Jazz Rock supergroup from Belgium, including members from the veteran league of Prog and Jazz Rock music.The founding members appear to be keyboardist Charles Loos, who had parted ways with Cos a few years back, flutist Dirk Bogaert and drummer Jack Mauer, who previously played with Waterloo and Pazop, bassist Jean-Paul Musette (ex-Waterloo) and guitarist Paul Elias.Sometime during the recording sessions Esperanto's drummer Tony Malisan had joined the band, but it is unknown if he was a sixth member or simply replaced Mauer, as both appear in the ''Abraxis'' LP, released in early 77' on IBC.Centerpiece of this work is the 20-min. grand Prog/Jazz opus ''Valse de la mort'', which features plenty of Classical, Jazz and Folk influences, passing from sharp guitar solos to piano isolations and from mellow flute themes to extreme jazzy interplays in the vein of Gilgamesh and Hatfield and the North.Lots of synth moves, electric piano and smooth interplays between acoustic guitar, electric guitar and some Camel-esque flute lines.A great jazzy suite with multiple musical colors and impressive instrumental ideas.The rest of the album follows more or less the same vein, it's very Canterbury-styled with a dash of Supersister during the beautiful guitar, keyboard and flute interactions, featuring tempo changes and intense guitar solos by Elias, the Classical influences are reduced to almost zero and the bass lines even flirt with funky vibes, but the music is still very entertaining and top-notch with some neurotic synths next to the piano lines and some confident drumming by the Mauer/Malisan duo.Some parts with acoustic piano in evidence retain the Classical and orchestral attitude of the long suite, but overall the music is along the lines of proggy Jazz Rock, avoiding the traps of improvisation for some well-executed and tight instrumental material.Abraxis were short-lived and Loos later became involved in Nuit câline à la villa mon rêve and Julverne.Mauer found the production studio Shiva and switched to Dance Music, while Bogaert found a place in the Cos line-up over the next years.Very good Belgian Jazz Rock with an omnipresent Canterbury feeling.
Abraxis has a direct lineage to Cos (in addition to other Belgian legends such as Placebo, Pazop, and Waterloo). Formed by members from the band Cos, this album is a cross between flute jazz, Canterbury inspired fusion, and 70s funk. Somewhere between Chris Hinze, Cos, Cortex, and Herbie Hancock is where you'll find the sound of Abraxis. Flute drives the melody and solo lines, but there's plenty of introspective piano sections as well. Which play nicely against some of the ferocious electric guitar. A nice discovery on the always surprising IBC label.
One of the rarest (and most expensive) vinyl albums of Belgium, First Battle is also Waterloo's only battle, but they won it brilliantly. This quintet was made from the remains of two established groups, Adam's Recital and Today's Version (the former even managing a spot in the Windsor Festival) and soon enough Waterloo was born in October 69. After a few months composing and touring, their album was recorded in Soho during the Christmas break and released early the next year with a Napoleon-ian artwork on the French label Vogue, where the group would tour extensively along with Belgium.
Sonically Waterloo is a mix of short (under 4-mins) psych rock and jazzy proto-prog tracks (except for the 11-mins finale), often reminiscent of jazzier early Tull albums (especially This Was). Opening on the single Meet Again (which through an amazing succession of feats got some major French airplay under the Waterloo moniker from an unknown group), but it is hardly the album's best piece with its 60's aura, even if you can hear Malyster's Emerson influence on organ. Much stronger are the superb Why May I Not Know with some heavy Anderson-ian flute, which coupled with Malyster's organ could lead to think of Aqualung tracks and the frantic Black-Born Children with its constant breaks. Further down the album (past the bluesy Problems), the dramatic Wrong Neighbourhood and the hard- rocking Heep-ian Lonesome Road are also much worthy of the proghead's attention. Of course the alnum's cornerstone is the lengthy Diary Of An Old Man, which an awesome progressive jazzy blues rock track with plenty of excellent solos and interplay between all concerned, but particularly Roan's guitar, but Bogaert's flute has its Tull-ian say as well.
Some bonus tracks are tagged on the original album, and they consist of the non-album singles that were following or preceding the First Battle release, but most feature a changed line-up as Malyster and Janssens leaving and being replaced by Wuyts (ex- Wallace Collection) and Musette respectively, and the addition of saxman and bookstore owner Van Rymenant, thus creating a slight jazzier shift in the group's sound. If Plastic Man and Smile are very 60's bubblegum, Nobody But You gives a slight brassy ELP feel, at least in its first part, before very Colosseum-like. Clearly the major gift in these bonus tracks is the 7-mins+ Youngest Day, an outstanding prog track that shows that the group was sliding towards their future Pazop-style of fusion. The Heep-ian Bobo's Dream (reminiscent of Gypsy and Hensley in some ways) and Bad Time show that the band was ready to move further into uncharted territories.
Long available on the great Musea label (and maybe long OOP), Waterloo's only album now receives a Guerssen label release with the same bonus tracks as before and the same group's history texts, courtesy of Musea's Francis Grosse. Singer Bogaert, drummer Mauser and keyboardist Wuyts would surface two years later in Pazop and record another superb album (but apparently never-released), this one still available on the Musea label. Much worth it, if you're into late-60's & early-70's proto-prog.
Along with Marc Hollander and Daniel Denis, Daniel Schell belongs to the most talented Belgian musicians of the generation that arrived in 1970s, but managed to outgrow the stylistic constraints of that era. He debuted in band Classroom, which subsequently transmuted into Cos. This highly revered Belgian band commingled European fusion and Zeuhl influences, which were often saved by Pascale Son’s airy, sensually modulated yet permanently girlish vocalizes. In later years, the band retained its name but slid towards perilous eclecticism, desperately seeking new audience.
Schell later dabbled in several idiosyncratic projects before discovering the charms of Chapman Stick, which underpinned the rhythmic pointillism of his band Karo. His cheery, exhilarating bacchanals engendered an early form of arithmetic chamber rock, delivered with freshness and disciplined fragility of a musical origami. The result was often comparable with the then flourishing Swiss ‘Alpine’ avant-rock.
Schell has since focused on film music and little of his compositional talent has been documented in a form available internationally. His overall output, considered allopatric and uneven, reflects an extraordinary range of moods and styles – from deeply reflective to almost buffoonish, from confidently pragmatic to nervously frequentist. In one case, described below, he realized a minor gem of conceptual folk-rock drama. In this venture, Schell was supported by Dick Annegarn, a popular Dutch singer who returned in recent years with a tribute to Jacques Brel.
UD
If romantic Greeks looked up to Theodoros Kolokotronis and the Poles dreamed of Konrad Wallenrod, then the Flemish reminisced about Egmont. This 16th century prince was a vassal of Carlos V and Felipe II, but opposed Spanish invasion of the Low Countries. The story was immortalized by Johann Wolfgang Goethe two centuries later. In Goethe’s play, the tragically beheaded hero leaves behind a mourning mistress, who eventually takes her life. Dick Annegarn and Daniel Schell built their homage to this romantic edifice through a deft juxtaposition of ancient and modern, acoustic and fusion ingredients. The record opens with short, crisp notes polished delicately by Schell on oud. Soon enough, an image of a village party emerges, as if transposed directly from Bruegel’s folkloric scene. A Breton circle dancing could be the closest comparison, with its light stomping time, purely acoustic setting and simple accents on shakers.
Piume al vento
Dirk Bogart, formerly of Pazop, presents this traditional song in Italian with a light, raspy vibrato. The verse repetitions increase in velocity, maintaining all the proportions and a steady pitch. The main theme is reciprocated with acoustic guitar and alternating male and female vocals, but these quasi-instinctive reactions become patchier when the thematic repetitions plunge with an intemperate pace. This estampie closes with a savage howl and metallic clutter. And we learn that the hero “sa che vincera – pui non tornera”.
Nelle
Dick Annegarn sings this hesitant ballad in French to a homely accompaniment on acoustic guitar. Then a flaming guitar transition imports an unassertively pastoral fragment. But the melodic lead vacillates and soon defaults to the stammering intro. A dustier, chewier secondary theme is brought up by Schell’s 12-string guitar, hummed along satirically. The lyrics mock foolhardy patriotism, the pace is slow and consensual, the articulation affiliative and supple.
Sabina and First Variation
“Sabina” is the first act of the trilingual, polyphonic Souterlied performed by Dirk Bogart (tenor and bass) and Pascale Son (soprano and alto). The medievalism of this metric psalm – composed by Egmont’s contemporary Clemens Non Papa – is subverted by Son’s quartzite, pre-puberty chorus. Sabina sobs over her imprisoned husband. A short solo on acoustic guitar adds some alteration to the basic cantus firmus.
La ballade du Zwin
This is a more archetypal singer-songwriter ballad, cushioned by the chamber-like purity of a duo of Daniel Schell on 13-string guitar and Michel Berckmans of Univers Zéro on oboe. The slight echo added to Berckmans’ double-reed distracts it from Pascale Son’s parallel vocalize. The translucent airiness of the passage evokes Kay Hoffmann’s unforgettable “Floret Silva”, which bathed in similarly medieval moats around the same time. Here, Pavel Haza’s cello adds a disciplined improvisation with an appropriately solemn, pining intonation.
Geuzenlied
Dick Annegarn sings here a 16th century Flemish poem. The elegiac theme, proclaiming that “Egmont is dood”, is allocated with the elegance of a spangling acoustic guitar and vernally wooden sticks. It is this pliant, lissome percussion that recalls Schell’s compatriots Aksak Maboul. Félix Simtaine’s constantly shifting percussive toolkit switches gear between the stanzas. Half way through the song, a Nordic solo on sinewy electric guitar materializes, packaged by a suddenly menacing bass (Jean-Louis Baudoin). The boreal guitar, commonly associated with Terje Rypdal’s groundbreaking recordings earlier in the decade, adds unexpected suspense to the narrative. Félix Simtaine’s adroitly impressionistic hi-hat work sets the stage for a seductively symmetrical flow. “Godt zal die wrake verhalen van die grave van Egmont – God will remember the count of Egmont”.
Un instant sous la hache
The scene of decapitation is laid out by Dirk Bogart on flute and Daniel Schell on 12-string guitar. It is a classic chamber folk duo with predetermined roles; the volant flute exploits its structural freedom with ascending breathiness. Flickering hand drum dives into the guitar’s soaring arpeggios, but the resulting tension is quickly released by a sharpened, mid-flight flute section.
Granvelle
Dick Annegarn adopts here the half-spoken mannerism of Serge Gainsbourg, stressing his syllables with bored insolence – “I rebel against your second hand deaths”. The narrator eschews direct irony, even though Schell and Annegarn share their own vision of Egmont as a reluctant hero, an antithesis of Goethean creation. “Granvelle” is essentially a rock song with a slinky fusion backing, stenciled with a jazzy guitar and suppliant drumming. Pascale Son makes some harmonically consonant bypasses on oboe, leaving behind a somewhat hapless guitar solo. Her instrument is highly pitched and lyrical, but limited in energy and almost breathless in legatos. The long awaited Ilona Chale squeezes little more than a desperate proclamation of a life terminated.
Sabina and Second Variation
The second act of the “Sabina” triplet. We revisit here the polyphonic singing in French, Italian and Flemish with an ecclesiastical touch. Pascale Son’s innocuous voice has been deservedly likened to Haco’s. The theme closes with a solo guitar side-track.
Ein kleiner Mann
Parading her infantile innocence, Pascale Son declaims a nursery rhyme about a little man. This piece, a variation on a march from Wortel, collects pleasant verse suspensions and proceeds unassumingly aboard whistles and an electric guitar in its Nordic, nostalgic mantle. While the rhythm section syncopates, a jangly acoustic guitar wobbles drunken, as if parachuted from an ESP anti-folk recording. After this variegated interlude, Pascale Son returns, hushing out again the verses about the little Man who sacrificed his life.
Sabina
Back to the polyphonic voices, huddled somewhere under the architrave. Unfortunately, the somewhat strangled tenors marginalize the female counterparts into mere Nebenstimme role.
The ff BOOM
The tragic story is memorably rounded off by these 12 minutes of quintessentially European cosmic jazz. It is as if the final, Aristotelian catharsis provided a necessary closure for the tragic story of human misfortune. Jean-Louis Baudoin clutches his acoustic bass with deft fingering, in expression ranging from dry and pungent to semi sweet and voluble. Félix Simtaine opts for Jon Christensen-like cymbal ubiquity. Schell’s elaborations on electric guitar appear topologically simple yet highly fluid. Windy effects haunt us from the back until a synthesizer glissando interrupts this flow. Underpopulated by skin’n’cymbal rattle and distant groans, the trio audibly searches for clues. When Baudoin eventually re-establishes the ostinato, we face not one, but two guitar tracks – a funky quack, and a gnarly amp-distorted rock solo. Drumming has now become segmented and metronomically basic. Taking advantage of this hysteresis, the grimy guitar hashes up the remaining material until the gusty effects cleave the rhythmic procession.
The target of the new Lowlands label Musique Belgique Archive is to dig up forgotten treasures from the Belgian musical history. The first idea is to re-release the old vinyl from the 70's on CD. At that time, the major labels only released these albums (pressed in a maximum 500 copies) to prevent the musicians to go to other labels. Often there wasn't even a promo budget and the albums were thus soon forgotten. In the meantime these albums are very hard to find and have become 'collector's items' abroad, thanks to their originality. We think it's our duty to give these records the attention they deserve and to prevent that they are forgotten forever. Especially because they still sound fresh and timeless and represent a part of the rich Belgian musical tradition. The CD 'Egmont and the ff Boom' tells the history of the traditional polyphonic music from the Low Countries, using the personage of Egmont, Count of Gaasbeek (1522-1568) as a theme. All music was recorded in the 70's, all based around the unique and traditional polyphonic music of the 16th century, featuring, next to the two mentioned artists, an impressive range of guest musicians/artists. This CD contains the original Freebird production plus new pieces, based on the old ones. The digipack CD contains a booklet in which Daniel Schell tells about his search for the real traditional music from the low countries and about Egmont, who died on a scaffold on the Grande Place in Brussels.
