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This week's Rural Electric spotlights the best of Canadian country music.
Tonight's FreeForm albums feature the music of Modest Mussorgsky.
Founded in North Jersey, USA in 1971 ( as "The Fireball Kids") - Disbanded in 1976
This is one of the gems from the USA progrock history. The band featured Jim Como (lead vocals, drums, percussion), Bryan Howe (Hammond - and pipe organ, celeste and vocals), Ryche Chlanda (electric - and acoustic guitars, electronic devices and vocals), Frak Petto (piano, electric piano, ARP 2600 synthesizer, Mellotron, electronic strings, Oberheim DS-2 digital sequencer and vocals) and Martyn Biling (bass, 12-string guitar, Moog Taurus bass pedals).
Their first album "Night on Bald Mountain" was released in '75 and produced by Ian McDonald (KING CRIMSON). It sounds like a very tasteful progrock stew with elements from GENESIS, GENTLE GIANT and YES. The very disappointing second LP ('76) is entitled "Two, two ... ", no surprise that it turned out to be their swansong.
The album debut-album "Night on Bald Mountain" from 1975 is a bit unknown beauty, other USA prog rock bands NETHERWORLD and LIFT got far more attention from the prog fans all over the world. The twelve compositions (including seven bonus tracks, "All Killers, No Fillers" would Greg Walker from Syn-Phonic say) contain alternating and captivating music with strong echoes from early GENESIS and also GENTLE GIANT and YES. But many twists and turns give the music an original approach, including exciting arrangements from classic composers (MUSSORGSKY and DEBUSSY). The singer sounds powerful and has a wide range, the 'vintage' keyboards are very lush with spectacular synthesizer solos and the guitar work has a beautiful, 24-carat symphonic tradition. Highlight on this splendid CD is the epic title track (almost 20 minutes): wonderful changes of climate, great breaks, impressive pipe organ (evoking "Close to the Edge" from YES) and beautiful HACKETT-like guitar work. Also worth mentioning is Ian McDonald's contribution to this album, he plays flute on two tracks and saxophone on two tracks, his sound is very distinctive. Highly recommended!
Review by
loserboy
PROG REVIEWER
Superbly crafted 70's mellotron/moog laden progressive rock gem with
great artistic expressionism and full instrumental interplay. "Night On
Bald Mountain" was produced by KING CRIMSON's Ian McDonald who also
contributes some sax on the album. Musicianship on this album is simply
awesome with some of the most scrumptious interplay you have ever heard.
Opening number 'Les Cathedrales' is absolutely in the same brilliance
as early GENESIS with the most captivating and delicate of melodies.
This five member band incorporate some wonderful musical instrumentation
including xylophone, glockenspiel, chineese bell tree, gong, finger
cymbals, tubular bells, triangle, hammond organ, pipe organ, celeste,
mellotron, moog , Taurus pedals, and everyone's favourite... electronic
devices. Vocals are quite well done with some great lyrics as well.
"Night On Bald Mountain" contains 2 epic tracks and a couple of shorter
but well pieced tracks. For those lucky enough to have snagged a copy of
Setticlavio Record's (Italy) re-released CD pressing can also enjoy
their second album as well... 7 extra bonus tracks from the album titled
"Two Too" (1976)... although it is always nice to have this bonus
material is ranks much lower IMHO than "Night On Bald Mountain" which is
a great album and in my opinion an essential piece of Prog Land history
!
Night on Bald Mountain (Russian: Ночь на лысой горе, romanized: Noch′ na lysoy gore), also known as Night on the Bare Mountain, is a series of compositions by Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881). Inspired by Russian literary works and legend, Mussorgsky composed a "musical picture", St. John's Eve on Bald Mountain (Russian: Иванова ночь на лысой горе, romanized: Ivanova noch′ na lysoy gore) on the theme of a Witches' Sabbath occurring at Bald Mountain on St. John's Eve, which he completed on that very night, 23 June 1867. Together with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's Sadko (1867), it is one of the first tone poems by a Russian composer.[1
Pictures at an Exhibition is a live album by English progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released in November 1971 on Island Records. It features the group's rock adaptation of Pictures at an Exhibition, the piano suite by Modest Mussorgsky, performed at Newcastle City Hall on 26 March 1971.
The band had performed the Mussorgsky piece since their live debut in August 1970, after keyboardist Keith Emerson had attended an orchestral performance of the piece several years before and pitched the idea to guitarist and frontman Greg Lake and drummer Carl Palmer, who agreed to adapt it while contributing sections to the arrangement. The album concludes with the concert's encore, "Nut Rocker", a rock adaptation of The Nutcracker originally arranged by Kim Fowley and recorded by B. Bumble and the Stingers in 1962.
Pictures at an Exhibition went to number 3 on the UK Albums Chart and number 10 on the US Billboard 200. In 2001, it was reissued as a remastered edition that included a studio version of the piece recorded in 1993.
Arrangement
The band's arrangement of the suite uses only four of the ten parts in Mussorgsky's suite, along with the linking "Promenade" sections. The suite was performed live as one continuous piece, with new, group-written sections linking Mussorgsky's original themes.
Note that Mussorgsky's original compositions are listed in bold:
- Promenade: Pipe organ solo by Emerson at the Harrison & Harrison pipe organ of the auditorium; followed by a drum roll
- The Gnome: Group instrumental adaptation featuring fuzz bass, Hammond and Moog
- Promenade: Hammond organ and soft vocal, followed by a short synthesizer solo
- The Sage: A new picture drawn by Lake solely on acoustic guitar in the mood of a medieval minnesang, it works as sort of romantic prelude to "The Old Castle"
- The Old Castle: Begins with Emerson squeezing out whoops and whistles from the Moog's ribbon controller, followed by an accelerated adaptation of the original theme played by the full band
- Blues Variation: a Hammond-driven twelve-bar blues credited to the group, borrowing themes from "The Old Castle" and those that Emerson had previously performed with The Nice on their version of "My Back Pages"
- Promenade: Full group instrumental version of the primary theme
- The Hut of Baba Yaga: Full group instrumental adaptation
- The Curse of Baba Yaga: Lake adapts a section of Mussorgsky's music on fuzz/wah-wah bass, followed by a group-penned section with lyrics/vocal climaxing on a siren-like Moog solo
- The Hut of Baba Yaga: Full group reprise of the earlier "Hut" theme
- The Great Gates of Kiev: with lyrics/vocal added by the group and an extended climax featuring Emerson dragging his Hammond organ across the stage to produce feedback
Pictures at an Exhibition[a] is a piano suite in ten movements, plus a recurring and varied Promenade theme, written in 1874 by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. It is a musical depiction of a tour of an exhibition of works by architect and painter Viktor Hartmann put on at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg, following his sudden death in the previous year. Each movement of the suite is based on an individual work, some of which are lost.
The composition has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists, and became widely known from orchestrations and arrangements produced by other composers and contemporary musicians, with Maurice Ravel's 1922 adaptation for orchestra being the most recorded and performed. The suite, particularly the final movement, "The Bogatyr Gates", is widely considered one of Mussorgsky's greatest works.
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