Bruce Palmer

In the past, when talking about a cult record, little known to the general public but of immense aesthetic value, and needing an example to cite, people would often point to this extraordinary masterpiece, for years held hostage by rare-record vampires and only recently made available in a remastered version on compact disc.

Bruce Palmer, who passed away a few years ago, was the bassist of Buffalo Springfield, the band whose ranks included the talents of Neil Young and Stephen Stills.

Before Buffalo Springfield, riding the wave of the “British Invasion”, the young Bruce joined the Toronto-based band Swinging Doors, before moving on to Jack London & The Sparrows. No recordings survive from these early collaborations. Bruce then joined the Mynah Birds, who by 1966 could also count Neil Young among their ranks as guitarist. Soon after, the group signed a contract with the legendary Motown Records of Detroit. The band broke up when vocalist Ricky James Matthews was suddenly drafted.

Young and Palmer headed down to Los Angeles. Then came glory. And that's enough said for the history books.

This dazed, magnificent, lunar album was born out of a session where rock, psychedelia, jazz and Eastern influences fused spontaneously into one long suite, opened by an oboe on “Alpha-Omega-Apocalypse”, amber-toned and steeped in rare incense and colourful spices. Free-form music, sounds emerging out of nowhere, organs peeking in mischievously, sinuous violins dancing ancient erotic movements over electroacoustic ecstasies. Sketched-out percussion, forgotten for a while only to resurface later. Sudden abandon and equally sudden passions. Feverish improvisation, psychedelic trance, the scent of a sacred happening, an unrepeatable, fleeting moment. In some of its alchemical intent, the record recalls the somewhat similar experience carried out a few months earlier by the English band Third Ear Band.

Old friend Ricky James Matthews vocalizes here and there, weaving in dreamy, lysergic vocal mantras, distracted by the countless unusual and strange instruments filling the studio. “Oxo”, above all, bears Matthews's arabesque flourishes as its distinguishing mark, its distinguishing dream. The voice pours out from ancestral corners and flows as if in a state of half-consciousness. Hints of spice growing stronger, shades of turmeric. Unusual instruments, an impertinent wah-wah bass, instrumental mantras intoned together with members of Kaleidoscope, all stretched out for the occasion on the same Persian rug.

“The Cycle Is Complete” is essentially an instrumental album.

Nothing more was ever heard of the visionary Palmer. He vanished into California's amber-hued haze. He was reportedly spotted in Tibet years later, though the sources were never confirmed.

In the early '80s he still played a few shows with Neil Young's band, before once again disappearing into thin air.

But it hardly matters. Although it was a commercial disaster at the time of its release, “The Cycle Is Complete” still ranks today among the most beautiful records of all time. A chosen work, timeless and placeless, a mystical and unique piece that still retains its striking freshness and innovative charge, intoxicated with infinity, touched by holiness.

An essential record that no collection should be without.

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10/05/2009