Quintessence - Prog-rock with a scent of incense

It's a superficial but common cliché to believe that

the love for Indian culture, religion, mystical doctrines and music

is merely a fleeting whim of the psychedelic era: Quintessence, like

many other artists (we feel compelled to mention two hugely important ones: John

McLaughlin and the magical Third Ear Band), are proof of how unfounded

of that hypothesis.

Hailing from Notting Hill Gate, London, they set out to

consecrate the "new" prog music to the dictates of their spirit, garnering

considerable support among the still-thriving hippie community, while meeting the utter

indifference of the specialist critics.

Their sound grew out of the

interplay of three elements: on one hand Eastern music, a

choice rooted in their spiritual adherence to Vedic doctrine, and the legacy

of Sixties psychedelic rock, and on the other a decidedly

"progressive" approach, which found in Raja Ram's flute (born Ron Rothfield) a

ringing, powerful manifesto, not to mention touches of jazz-rock and a taste

for free, improvised jamming.

Their music perhaps didn't influence

future generations as much as that of their more illustrious peers, but it

certainly had the character of an enchanting, evocative blend, at once

immanent and transcendent. Shiva's (born Phil

Jones) powerful vocal cords provided the finishing touch, making the band's sacred lyrics

resound like a grandiloquent echo among the solid mountains of being. Their

indo-prog (or raga-rock, as some prefer to call it), rich in refined flourishes and

sensual decorative frills, was later seen as one of the foundations of

so-called “new age rock”, but their albums are far more than unbearable

pseudo-musical sappiness aimed at some vague, idle sense of wellbeing: theirs is a

lively, pulsating, relentless, radiant, heartfelt profession of faith.

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Their debut album, In Blissful Company (1969), is a true

gem and unquestionably their masterpiece: an opener like “Giants” is

essential, a track steeped in a swaying, austere atmosphere, cut through by the

broken rhythm of the drums, while Shiva, in a lofty tone, recounts symbolic legends

drawn from Eastern tradition; “Manco Capac” is one of the

most inspired moments in their entire output: a vibrant and enchanting (or

enchanting?) flute guides the listener into a profound reflection on life

and about love, over a pulsing, lively backdrop. “Body” is split between a

lively verse and a climactic chorus, built entirely around the wonderful duets between

Raja Ram's flute and Shiva's; “Gungamai” is another of their classics, as well as a

live staple of theirs, a track of great melodic immediacy, which

flows into a brief psychedelic jam featuring a guitar that's more

liquid than usual.

From the fifth track onward, one of the traits that will

remain in the band's style until the end (or almost) becomes evident: the chanting

of the mantra, the word of power that underlies various strands of

Hindu tradition (it takes on fundamental importance in Tantrism). Here it's simply titled

“Chant”, and it's a bit dull: better, for the uninitiated, to move on to the

following track, “Pearl And Bird” (once again the theme comes from

Indian mythology), which smells of spring like the sweet April air in the

early morning, graced by a delicate melody enriched by some excellent

flute work as always. Next comes “Notting Hill Gate”, dedicated to their neighborhood, the only

hit single by the band (the B-side was “Move Into The Light”), with a

descending melody that transforms a bluesy phrasing into a raid

of sitar, flute and voice, with tones both eternal and ever-changing, opening up

into a jazzy interlude before regaining the coherence and structure

of the original. The ambitious, lengthy “Midnight Mode” is the real weak point

of the album, suspended between prayer and music so light and rarefied that it

can come across as insubstantial.

The dimension best suited

to the band, however, has always been the live one: practically anyone who has

seen them live has come away deeply impressed. Their shows would

often turn into genuine collective rituals, full of color,

evocative, relentless dancing, all under the banner of a spirituality lived with the

optimism and positivity typical of such a worldview.

In an attempt

to capture this facet of the band's art, they put together

Quintessence (1970), an album that's part live and part studio,

opens with the thunderous “Jesus Buddha Moses Gauranga,” which squanders a fine

melodic idea on a song structure that's too restrictive and conventional

(perhaps an early attempt to tone things down in order to reach a wider

audience). Things get back on track with the chant-like but thoroughly enjoyable “Sea Of

Immortality,” which represents their more straightforwardly folk side (though the

vocal is rather gripping and not without its surges); “High On Mount

Kailash” grows out of an ethereal carpet of sitar, which thickens more and more, until

it's torn open by Shiva, for what can be considered one of their mantras

most beautiful to listen to, which flows directly into “Burning Bush,” a frenetic jam

recorded live, driven by the chameleonic guitar of Maha Dev

(known in civilian life as Dave Codling), who unleashes pyrotechnic flourishes that

crown him an illegitimate son of Sixties acid-rock.

“Shiva’s Chant” is

a rather tedious interlude, followed by the impenetrable “Prisms,” a core

a tight burst of fluttering flute acrobatics, flowing into the guitar

phrasing of “Twilight Zone”, decidedly more enjoyable, which blends the

usual ingredients superbly, adding a forceful seventh chord

(on which the chorus builds to its climax) that gives the whole thing a very

r&b feeling. “Maha Mantra” is exactly what its title suggests, while the

delicate melancholy of “Only Love” is one of their earliest concessions to a certain

postcard romanticism (which would become one of the genre's conventions in the

decades to come). Another live guitar jam, the fiery “St.

Pancras”, carries the album to its natural conclusion in the final mantra

“Infinitum”.

The individuality of the band's individual members is much more

evident on this second album, and so are the limits of their

formula: a record that should have taken the ideas sketched out on the debut

to a higher level risks slipping more than once into the mud

of self-parody, were it not saved by a few still-rich moments

of its old magic.

The withering of the band's artistic vein is, not

surprisingly, contemporaneous with the fading of the spiritual tension

among the group's members: enthusiasm is slowly dissolving into the awareness

(whether mistaken or not) of having reached and grasped those solid foundations of essence on which

the meaning of life is woven like a faint thread. Dive Deep

(1971) is the final chapter of their classic trilogy, and already shows clear

signs of fatigue: the title track is a thoroughly pleasant folk-pop

ditty, enlivened by an arrangement that's as impeccable as ever, but that's not always

enough to hold the listener's attention; the masterpiece here is "Dance

For The One", a mini-suite (about time!) in which the band's full potential

is shown in full bloom: it's their peak, the substance of their poetics

summed up in nearly eleven wonderful minutes of excellent music.

The rest

of the album can only seem lesser by comparison: from the nursery-rhyme-like "Brahman" (which

shows their main flaw: the missionary streak and, as a consequence,

the universalization of the awakening doctrine), to the more heartfelt "The Seer",

which unveils a melody that would have fit right into their debut, to the tedious

"Epitaph For Tomorrow", down to the usual mantra, here more fearsome than ever: "Sri

Ram Chant".

With Self (1971) only a few months have passed, but quite a lot

has changed: the record label is no longer the old Island, but Rca; that

process which was already glimpsed behind the scenes of the previous album has

reached its peak: Quintessence see themselves at the end of their

spiritual journey, and this generates a creative void not to be underestimated, as well

as internal disputes within the band over a possible turn towards a more

traditional (and commercial) rock sound. This is the spirit behind a noisy and

static single like "Cosmic Surfer", built on an utterly banal riff that would have

already been an obsolete piece of junk five years earlier, or a pathetic "Wonders Of

The Universe", probably their most sterile ballad.

The filler tracks pile

up, one after another, competing in a tedious, overbusy race toward

sheer irrelevance: from the extremely brief “Hari Om” (not even a minute long), to the

muddled mantra (?) of “Halleluja”, to “Celestial Procession” (animal sounds and

a bit of flute, for just over a minute) right down to the dreadful “Self”, their

ugliest, most shapeless mantra yet. Here too part of it is recorded live: it's

the two closing tracks, “Freedom” and “Water Goddess”, two jams blander and

limper than usual (especially the second, which kicks off from a drowsy

version of “Gungamai”).

The one real merit of this collection is the

mighty “Vishnu Narain”, one of their most evocative and best-crafted tracks

from a melodic standpoint: a catchy yet unbanal chorus, lyrics that are

once again (and perhaps for the very last time) profound, reflecting on the

group's spiritual journey and the various issues tied to it.

Everything else dissolves their mysticism into trinket-shop kitsch

knick-knack, propped up only by the great instrumental skill and the

powerful vocal performance of Shiva.

Unfortunately, it's precisely

the latter — the singer capable of enlivening even the most ill-fated moments of

their career — who leaves the band in the early months of 1972: the situation is

more critical than ever. Due to contractual obligations, and perhaps out of excessive

pride, the group decides to carry on regardless: the fruit of this unhealthy

and hasty decision is the shapeless mess of Indweller (1972), their

worst album, which is enough to wipe out the glory of the past and

turn these standard-bearers of indo-prog into a middling folk-rock outfit.

A decent bit of flute work on "It's All The Same" isn't

enough: the album sinks into the mediocrity of tasteless, inconsistent,

cheap episodes like "Jesus My Life" and "Holy Roller" (the most

vigorosa), “On The Other Side Of The Wall”, “Mother Of The Universe”.

After the release of a mediocre live album recorded with the new

four-piece lineup, the band splits up for good. Released at the end

of the year a compendium of their Island trilogy, in the form of the collection

Epitaph For Tomorrow; but for the casual listener who wants

a painless approach to this group's poetics, the later

anthology Oceans Of Bliss is preferable, as it strips out most of the filler material

present on the previous one and, above all, avoids including the tedious mantras.

In 2003 Shiva returns to recording as Shiva Shakti and releases an album

split between new material and reworkings of songs from his old band. In

2005 the follow-up to this project is released, the double Cosmic Surfer, credited to

Shiva's Quintessence, with a similar structure (one album of new songs and one of

reinterpretations of old tracks). Unfortunately, this is not a

reunion of the original group (Shiva is the only member of the 1969 line-up present),

though, being the first move in that direction in about thirty

years, it's understandable that it would spark interest.

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