, the band's formula drifted away from its British counterparts, and their fourth album “Iskander” is the clearest example of this. An ambitious concept album about the historical figure of Alexander the Great, it trades away some of the irony in favour of a certain classical, at times even martial grandeur, which combined with the use of themes and wind instruments from the Eastern Mediterranean gives the record an exotic, mysterious tone. (M.Sgrignoli)

Finch – Glory Of The Inner Force [1975]

Lacking a decent singer, Finch devoted themselves to an entirely instrumental brand of progressive rock. The absence of vocals meant a rebalancing of roles: guitar pushed to the fore, with sound a tone that's harsh, wide and sharply defined; bass equally prominent and capable of carving out melodic lines of comparable impact; drumming relentless and chameleonic; keyboards often reduced to the sole “connective tissue” between the trajectories of the other instruments. The resulting formula is imaginative, sparkling, and in several passages close to that of Rush. Credit goes above all to the virtuosic flair of guitarist and composer Joop van Nimwegen, a lover of classical-leaning themes who, like Alex Lifeson, is able to pair lush, energetic solos riffs built on effects and open chords. (M.Sgrignoli)

BELGIUM

Their small size, geographical proximity and the ease with which much of the population understands English meant British cultural products took root very quickly in the Benelux countries. The Belgian scene, in particular, is marked by playfulness and an abundance of jazz elements. A long line of bands (initially Mad Curry, Kandahar and Placebo, then Cos and others) worked through psychedelic, blues and black-music influences, under the unmistakable pull of British influence, arriving at a synthesis very close to the Canterbury sound. Also receptive to the avant-garde tendencies of the French zeuhl movement, the scene would go on to develop its own particular strain of chamber prog/Rock In Opposition, with Univers Zero, Aksak Maboul and lesser-known acts such as Julverne. (M.Sgrignoli)

Mad Curry – Mad Curry [1970]
Founded by five students from the University of Leuven, Mad Curry exemplify the linguistic "melting pot" (the line-up featured both Flemish- and Walloon-speaking musicians) and the mix of musical influences from which the first Belgian progressive scene was born. Lacking a guitarist but equipped with saxophone, Hammond organ and singer Viona Vestra's energetic, musical-theatre voice, the five-piece combine clearly blues-rooted jazz-rock with third-stream elements and easy-listening touches. The resulting proto-prog formula is as immediate as it is appealing: above all, though, it's the playful, quotation-heavy character running through most of the tracks that anticipates the Canterbury-esque traits the Belgian scene would take on in the following years. (M.Sgrignoli)
 

Cos – Viva Boma [1976]

Univers Zéro – Hérésie [1979]

Pazop were formed in Brussels in 1970 from the merger of members of earlier bands such as Wallace Collection and Waterloo. Initially called “The Modern Classic Quartet”, they released a first LP (titled “Opera Pop” or “Electric Concert” depending on the edition) of classical pieces rearranged in a rock vein. A change of name brought them to maturity: with a line-up that dropped guitar in favor of flute, organ and violin, they forged a colorful style ranging from early-Crimson-esque elegy to dark experimentation, by way of emphatic (yet fascinating) post-beat/proto-prog, Zappa-style tomfoolery, and keyboard-driven pop/jazz/blues poised between Canterbury and Colosseum. Never released at the time, the complete material for two albums was collected in the Nineties on a compilation. (M.Sgrignoli)

FRANCE

Alongside Italy and Britain, the French scene is one of the richest and most diverse in Atlantic Europe. Among its many internal currents, the most relevant to this piece are the symphonic strand (dominated by the influence of Ange) and the zeuhl strand tied to Magma. The latter represents a peculiarly French phenomenon, a unique synthesis of rock, jazz (Coltrane, Sanders), 20th-century art music (Orff, Bartók, Stravinsky) and Lovecraftian overtones which, besides spawning a lineage of dozens upon dozens of bands that would carry on through the Eighties and into the present day without ever needing a revival, would anticipate the alien rhythms of math rock and serve as a key model for the so-called “brutal prog” of Japan's Ruins.
Outside progressive music proper (and therefore outside the selection we're offering here) lie several other endeavors worth a mention. There are many points of contact between the prog spirit and the thriving electric folk scene that blossomed around figures like Alan Stivell, his guitarist Dan Ar Braz, and Parisians Malicorne. Somewhere between krautrock and Robert Fripp's guitar explorations sit the effects-drenched flows of Richard Pinhas's Heldon, a critical darling also thanks to his collaboration with philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Venturing further into sounds that gained a certain notoriety thanks to the legendary Nurse With Wound List, one finds unconventional projects such as Heratius, Hellebore, Flamen Dialis, ZNR: often fascinating experiments, despite their disjointedness. (M.Sgrignoli)
 

Magma – Magma (Kobaïa) [1970]

Atoll – L'araignée-mal [1975]

Arachnoïd – Arachnoïd [1979]

Dün – Eros [1981]

Octobre are the project of Pierre Flynn, singer, keyboardist and composer. They debuted in 1973 with their self-titled album, which already displays the band's core stylistic traits: an emphatic progressive rock with a distinctly pop-leaning drive, built on a solid piano foundation but far more interested in continuity with the chanson than in more or less bombastic classicism. The following, superior "Les Nouvelles Terres" occupies an intriguing middle ground between the vocal grandiloquence of Ange and the jazz-pop finesse of Supertramp, with whom it shares a keyboard palette built on the warm tones of Clavinet and Wurlitzer. After releasing three more albums, the musicians went on to solo careers: Flynn's would lead him to modest success in the '80s. (M.Sgrignoli)

Harmonium – Les cinq saisons [1975]

An internationally cult record, starting with its iconic pastoral cover art, "Les Cinq Saisons" is considered one of the finest albums to sit at the crossroads between acoustic progressive folk and keyboard-driven symphonic prog. The tracklist consists of four songs in French and one instrumental suite. Singing and composing duties fall to the two guitarists, Serge Fiori and Michel Normandeau, but it's the rest of the band that broadens the horizons: Louis Valois's bass (electric and angular), Pierre Daigneault's wind instruments (with a jazz-inflected approach), and Serge Locat's keyboards (honky-tonk pianos, but also Mellotron washes with a gothic tinge). Following its 1991 reissue, the album is also known as "Si on avait besoin d'une cinquième saison". (F.Romagnoli)

Sloche – J'un oeil [1975]

Maneige – Ni Vent… Ni nouvelle [1977]

Maneige, formed in 1972 in Montreal, are an institution of Québec's progressive jazz-rock/fusion scene. In '75 they released two superb albums, in which a strongly piano-driven jazz-rock meets classical echoes and traces of traditional folk. Then keyboardist and band founder Jerome Langlois left the group and was replaced by his brother Vincent (already a wind player and second keyboardist). The change of line-up leads, by roundabout ways, to a masterpiece: "Ni vent… Ni nouvelle" combines the rhythmic, harmonic and timbral refinements of their previous work (the lineup features four percussionists, three wind players, a violinist and a viola player) with an unprecedented melodic lightness, pairing nostalgic elegy with irresistible funky drive. (M.Sgrignoli)

SWITZERLAND
As one might expect, Switzerland's scene is split between the French-speaking and predominantly German-speaking cantons. The former, besides being the birthplace of Patrick Moraz (known for his stint in Yes during the "Relayer" era), stand out for their rather late-blossoming forays into avant-prog; the latter benefited from a fairly early start, with proto-prog bands such as Brainticket and Toad, but produced their finest results in the second half of the Seventies, reworking Anglo-Saxon sounds now in an avant-prog vein (Island), now in a progressive-folk one (Circus). (M.Sgrignoli)

Circus – Movin' On [1977]
Opening with the sparkling, imaginative "The Bandsman", "Movin' On" is the second album by a quintet of multi-instrumentalists from Basel, featuring four German-speaking musicians and one Italian-speaking one (Marco Cerletti, who later became a virtuoso of the Chapman stick). The music is a wonderfully successful blend of recognisable influences: there's the theatrical emphasis and oblique sax of Van Der Graaf Generator, the tight drumming and fairy-tale aura of the very earliest King Crimson; there's something of the airy, otherworldly lightness of Yes and plenty of the acoustic freshness of Jethro Tull… yet the solid, modern folk framework (free of traditional echoes, yet able to conjure medieval atmospheres at will) running through the whole record feels entirely original. A gem. (M.Sgrignoli)

Island – Pictures [1977]

Dark, neurotic, unsettling, at times downright malevolent: the music of "Pictures" is a perfect match for its stunning cover, created by fellow countryman and horror-sci-fi guru Hans Giger. Recorded at Studio Ricordi in Milan and produced by two grey eminences of the Italian scene, Claudio Fabi and Ezio De Rosa, the album sounds both anachronistic and visionary at once: on one hand it harks back to early-seventies constructions that by '77 were well out of step with the times, on the other it shows a ferocity and expressionistic creativity that bring it a step away from the emerging post-punk. The instrumental alchemy is also singular: devoid of guitar and bass, the band rests everything on winds and keyboards, reworking the stylistic hallmarks of ELP and VDGG in ways that often verge on the avant-garde. (M.Sgrignoli)

Débile Menthol – Emile au jardin patrologique [1981]

Débile Menthol from Neuchâtel are among the earliest and most successful examples of what, building on the wake of "Rock in Opposition" while partly breaking away from it, would in later years come to be called avant-prog. This nine-strong ensemble draws on Samla, Etron Fou and Aksak Maboul, but folds into its style devices and flair that owe just as much to post-punk (and, as would be true of several post-RIO acts, even to no wave). The thirteen compositions on their debut album alternate retro/chamber-music episodes with avant-rock outbursts of the most disciplined dishevelment imaginable. Evident in every groove of the record is a taste for experimental divertissement, which replaces escapism and grandiosity as the driving ambition behind this new form of prog. (M.Sgrignoli)

 

AUSTRIA

The Austrian scene is, understandably, far less flourishing than Germany's. Beyond the two artists included in our selection (one of whom should be considered an outsider largely detached from the local context), it's dominated mostly by fairly derivative symphonic progressive (Kyrie Eleison, Klockwerk Orange). Outside the boundaries of the genre — and, all told, largely outside the Austrian scene too — the jazz-rock of celebrated Viennese trumpeter and composer Michael Mantler, best known for his collaborations with Carla Bley, Robert Wyatt, Terje Rypdal and Nick Mason, nonetheless offers ideas that should appeal to fans of avant-prog and related territory. (M.Sgrignoli)

Hermann Szobel – Szobel [1976]

Born in Vienna in 1958, pianist and composer Hermann Szobel recorded his debut album at just 17, backed by a lineup of jazz musicians that included the future bassist of Suzanne Vega and the percussionist of Spyro Gyra. The result is a work of startling artistic and instrumental maturity, a jazz-rock record of remarkable harmonic and rhythmic complexity, in which clear influences of Zappa-esque blend with zeuhl colorings and edges worthy of the best Nucleus. Shortly after starting work on his second album, Szobel vanished without a trace. Polish artist and documentary filmmaker Katarzyna Kozyra later claimed to have met him in Jerusalem in 2012, where he had reportedly been living as a beggar for years, claiming to be the Messiah — a phenomenon known, fittingly, as "Jerusalem syndrome." (M.Sgrignoli)

Eela Craig – Hats Of Glass [1977]

Three keyboard players! Yes, but how to make use of them? Simple: the first plays jazzy lines on organ and e-piano (plus the occasional Clavinet), the second carries the melodies on Minimoog, and the third stays put, dripping polyphonic syrup from the string synthesizer. It's precisely the presets — swoony yet evocative, from the Italian-made Logan String Melody — that define the character of the fourth LP by this band from Linz. Opening with a fine cover of "A Spaceman Came Travelling" by Anglo-Irish artist Chris De Burgh, the album builds, layer upon layer, a rather original blend of keyboard textures: drizzly and futuristic, nostalgic and sacral, they form the backbone on which the band erects progressive pop castles of considerable variety and melodic effectiveness. (M.Sgrignoli)

 

WEST GERMANY
Best known for the radical innovations of krautrock, 1970s West Germany was also home to a rich post-psychedelic scene that, almost independently of British models, developed its own progressive attitude over the course of the decade. Alongside the more grandiose styles of Triumvirat, Eloy and Novalis (each influenced to varying degrees by the British synthesis) there existed an undergrowth of bands marked by a folk-leaning sound, or else a jam-oriented e jazzyone, which could no longer be called psychedelic in the strict sense, yet wasn't quite prog proper either. Of the bands belonging to this "grey zone" (Zyma, Morpheus, Aera, Bröselmaschine, Hölderlin, Carol of Harvest, Emtidi and others), only some fit, by virtue of their stylistic choices, within the boundaries of our selection — but the continuity running sound between the most idiosyncratic acts and the most orthodox ones on this spectrum shows how, on German soil, the line between progressive rock and late-hippie, proto-world and space-rock experimentation was far blurrier than elsewhere. Certainly more focused, yet no less characteristic of the peculiar alchemy of influences that developed in Germany, are the jazz-rock/fusion formulas of two bands well known even beyond national borders: the Munich collective Embryo and Passport, led by saxophonist Klaus Doldinger. (M.Sgrignoli)

Novalis – Sommerabend [1976]

Neuschwanstein – Battlement [1978]

EAST GERMANY

In every country on the other side of the Iron Curtain, rock music had a rather fraught relationship with the authorities, who considered it incompatible with socialist values. Somewhere between the late Sixties and the early Seventies (the exact date varies according to local circumstances), regulations began to be imposed on all releases in the field. In East Germany, you could only play rock after obtaining a special license. Records were subject to lyric vetting, which the shrewdest artists sometimes managed to dodge through the use of metaphor, and had to be exclusively in German. Clothing was also kept under control, though some concessions were made, especially given that West German radio and TV broadcasts could be received within the country: demanding an overly buttoned-up look from local bands might have stirred resentment among younger fans, once they noticed the contrast with Western bands.
On the progressive rock front, the scene was rather thin, since most artists stuck to the rails of a more conventional pop/rock, perhaps wary of irritating the regime. Solid, well-regarded bands like Lift and Karat were touched by its influence only in passing, without ever truly embracing it. City and Stern Meissen were among the few names of real significance, with the former in particular managing to reach an international audience, finding success even in West Germany, Greece and Cyprus. (F.Romagnoli)

 

City – Am Fenster (City) [1978]

If you asked a German to sum up the music of the GDR in a single song, they would probably answer "Am Fenster" by City, from East Berlin. The first side of their debut album contains five rock tracks with a fairly conventional structure, designed to keep the censors quiet and having little to do with prog. By something of a miracle, though, they managed to slip onto side B the song that would give the album its title: a seventeen-minute melodic flow where, between surges and lulls, acoustic arpeggios, liquid electric guitars, pounding drums and a magical violin tinged with Bulgarian folk (played by bassist Georgi Gogow) chase one another. The album would go on to sell half a million copies across the two Germanys, as would the single containing an edited version of the title track. (F.Romagnoli)

Stern Meissen – Reise zum Mittelpunkt des Menschen [1981]

By the turn of the Seventies, Stern Meissen, formerly "Stern-Combo Meissen", were among the most successful bands in East Germany. "Der Weite Weg", their third album, combined rather cloying symphonic prog with lighter, more catchy songs. Rather than sticking with that formula, the band embarked on an ambitious concept album — the second of their career. "Reise zum Mittelpunkt des Menschen" ("Journey to the Centre of Man") is a keyboard-driven progressive behemoth in which electronics reign supreme as they rarely did even elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain: five stellar rides driven by a singular marriage of epic grandeur and coldness. A coldness that would unfortunately also infect the audience; from the following album onwards, the band would turn to pure pop/rock. (M.Sgrignoli)

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

The Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, following the Prague Spring, ushered in the harshest crackdown on Western culture. The so-called "normalization" pursued by Gustáv Husák effectively muzzled the nascent local rock scene. For those who didn't fall under the umbrella of academic music, a system of licenses was set up: amateurs were allowed to perform in public for free, semi-professionals received expense reimbursements, while professionals were paid a salary independent of their records' success, over which they held no rights. Getting a license wasn't easy: even amateurs were subjected to rigorous exams, questioned about their clothing and haircuts, and had their political leanings probed.
Not all examiners, however, toed the party line, and some, following their own conscience, granted licenses even to artists that the top brass would have deemed subversive (there was, after all, always the option of calling them back in for questioning if problems arose). This explains the proliferation, within the local scene, of jazz-rock bands (the jazz component allowed artists to show off their skills and aim for higher-tier licenses) and of instrumental music, or music built on fairly vague metaphors. Despite everything, it proved to be a particularly creative scene, rich in superbly played records. (F.Romagnoli)

Czech Republic

 

Flamengo – Kuře v hodinkách [1972]

Petr Novák – Kráska a zvíře [1975]

Collegium Musicum – Konvergencie [1971]

Klan – Mrowisko [1971]

Tadeusz Woźniak – Tadeusz Woźniak (Odcień ciszy) [1974]

SBB – SBB (Wołanie o brzęk szkła) [1978]

Omega – Omega 6: Nem tudom a neved [1975]

East – Hűség [1982]
Introduced by an enchanting cover, among the most beautiful in the history of rock, “Hűség” (“Fidelity”) is the second album by East, from Szeged. The band never reached a mass audience, despite a fairly accessible sound, but built up a solid fanbase and even boasts some devotees outside Hungary. The tracklist counts eleven songs, all under six minutes long, in which the gentlest symphonic prog meets space rock technology, unspooling effective melodies with atmospheric guitars and blanket-thick keyboards. The sound is remarkably advanced for its time: it bears no resemblance to the last albums of classic prog, but rather to the earliest neo-prog releases. Compared to bands like Pallas, Iq, or Marillion, all of them later acts, it could well spring some big surprises. (F.Romagnoli)

Phoenix – Cei ce ne-au dat nume [1972]

Like their compatriots Phoenix, Sfinx also drew their name from a mythical creature. Their colleagues did not share the same mass success, though they can boast a certain cult following among nostalgics of Romanian rock, and of prog more generally. Singer and guitarist Dan Andrei Aldea was the main author and standout personality of a highly unstable lineup. Recorded under the supervision of Iulia Maria Cristea, writer and record producer, “Zalmoxe” is their second album. Nicolae Enache's synthesizers dominate the arrangements, blending with the odd time signatures of Balkan tradition and vocal layers that at one moment recall Yes and the next Orthodox chants. The lyrics are based on the legend of the Getic hero Zalmoxis.(F.Romagnoli)

YUGOSLAVIA

Tito's Yugoslavia did not join the Warsaw Pact and was therefore not subject to the restrictions found elsewhere behind the Iron Curtain. Rock music was allowed, and the only restrictions concerned direct attacks on those in power (you couldn't, in other words, go around insulting Tito… though then again, even Giorgio Gaber risked prosecution for "Io se fossi Dio", so who are we to judge?). Protest lyrics tended to be tolerated and excused by the censors as an expression of youthful restlessness. The scene varied dramatically from region to region. The Slovenian scene was the most Westernized, and the only one where, for instance, a punk movement developed alongside its Anglophone counterpart. In Bosnia, by contrast, artists stayed loyal to classic rock and hard rock almost until the mid-Eighties. Predictably, Serbia was the most productive, producing a wealth of classics both in the prog era and later in the new wave era. In any case, whoever managed to achieve success usually became famous across all the provinces, crossing linguistic and religious barriers. Music was, in fact, one of the strongest bonds holding together that powder keg of centuries-old cultures.
Progressive rock was also important nationally because it essentially gave birth to the LP market (up until then, aside from rare exceptions like singer-songwriter Arsen Dedić, the local market consisted almost exclusively of 45s). (F.Romagnoli)

Slovenia  

Buldožer – Zabranjeno plakatirati [1977]
Critics from the former Yugoslavia point to Buldožer, from Ljubljana, as one of the finest acts of that scene, particularly for their debut album, "Pljuni istini u oči" (1975). That record, however, suffers from an excessive amount of comic gags and spoken-word bits. This follow-up is much better, its title translating as "Bill-posting Prohibited". As well as being more cohesive, it sets aside some of the Frank Zappa-style clowning in favor of the cubism of Captain Beefheart. From the American guru, the five tracks on offer borrow the method of demolishing the blues and the aggression, while still departing from his visceral, instinctive approach. The mathematical interlocking of electric guitars and rhythm section proudly flaunts all the cerebral nature of the best prog. (F.Romagnoli)

 

Begnagrad – Begnagrad [1982]

Formed in Ljubljana in '75, Bratko Bibič's Begnagrad (“flight to the castle”) are significant for the evolution of R.I.O. into avant-prog. The band's Swiss tour would impress Chris Cutler of Henry Cow, who worked hard to secure European distribution for their only LP, released in 1981. Influenced by Balkan traditions (actually rather exotic in small, Alpine Slovenia), by European experimental jazz and by psychedelic and progressive rock, the record sizzles with folk melodies, free-form detours and near-post-punk edges, giving rise to music that is at once melancholic and carefree. After the band broke up, Bibič remained active on the European scene, joining the Swiss group Nimal alongside members of Débile Menthol and cellist Tom Cora (Skeleton Crew). (M.Sgrignoli)

Croatia

 

Time – Time [1972]

After a couple of years as singer with Serbia's Korni Grupa, Dado Topić returned to Zagreb and founded Time. He was joined by fine musicians such as Vedran Božić (guitar), Tihomir Asanović (organ), and Brane Živković (piano, flute). In a market that still had no faith in long-format rock, the album was granted a pressing of just five hundred copies, and if it is considered a classic today, it is mainly thanks to the fame Topić would soon achieve as a solo artist. The tracklist contains both frenzies halfway between hard rock and jazz-funk, and atmospheric ballads. Standing out are the ten minutes of “Za koji život treba da se rodim”, an epic jam where every musician carves out their own moment of glory, always with an eye on the riffs quick attack and surprise rhythmic breaks. (F.Romagnoli)

Bosnia and Herzegovina

 

Indexi – Indeksi [1972]

"The Beatles of the Balkans" – this was the weighty nickname Bosnian band Indexi earned themselves between the late Sixties and early Seventies, thanks to the huge audience response their singles received. This cassette, released by Slovenian public radio and television, was in fact their first release comparable to an album. Never reissued, though easy enough to track down online, "Indeksi" contains seven tracks recorded between 1969 and 1972, ranging from the psych-prog blend of the suite "Negdje na kraju, u zatišju" to the funk-rock syncopations of "Dan kao ovaj". Bassist Fadil Redžić's meaty basslines and the sound of the Hammond organ dominate the quintet's excursions, revealing a far more aggressive side than the one they'd accustomed listeners to with their 7-inch singles.(F.Romagnoli)

Serbia

 

Korni Grupa – Korni grupa [1972]

After a brief stint as keyboardist with Indexi, Kornelije Kovač returned to Belgrade and, towards the end of 1968, formed Korni Grupa, which he would lead through various lineup changes, shaping its stylistic identity and writing all of its songs. The early years were marked by fairly successful singles, with a sound variously oriented towards beat, psychedelic pop, and blues rock. But it was their attempt at the album format that took them to the next level, with a blend of jazz-rock and hard rock. The melodies of singer Zlatko Pejaković, delivered in an almost operatic tone, alternate with jam instrumentals dominated by Kovač (organ, piano, electric piano). There's even room, on "Bezglave ja-ha horde", for a foray into zeuhl territory, with results that have little to envy in Magma. (F.Romagnoli)

S Vremena na Vreme – S vremena na vreme [1975]

S Vremena na Vreme, "From Time to Time", is the peculiar name chosen by this Belgrade supergroup, made up of established musicians from the local scene (some session players, some soundtrack composers). The lineup was made up of Ljubomir Ninković, Asim Sarvan, and the Đukić brothers, Miomir and Vojislav, all singers and guitarists as well as capable hands on keyboards and ancient instruments. The project's first album consists of eleven short songs where Anglo-Saxon folk (both Celtic and West Coast-style) meets Balkan tradition. Its kinship with progressive rock comes through in the electric touches (bass, Hammond, and the occasional guitar), not to mention electronic ones (the Roland synthesizer), and in the rhythmic and melodic digressions it systematically indulges in.(F.Romagnoli)

Smak – Crna dama [1977]

Led by Boris Aranđelović (vocals) and Radomir Mihajlović Točak (guitar), Smak were one of the most popular Serbian bands of the rock era, capable of filling arenas right up until the death of frontmanin 2015. "Crna dama", their second album, marked their coming of age, following a debut rooted in a blues rock already capable of extended jam excursions, but certainly more conventional than the melting pot put together here. New keyboardist Miki Petkovski brought a strong jazz fusion influence into the band's sound, which, rather than replacing the hard rock and blues elements, expanded on them, producing eclectic, progressive music with flawless production. There's plenty of virtuosity on display (vocal too, given the scat-sung passages), but above all a sequence of truly memorable melodies. (F.Romagnoli)

Igra Staklenih Perli – Igra staklenih perli [1979]

A band whose memory is now kept alive almost exclusively by the most die-hard fans of psychedelic-tinged progressive rock, Igra Staklenih Perli ("The Glass Bead Game", after Hermann Hesse) debuted with this mini-album, whose dark, repetitive sounds were clearly out of step with the tastes of the late-Seventies Yugoslav public (although Ekatarina Velika and Idoli would change the rules not long after). Reviews all agree in describing the band's formula as a mix of Hawkwindthe Canand the Pink Floyd of "A Saucerful Of Secrets". What isn't always pointed out is that at times the sound edges to within a step of the most refined art punk. Of the five tracks on the record, two are instrumental, two are sung in English, and one in Serbian. (F.Romagnoli)

Macedonia

 

Leb i Sol – Leb i Sol [1978]

The greatest Macedonian band and one of the most important jazz-rock outfits in the world, Leb i Sol ("Bread and Salt") are best known to the general local public for 1987's "Kao kakao", a successful album built around polished, radio-friendly pop/rock. It's the first phase of their career, however, that most interests progressive rock fans. Their self-titled debut was a genuine revelation, mixing prog, jazz fusion, and structures borrowed from Balkan folk tradition. Between odd time signatures and Phrygian scales, nine tracks of incredible complexity unfold, all built around the virtuoso skills of guitarist Vlatko Stefanovski. Only three of the nine tracks feature vocals, yet, surprisingly, the catchiness never falters.(F.Romagnoli)

Aphrodite's Child – 666 [1972]

Ακρίτας (Akritas) – Ακρίτας (Akritas) [1973]

Fusioon – Minorisa [1975]

Gòtic – Escenes [1978]
Hyperkinetic, graceful and melodious to the point of sentimentality, Barcelona's Gòtic are one of the most singular products of the Iberian progressive scene. Their purely instrumental formula, built entirely around the flute/keyboards/drums trio, will remind many of Camel for its lyrical inclination or of Return to Forever for its virtuosic obsession, but it has the cleanliness, inventiveness and high-flying ambition that would later characterize the late Japanese scene (see Kenso and Ain Soph just below). Their second album, recorded in 1978 and never released at the time due to the band's breakup, was remastered and published in 2016 thanks to a successful crowdfunding. (M.Sgrignoli)

Medina Azahara – Medina Azahara [1979]

Crucis – Los delirios del Mariscal [1976]

The second and final Crucis album is one of the classics of South American prog. Opening with "No me separen de mí", sung by bassist Gustavo Montesano, it continues with three instrumentals in which the whole band shows off superb technical chops. The standouts are guitarist Pino Marrone, like a David Gilmour with a virtuoso skill the original always lacked, and keyboardist Anibal Kerpel, capable of infusing space rock touches via string synth as well as jazz fusion textures through the Fender Rhodes piano. Drummer Gonzalo Farrugia steers the tempo changes and rhythmic fractures scattered throughout every track. The incidental mother of all metal album covers is the work of Juan Gatti, one of the best-known graphic designers in Argentine rock, who later collaborated with Almodóvar.(F.Romagnoli)

Invisible – El jardín de los presentes [1976]

M.I.A. – Cornonstípicum [1978]

Frágil – Avenida Larco [1981]

Petrus Castrus – Ascenção e queda [1978]

Bacamarte – Depois do fim [1983]

Cem Karaca & Edirdahan – Safinaz [1978]

קצת אחרת (Ktzat Acheret) – קצת אחרת (Ktzat Acheret/No Names) [1974]

ששת (Sheshet) – ששת (Sheshet) [1977]

Giant Step – Giant On The Move [1976]

Yockie Suryoprayogo & Chrisye – Jurang pemisah [1977]

Anak Bayan – Anak Bayan [1973/1977]

J.A.シーザー (J.A. Ceasar) – 国境巡礼歌 (Kokkyou junreika) [1973]
Takaaki Terahara, better known by his stage name J.A. Ceasar, is a cult figure of Japan's rock intelligentsia. He has always worked behind the scenes, among other things as composer for the Tenjou Sajiki theatre troupe and for the famous anime “Revolutionary Girl Utena”. This album, recorded live in May 1973, collects the highlights of a stage production directed by Shuji Terayama, originally more than five hours long. Distilled onto a single LP, they form a kind of vademecum of Terahara's art: side one offers a crooked, mysterious hard rock, with theatrical narration and operatic choruses that are distant cousins of the zeuhl movement; side two features long free-form pieces, somewhere between folk and cosmic music, dominated by the leader's dirge-like electric organ. (F.Romagnoli)

Far Out – 日本人 (Nihonjin) [1973]

四人囃子 (Yonin-Bayashi) – 一触即発 (Isshoku-sokuhatsu) [1974]

Kenso – Kenso II [1982]

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27/02/2026