Your last listen

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Fretless
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Re: Your last listen

Unread post by Fretless »

Summer Indoors - 'Songs in the Key of H'

Summer Indoors - Placebo (live)

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Having a run through some of the albums released on the Silly Insects label in the early 90's. The UK-based group 'Summer Indoors' had a short life but made 2 albums of energetic, Rush-inspired proggy rock.

SI was a Dutch Prog-rock label that put out albums by (mainly) British artists like Pallas, Landmarq, Threshold and Twelfth Night. Unfortunately they folded due to financial problems but many of the releases are worth picking up if you enjoy 80's/90's Prog.

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Mississippi Blind Child Assburn
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Re: Your last listen

Unread post by Mississippi Blind Child Assburn »

N.P. - Wizard Sperm-Bassinet "The Bitterly Disappointing Lobster Entrail Profiterole: a Prog Opera in 10 Parts"

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Re: Your last listen

Unread post by Fretless »

I think you've made that one up .... :think:

Upstairs:
Vinyl
Pro-Ject 1.2 + Grado Sig Jr + Cambridge Alva Duo
DigiVolumio PC + Kiss DP-500 + Sabaj A20d
NVA: P50sa - Cube2 - SSP - LS6+ Sabaj A10a (x2)
Downstairs:
Vinyl
Logic DM101 + Syrinx LE1 + Grado Sig MCX
DigiDenafrips Ares II + Volumio PC + Cambridge CXC
NVA: P50 - BMU+ Aiyima A07 MAX (x2) + Arcam One
HP: HifiBerry Digi+ PRO + Sabaj A10d
Office:
Allo DigiOne SIG + SMSL M300se + Douk G4 (x2)
Mission 760 + Monolith THX AAA 887
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Mississippi Blind Child Assburn
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Re: Your last listen

Unread post by Mississippi Blind Child Assburn »

About this SI label of the 80s/90s:

I assume you are talking of Sym-Info?

Holland gets Blind Child's award for the dubious honour of having the GODDAMN WORSE PROG LABEL EVER.

If I sound angry, that is cos it is so.

Back then I risked it on a parcel of 5 lps of 5 different Sym-Info bands. This was before the internet when you could not "pre-listen" lps, so I was taking a complete gamble. Not a single one of those records was beyond shit plain and simple.
Sorry, cannot remember the bands...perhaps thankfully so.
These were the doldrum years for prog, when total shit-POPprog bands like It Bites,Egdon Heath, and 20 or more were being pumped out of (mainly) England.

Now , to be fair to Fretless' post, perhaps S.I. label became better later on in the 90s - because Landmarq IS a good band (But I thought they were Swedish????)

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Re: Your last listen

Unread post by Fretless »

Sym Info was an early 90's fanzine that also distributed some low-cost independent releases by new bands - often of dubious quality. Then they changed the name to SI Music and tried to get their own stable of recording artists running - many of which featured Clive Nolan as in-house keyboard player (currently a long-serving member of Pendragon).

SI put out a series of cheap samplers where you could listen to the bands on the label and order what you liked. Prog was a dirty word in those days and so it was all a bit amateurish. An equivalent UK label was Cyclops.

Egdon Heath were Dutch and released a couple of albums on SI (I have two of theirs, not great, not awful). Landmarq came from the UK.

An example of a 'lost classic' would be the only CD by Light - a band from Nijmegen. A terrific power-prog disc that ought to have got more exposure - but SI didn't do much in the way of promotion outside their own fanzine and eventually the whole thing just collapsed.

LIGHT 1995 [full album]

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I did a little bit of translation work for 'SI Magazine' which morphed into 'IO Pages'. Still have the old mags in a box in the attic.

Upstairs:
Vinyl
Pro-Ject 1.2 + Grado Sig Jr + Cambridge Alva Duo
DigiVolumio PC + Kiss DP-500 + Sabaj A20d
NVA: P50sa - Cube2 - SSP - LS6+ Sabaj A10a (x2)
Downstairs:
Vinyl
Logic DM101 + Syrinx LE1 + Grado Sig MCX
DigiDenafrips Ares II + Volumio PC + Cambridge CXC
NVA: P50 - BMU+ Aiyima A07 MAX (x2) + Arcam One
HP: HifiBerry Digi+ PRO + Sabaj A10d
Office:
Allo DigiOne SIG + SMSL M300se + Douk G4 (x2)
Mission 760 + Monolith THX AAA 887
Headphones: German Maestro & AudioQuest

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Re: Your last listen

Unread post by Fretless »

Just had a quick listen to the first SI Sampler from 91/92. The general standard is a notch above mundane, but back in those days I was glad to find any albums that had a Proggish sound. Times were hard.

Upstairs:
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Pro-Ject 1.2 + Grado Sig Jr + Cambridge Alva Duo
DigiVolumio PC + Kiss DP-500 + Sabaj A20d
NVA: P50sa - Cube2 - SSP - LS6+ Sabaj A10a (x2)
Downstairs:
Vinyl
Logic DM101 + Syrinx LE1 + Grado Sig MCX
DigiDenafrips Ares II + Volumio PC + Cambridge CXC
NVA: P50 - BMU+ Aiyima A07 MAX (x2) + Arcam One
HP: HifiBerry Digi+ PRO + Sabaj A10d
Office:
Allo DigiOne SIG + SMSL M300se + Douk G4 (x2)
Mission 760 + Monolith THX AAA 887
Headphones: German Maestro & AudioQuest

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Mississippi Blind Child Assburn
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Re: Your last listen

Unread post by Mississippi Blind Child Assburn »

I have some of them "magazines"
Magic Dragon was the French one, I believe.

From Dutch, I had a subscription of BACKGROUND MAGAZINE and some Freia mags. They would occasionally write up a majorband like Eloy. But mainly they were magazines pushing limp neoprog .

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Re: Your last listen

Unread post by Fretless »

Dived through the SI Music CD's I still have and there are a couple of real clunkers in there. Worst offender is Sally French (who must have thought that she was the next Kate Bush. She wasn't) and Tale - a one-man band from South Africa who had been listening to too much Pink Floyd and thought he was the next David Gilmour (he wasn't).

Some interesting stuff - like Citizen Cain, who closely resemble Fish-era Marillion with good band interplay.
Foxtrot - an early 80's Norwegian outfit who combine Ultravox with classic Genesis (pretty good, think A-Ha).
Clepsydra - Swiss/Italian atmospheric, melodic prog-metal.
Barrock - Italian operatic prog featuring a pair of classically-trained sopranos.

Citizen Cain -Somewhere But Yesterday- Full HD

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Upstairs:
Vinyl
Pro-Ject 1.2 + Grado Sig Jr + Cambridge Alva Duo
DigiVolumio PC + Kiss DP-500 + Sabaj A20d
NVA: P50sa - Cube2 - SSP - LS6+ Sabaj A10a (x2)
Downstairs:
Vinyl
Logic DM101 + Syrinx LE1 + Grado Sig MCX
DigiDenafrips Ares II + Volumio PC + Cambridge CXC
NVA: P50 - BMU+ Aiyima A07 MAX (x2) + Arcam One
HP: HifiBerry Digi+ PRO + Sabaj A10d
Office:
Allo DigiOne SIG + SMSL M300se + Douk G4 (x2)
Mission 760 + Monolith THX AAA 887
Headphones: German Maestro & AudioQuest

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Mississippi Blind Child Assburn
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Re: Your last listen

Unread post by Mississippi Blind Child Assburn »

Barrock later reeased a series of good cds.

And then there is Barock Project. Listen to "Detatchment". One of the very best of the recent prog releases.



....

Yep, Tale is one of them dogs wot Blind Child got roped onto.

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Re: Your last listen

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