Sahara - 1976 - For All The Clowns

Sahara

1976

For All The Clowns

01. Flying dancer (3:25)
02. The source Part I & Part II (7:12)
03. For all the clowns (11:01)
04. Prélude (1:04)
05. The mountain king Part I & II (13:20)
06. Dream queen (5:05)
07. Fool the fortune (1:19)

Holger Brandt / drums, percussion
Henner Hering / keyboards, synthesizers
Michael Hofmann / Moog, guitar, flute, vocals
Günther Moll / lead guitar, vocals
Stefan Wissnet / lead vocals, bass, acoustic guitar

Guest musicians:
Meryl Creser / recitation 

Nick Woodland / acoustic guitar 

After the excellent Sunrise, Sahara will again suffer a line-up change, seeing Woodland leave (I suppose he went to Desertland), then drummer Rosekind followed, thus leaving the Subject Esq. survivors to only three (Hoffman, Wissnet, Pittwohn), with Gunther Moll (guitar) and drummer Holger Brandt (ex-Missing Link) to fill in. Little did the rest of the group know that the two newcomers would leave soon after (and despite!) the release of another excellent album. This album was released late 75 on the mother label Ariola, but came with a bizarre humoristic cartoon-esque B&W artwork, that doesn't fit the music at all. Rather important to the group's sound, Hoffman is not playing sax anymore, but he's on synths (including a Moog) and on guitars, while still fluting around, Wwhile pittwohn seems to have become the manager/producer.

After a dispensable average Flying Dancer, the group plunges into a Crimsonian atmosphere, especially in the riff opening and closing of the two-part The Source track, alternating between dark quiet passages and heavier sombre moments. This track segues without much interruption into the title track, which is just as moody as its predecessor.

Opening the flipside is a Herring piano Prélude, an intro to the remainder of the album, with the two-part Mountain King track, opening on up-tempo riff, soon joined by the flute and some Moog playing, but Herring's organ is much kinder to our ears. The middle section features a jazzy Rhodes and some brilliant electric guitar, the track coming to a stop before the Moog comes back to rekindle the flame and throw the group in a light improve and then a verse-chorus song structure, where the heavy guitar and gentle organ dominate. Dream Queen opens on 12-strings guitar arpeggios and flute, much like an early Genesis song ; but the vocals are bringing you back down to earth, because they're not quite as dream or fantasy-like. Even when the song is fully opened, the flute is taking the front stage, but sounding Tull-ian, now. The closing Fool The Fortune outro is another 12-string guitar arpeggio piece

While this album is again excellent, I personally find it not matching the preceding Sunrise album, but then again many will prefer Clowns and its more symphonic second side. In either case, both Sahara albums are very worthy and essential listening. Unfortunately the group did not record more albums once the two newcomers decided to leave this superb group.

Sahara - 1974 - Sunrise

Sahara

1974

Sunrise

01. Marie Celeste (7:37)
02. Circles (4:42)
03. Rainbow Rider (8:41)
04. Sunrise (27:12)
    - Part 1: a) Sunrise

                  b) The divinity of being

                  c) Perception (inc. Devil's tun

                  e) / d) Paramount confluence
    - Part II: a) Aspiration

                  b) Creativity

                  c) Realisation

Henner Hering / keyboards
Michael Hofmann / woodwinds, Moog, Mellotron, vocals
Alex Pittwohn / harmonica, tenor saxophone, vocals
Harry Rosenkind / drums, tuned percussion
Stefan Wissnet / lead vocals, bass

Nicholas Woodland / guitars

What a change an album makes! Having suffered the departure of keyboardist Stadler, but added an extra guitarist, Englishman Nick Woodland (from Gift), the group changed its name from the strange and unfitting Subject Esq to the more concise Sahara and whatever adventure this new name promised. But the best thing happening to the band is the arrival of ex-Out Of Focus keyboardist Hennes Herring on many different keyboards. Coming in a superb gatefold with a fiery artwork, the album was released on a small German label Pan (Ariola), but also was distributed on the UK on the Dawn label in early 74. Now a sextet, Sahara develops a varied prog sound, sometimes veering classical, sometimes jazz, and at others, bluesy

Starting wildly on ultra quick guitar riff, Marie Celeste (a boat) quickly drops the horns and brings on the church-like organ in a quieter movement, when a sax blows its soul out and the boat sails many different and turbulent musical weather changes. The weaker Circles, country-folk track that shouldn't have crossed the ocean with those indispensable GI stationed around the country, but it's more folk than country, but it sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the otherwise near-perfect album. The following Rainbow Rider is a moody track that delves into jazz, after a piano intro and a fast-paced verse, then giving us an excellent 8-minutes track, if you'll pardon the all-too-predictable repeated choir line at its end-section

If the first side is nowhere near perfection, the flipside with its side-long title track is one of the best multi-movement epic suites ever, certainly one of the most varied: from electronica to classical, but mostly their own typical rock music that has its own sound and cannot be easily pigeonholed to classic UK prog bands. This 27-minutes+ affair (!) is head-twisting, skull-numbing, mind-blowing, will-bending, nerve-wracking, hair-pulling, eye-tearing, ear-piercing, breath-taking, sinus-emptying, throat-clearing, mouth-watering , etc..; and that's just to mention what is does to your upper extremities. And the amazing feat is that the track gets better and better to reacj its apex around the end of these 27-mins+.

Definitely one of the best "trad-prog" (this means more or less symphonic, but there is so much more to it than that) album out of Germany along with the first Grobschnitt album, Herring's OOF heritage did bring the extra touch that the band needed to become excellent instead of merely good.

Subject Esq / Sahara - 2016 - Lost Tapes

Subject Esq / Sahara

2016

Lost Tapes

01. Gras 14:28
02. Freedom 10:56
03. Moon 3:41 n n
04. Two Stones 4:44
05. Giantania (A Capricorn Is Flying) 6:27
06. Mind 3:56
07. From Emmental To Cheesebourg 5:26
08. 3 Moniate 8:23
09. Marie Celeste 10:03

Recorded At – Musicland Studios

Drums – Holger Brandt (tracks: 9)
Drums, Percussion, Glockenspiel – Harry Rosenkind (tracks: 1 to 8)
Guitar – Günther Moll (tracks: 9), Nick Woodland (tracks: 1 to 3), Peter Markl (2) (tracks: 4 to 8)
Organ – Peter Stadler (tracks: 7, 8)
Organ, Keyboards, Piano, Synthesizer [Moog] – Hennes Hering (tracks: 1 to 3, 9)
Vocals, Bass – Stephan Wissnet\

Vocals, Flute, Saxophone, Guitar, Keyboards – Michael Hofmann De Boer
Vocals, Harmonica, Saxophone – Alex Pittwohn (tracks: 1 to 8)

1 & 2: Live Insel Lindau 18.8.73.
3: Musicland-Studio 1972.
4 & 5: Bavaria-Atelier June 71.
6: Bavaria-Atelier 3.6.71.
7 & 8: Live Tölzer Str. 20.2.71.
9: Live in Innsbruck 1975.

In the mid-1960s, Harry Rosenkind and Michael Hofmann from Munich formed a beat band with two schoolmates that was named "The King and the Subject". You soon noticed that the name wasn't very handy. In 1966 the group was renamed The Subjects. A little later you were as Subject Esq. on the way, under which name a first album, released in 1972, was released (see " Subject Esq. "). In 1973 the band, which had come from Out Of Focus by Hennes Hering, added the name Sahara, under which they are now working again. Apparently, the group sees 1966 as the actual founding year, as this year (2016) they are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the band.

On this occasion, an archival album has now been released by Ohrwaschl Records, which contains some previously unpublished material that was recorded between 1971-75. The disc titled "Lost Tapes" comes in a simple cardboard sleeve and contains various numbers that Subject Esq. or Sahara were recorded live or in the studio during the aforementioned period. Most of the playing time is spent on recordings of Sahara (tracks 1, 2 and 9), which is why the album is assigned to this band, even if the numbers 3-8 are actually from Subject Esq. were recorded. The sound is consistently very good (the live numbers) to excellent (the studio pieces).

Two sweeping live recordings from August 1973 are at the beginning of the album. Sahara offer an expansive progge, a powerful mix of jazz rock, blues rock, keyboard protoprog and some hard rock that is based on simultaneous Anglo-American productions (a cross between Colosseum, Tempest and Greenslade perhaps), but is on a par with them.

The next four numbers are studio recordings with excellent sound, apparently recordings by Subject Esq. That did not make it on the only album that was planned as a single, or demos. "Moon" comes out of the speakers loosely, westcoast-like, dominated by brisk George, harder e-guitar throws and acoustic clatter. With “Two Stones” it gets even harder rock and “Mind” rocks more bluesy and hard. Before that there is a track called “Giantania”, which also appears in a different version on “Subject Esq.”. Here comes a herbaceous, echo-laden flute rock out of the speakers, primed again with bluesy-rocking e-guitar inlays and full e-georgel.

The next two tracks were apparently recorded in February 1971 in the same location as the two on the CD reissue of “ Subject Esq. “Live numbers to be found. Here it is again quite blues-rock, but the flute, sometimes double-staffed saxophones, the voluminous organ and extensive jazzy jamming create a (proto-) prog atmosphere. The music of the British colleagues from Warm Dust, Colosseum, If or Web is not too far away here.

At the end of the album there is a live version of "Marie Celeste" from the Sahara debut " Sunrise ", recorded in 1975 at a concert in Innsbruck. The band is very powerful on the proggen, with a significantly modernized sound compared to the pieces from 1971, an expanded key arsenal and one or the other classically inspired interludes. The sound is still determined by a bluesy howling electric guitar. The singing also suggests that on the second album of the formation (see “ For All The Clowns ”) it was slipping into more mainstream realms.

Subject Esq - 1972 - Subject Esq

Subject Esq

1972

Subject Esq

01. Alone (5:22)
02. Giantania (6:42)
03. What Is Love (5:39)
04. 5:13 (4:31)
05. Mammon (12:40)
06. Durance Is Waiting (8:25)

Bonus tracks:
07. Giantania (Live in München 1971) (19:14)
08. Untitled (Live in München 1971) (10:28)

Michael Hofmann / flute, alto-saxophone, vocals
Peter Stadler / keyboards
Stephan Wissnet / bass, vocals
Alex Pittwohn / mouth-harp, 12-string-guitar, vocals
Harry Rosenkind / drums

Guest musician:
- Paul Vincent / guitars

This Munich-based group took roots in the 60's as The Subjects playing beat music, but its evolution Subject Esq. is definitely a 70's-sounding quintet, dishing an organ-driven proto-prog similar to what was done in the UK in the early 70's. Subject Esq. would be at home on the neon, Dawn or Vertigo labels. It was released in early 72 on the Epic label and was coming with a gatefold sleeve where the inner-fold is way more interesting than the outer-fold, presenting a bland red to yellow degrading naïve logo and band portrait. Lead singer Hoffman also handles the wind instruments, except for the harmonica, played by guitarist Pittwohn. Stadler's keyboards are all over the album, mainly in the form of an organ

If the first track Alone is more "straight rock" than prog, it presents a strong riff, while the following Giantania seems headed in the same "riff-y" direction but halfway though, it has some solid organ work and a superb quiet passage with some beautiful flute and bass, before the riff comes back. A rather weaker What Is Love also features an interesting middle section, but I find the sax-led riff rather cliché and the lyrics un-inspired. The inaptly-titled 5:13 (it's only 4:29 long ;o))) is another fast-paced track with double tracking (flute and sax together in the riff), but soon digress into another interesting slower flute-dominated middle section and slowly building back via the excellent organ into a Graaf-esque riff before fading out.

The flipside presents two longer tracks including the Mammon centrepiece, clocking well over the 12 minutes. If the other side featured tracks that were clumsily proggy, mostly by fitting in good middle sections, this track really shows that the group could indeed be more ambitious and even include harmonica in a prog song. This track is probably best described as a mini-epic, filled with many different instrumental passages and constantly-evolving rhythms. A cross between Colosseum and VdGG , if you ask me. The closing Durance Is Waiting has a West-Coast intro, mainly due to the vocal harmonies, but soon plunges into a demented up-tempo prog with plenty of instrumental interplay, before almost dying of a fade-out and just barely clinging onto life with a delicate background vocals and bass and slowly reconstructing the music, but with the finale ending with the help of a violin, courtesy of guest Manuala Gunther.

The Cd reissue (on the great Ohrwaschl label) comes with two lengthy live tracks as bonus, including a much expanded Giantania (now 19-mins long) and an Untitled track (most likely not its real title). While the sound of these live tracks is hardly perfect, it's nothing scandalous either. The tracks add to the album's enjoyment (IMHO, because that might not be a general opinion), as they unveil a different (live) facet of the group: raw, less-focused, more psychey and improvising/jamming. While Subject Esq.'s sole album is generally a bit over-rated by the majority (IMHO), I find it interesting and enjoyable at homeopathic doses, but hardly essential, especially compared to the group's future albums under the Sahara name.