Sofia Gubaidulina - The Seven Last Words, Ruayat, Vivente-Non Vivente (1990 compi, rec. 1979-89)

detail from The Last Supper by Nikolai Ge, 1861

For your Easter weekend pleasure, an amazing work for cello, bayan (Russian accordion) and strings from a unique and uncompromising composer, Tatar-Russian Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931).  An envelope-pushing writer in whatever form she composes in, Gubaidulina is also an intensely spiritual individual, and this setting of the Seven Last Words of Christ (inspired by the texts used by Heinrich Schütz and Joseph Haydn) was written in 1982.  Her use of chromaticism, glissandi, microtonality and use of atmospheric open space are perfectly suited to the anguished text.

The first couple of movements establish the main instruments with a swirling drone advancing like angry hornets - or indeed like Kraftwerk via Zeitkratzer.  Melancholy pleading strings fill in the quieter moments, continuing into the third as the cello scrapes away and the bayan stabs in mortal pain (Mel Gibson, you missed a trick not using this as a Passion soundtrack!).  The longest section at the centre, the fourth movement, increases the anguish and urgency all round with chromatic spirals from the bayan and more choppy, frenzied cello and strings.  The sounds in the fifth movement are truly astounding - think it's the bayan making that buzzing drone?  Zeitkratzer have to do an interpretation of this.

The second work in this collection dates from 1969, and was recorded in '79.  Rubayat opens with unsettling percussion reminiscent of Bartok's Music For String, Percussion and Celesta, before the ensemble introduces the baritone singing ancient Persian verses.  For Gubaidulina, the choice of texts here was meant to convey the universality of spiritual longing - also apparently one of the reasons she liked all that rising and falling chromaticism, of which there's plenty in the orchestral passages.

Lastly on this collection we get to hear the composer herself operating the legendary ANS, the Russian photoelectric proto-synthesiser that reached many people's consciousness (including mine) in recent years via Coil.  Vivente-Non Vivente was composed in 1970, and the recording date given here is 1988.  The device's printed and scratched glass plates evoke an eerie, swishing and blooping dark ambience that sounds truly otherworldly, especially in Gubaidulina's hands.

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Nils Frahm - Felt (2011)

Fingers crossed we've now seen the last of a particularly cold winter, at least round these parts - and here's the perfect album to announce the coming of spring.  Nils Frahm's first great full-length album of piano based sound exploration starts with the wonderful Keep, sounding like a finally defrosted country stream in full flow as piano, subtle electronics and I think marimba and/or xylophone combine into a kind of Steve-Reich-in-minature thing of beauty.

After this, Felt gets right down to business in letting every possible sound of the piano and its ambient environment breathe and fill out the sonic landscape.  This is where Nils got right in to having absolutely everything miked up - the insides of the piano (often prepared with the titular sheets of felt, so as not to disturb his neighbours at night), the room ambience, his own breathing and body movements - at first listen, this can seem a bit much to some ears accustomed to these extraneous sounds being excluded, but they're fully regarded as part of the music here.

Once you've got accustomed to the slightly odd sound of the piano hammers - at least, that was my initial sticking point - this method of recording enhances every track.  The gorgeous stillness of Less and Pause, the gentle rhythms of Familiar, the Erik Satie-Harold Budd-continuum loveliness of Kind - all become amplified not just sonically, but in meaning and importance, as if being allowed to witness music at a microscopic level, with previously unseen inner workings bursting into life.

As Old Thought progresses from melancholy harmonium into more xylophone and the subtlest of synth sequences, the formula seems to have been perfected - but just wait until the closing track More.  Memorably reworked as part of an epic blowout on Spaces, this original is all the more stunning for witnessing its introductory flights of notes and slow middle section up close.

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Ana-Maria Avram / Iancu Dumitrescu - A Priori, De Sacrae Lamentationem etc (1994)

Returning to two of my favourite composers today, for the first time this year.  Still gutted by Ana-Maria Avram's death at just 55 last August, and just had a quick search there for any more recent information about her passing - couldn't find anything other than the obits that I'd already read.  Her extraordinary music still needs a higher profile, as does the music of her partner Iancu - so here's another share from me, with two great examples of Ana-Maria's early work, and three characteristically imposing Dumitrescu pieces.

This 1994 release of pieces from 93-94 starts with Iancu's A Priori, 16 minutes of groaning and snapping strings, deep reverberating metal percussion, and occasional synth buzz - the latter most likely from Ana-Maria.  Five Implosions is up next, for full orchestra, and definitely announces itself with a big bang before the banks of strings spread out into space.  The eerie, Ligeti-like middle section features wordless voices floating over the top of the strange atmosphere before the full orchestra expands its universe even more.  The final piece from Iancu is the 18-minute Mythos, returning to a smaller ensemble for a lengthy exploration of the unsettling drones and clanging percussion that were his signature at the time - see also the tracks on the Pierres Sacreés disc in the list below.

Ana-Maria Avram's first piece on this collection is De Sacrae Lamentationem, with the full weight of the Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra behind it.  Great waves of slippery strings propel it forward into the spectral, microtonal unknown.  Not sure if there's more voices or something else making those sounds, but this phenomenal track just keeps getting weirder and more unsettling - although oddly enough it's probably the most accessible and satisfying highlight of this album.  The other Avram piece showcases her alone with the synthesiser workout Icarus.  The subtle drones gradually gather momentum until it oozes electronic hypnosis directly into your brain, like an Eliane Radigue track with a lot more going on.

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Previously posted on SGTG:
ED.MN.1001 - Medium/Cogito
ED.MN.1002 - Au Dela De Movemur
ED.MN.1003 - Pierres Sacreés
ED.MN.1004 - Musique de Paroles
ED.MN.1008 - Five Pieces
ED.MN.1011 - Musique Action '98
ED.MN.1014 - Orbit of Eternal Grace
ED.MN.1018 - Remote Pulsar
ED.MN.1019 - In Tokyo

Mikhail Chekalin - The Symphony-Phonogram (2004 compi, rec 1980-89)

Some more Chekalin as promised - this one, from the circa 2004 CD reissue series, based on his 1988 work The Symphony-Phonogram.  As previously noted, the first substantial release of Chekalin's music was a series of 12 LPs in the early 90s, and Symphony-Phonogram was one of them.  As on the Prepared Organ albums, we are given the assurance that "all music is performed live, in real time... without recourse to sequencer technologies and without computer editing".

After a dramatic opening section of dark and brooding keyboard riffs and shrieks of eerie synth over the top, The Symphony-Phonogram settles down in its second and third parts to more understated dark ambience and occasional martial rhythm tracks.  Vangelis is still an obvious reference point, particularly in Part 2, but the relative absence of studio gloss definitely works in Chekalin's favour, making the minor key melodies and percussion all the more unsettling and effective.  By Part 4, Chekalin has started to add his trademark wordless vocals to the mix, with the brief Part 5 being particularly ominous and ritualistic.  All in all, The Symphony-Phonogram is a really solid electronic work, one that a lot of post-industrial listeners in the West would've lapped up in the 80s if they'd had access to it then.

The additional tracks on this reissue start with 1984's Night Ritual For Choir And Drums, which occupies similar territory but with a stronger rhythmic element as per the title.  If someone had told me this was an outtake of early Coil jamming around, it would've at least been plausible.  Next up is Psychodelic Fresco, apparently a 1980 live recording direct to cassette "at an underground session", displaying Chekalin's atmospheric talents well on their way to maturity.  After a short fragment from the mid-80s, the CD ends with Democracy Of Noise from 1989.  It's not as strong as what's preceded it, but I've left it in anyway as it shows the variety in Chekalin's sound.

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La Düsseldorf albums (1976-1986) - in memoriam Klaus Dinger, ten years gone

A decade ago today, one of my favourite musicians of all time passed away after a heart attack.  Klaus Dinger's last recordings wouldn't start to see the light of day for another five years, but when they did, they were great - and will definitely feature here at some point, ideally when fully released.  For today, here's the complete discography of arguably his greatest post-NEU! band (although I have almost equal affection for la! NEU? and Die Engel Des Herrn).  So Tanz auf der Zukunft mit Mir to the "sound of the 80s" (Bowie, circa 1978).

La Düsseldorf - s/t (1976)

Keeping the double-drummer lineup he'd unveiled on NEU 75 - brother Thomas, and Hans Lampe - Dinger pulled back a bit on the proto-punk thrash of that album's second side.  He refined it into something more celebratory and glamourous, befitting the "mirror glass and stainless steel" of his home city, turning the first side of this debut album into a hymn to Düsseldorf.  On the second side, the first of his great instrumentals would become La Düsseldorf's first successful single in Germany, and the more reflective and searching Time was a taste of things to come.

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Viva (1978)

Is this the crowning jewel in Klaus Dinger's discography?  The man himself certainly seemed to think so, returning to its tracks for most of his live releases, and even reworking the full album in his final years, with the results still to emerge.  The multi-lingual title track was a celebration of not just Düsseldorf, but all of humanity, although the humourous side of La Düsseldorf swiftly brought things back down to earth, celebrating themselves in the punkish White Overalls.

Another beautiful instrumental single, Rheinita, gives an oasis of calm before Geld's rage against injustice and greed, setting the stage for the main event.  In the original 20-minute Cha Cha 2000, Dinger not just expresses utopian hope for the future, but creates the song of his career.  If Dinger was still alive today, he'd no doubt still be re-recording it every few years, holding on to the same heartfelt sentiments.  We need better leaders, who love us and don't tweet us.

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Individuellos (1980)

The NEU 2 of La Düsseldorf, aka the one that suffers by comparison to the others due to the needs-must recycling of its material.  In this case, it was in tragic circumstances, as the suicide of pianist Andreas Schnell interrupted the making of the album and Dinger filled out the running time by recasting main track Menschen a few more times.

For all that, I have a deep affection for Individuellos.  It follows the Viva pattern at its outset (track 1 - humanity is great; track 2 - and so are La Düsseldorf) and then lets the Menschen melody run on, taking in deeply personal memories of Dinger's recently-deceased grandmother (that's her voice on answerphone) and the 'Lieber Honig' of his life Anita (that's the same 1971 recordings of them in a rowing boat that NEU! used, near the end of this album).  The Dinger brothers humour might get a bit ridiculous in Dampfriemen and Tintarella Di (although musically pointing the way to Für Mich), but the album ends on a respectful note, dedicated to Schnell whose piano is upfront on Das Yvonnchen.

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Neondian / La Düsseldorf 4 / Mon Amour (1985)

Had its own post at the beginning of this year.  Post includes the 1983 single Ich Liebe Dich/Koksnodel.

Blue / La Düsseldorf 5 / Five Pearls And A Hammer (rec. 1984-86, rel. 1999)

In the aftermath of the Neondian release debacle, Dinger still owed one album, and after an abortive NEU! reunion submitted this album in early '87 to Virgin Records Germany, who'd taken over his Teldec contract.  They rejected it and dropped Dinger, and he started from scratch to form the band who'd become Die Engel Des Herrn.  The final La Düsseldorf album - although in reality, it was a solo album by Dinger other than the last track - was therefore shelved until the late 90s, when it was given an archival release by Captain Trip.

The album was now titled Blue, with its original name Five Pearls And A Hammer referring to the album's sequence.  First up is a gorgeous reverb guitar and rhythm track, over which Dinger contrasts his own idyllic life with the Geneva arms control summit between Reagan and Gorbachev.  On the cover picture of Blue are Mari Paas (mentioned in Arms Control Blues), Dinger's partner from the mid-70s through the 90s, with her daughter Yvi, and it's the latter who sings the cutely out-of-tune vocal on the track Blue.

After Lilienthal, a stunningly gorgeous instrumental which alone justifies getting hold of this album, are a couple of short tracks - the slight Touch You Tonight, and the poignant Für Omi, another tribute to his grandmother.  Five pearls, and a hammer - the hammer being the 18-minute rocked up version of Neondian's America, recorded during those sessions.  The track cuts in and ends in mid-flow, as if taken from an even longer recording, and fizzles with chaotic energy, thunder-and-lightning guitars and drums, and barely comprehensible vocals with whispered overdubs.  If the world wasn't ready for this in 1987 - or at least, so thought the record label - it certainly needs it now.

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Autechre - Oversteps (2010)

As much as I love Autechre for most of their albums being such a challenge just to sit through, this one is a personal favourite because it's probably their most accessible post-2000 album.  And it'll likely remain so, unless they decide to pull back on the whole four-hour albums of impenetrable circuit-frying niche that they're now so fully ensconced in.  But who would want that?  Anyway, from eight years ago this week (IIRC), here's Oversteps.

Opener Ress fades in gradually, to a looming, 22nd-century cityscape that eventually picks up a beat that seems at odds with the dark ambient overlay.  After that, we're into full-on Autechre with Ilanders - everything twisted out of shape, but if you listen closely there's a definite melodic progression just under the surface, and occasionally shining through.  Known (1) is more accessible again, like a cyborg JS Bach playing to post-human courtesans.

Thereafter, the track titles (with a couple of exceptions) descend into full-on fist on the keyboard gibberish, and the tracks continue to ping back and forth between dark, metallic constructions and bright, sparkling melodies - the gorgeous See On See being my personal favourite of the latter.  For all their early work now sometimes sounding a bit dated, and their latter-day epics sometimes getting too far out there even for me, Oversteps is probably the perfectly-balanced Autechre album.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Confield

Charles Mingus - The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady (1963)

Simply Mingus the composer and arranger at his absolute pinnacle.  Maybe some aficionados of Let My Children Hear Music, or even Ah Um, would disagree?  For me though, even those don't come close to the perfection of writing, arranging, great grooves and deeply felt soul of this January 1963 recording.  With possibly the first use of overdubs on a jazz record too (anyone know any different?), The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady hit a new level of sonic sophistication that still leaps out of the speakers/headphones today.

Each track title is basically a dance notation, as this album was written as a ballet of sorts, if never performed as such - Solo Dancer, Duet Solo Dancers, Group Dancers etc - and the lengthy subtitles are where the clues are to Mingus' intentions lay for what he was expressing in the music.  So the album opens with, to give it its full title, Track A - Solo Dancer: Stop! Look ! And Listen, Sinner Jim Whitey! (or is it Whitney? spellings vary across different pressings).  In this track, as Mingus' psychotherapist Dr Edmund Pollock (yup, he was asked to review the music) notes in the liner, Charlie Mariano's alto sax solo acts as "a voice calling to others and saying "I am alone, please, please join me!" as the orchestral themes swirl around it.

There's a lot going on here, then, but this album shouldn't necessarily be regarded as 'difficult Mingus' - it's really not.  There's achingly gorgeous melody and harmony everywhere, repeated themes, and great grooves.  Only the side-long track that contains parts D through F takes a few goes to properly navigate, but it's a stunning achievement in orchestral jazz that's hugely satisfying once you get used to it.  Little interludes are provided for things like Mingus' piano, and Jay Berliner (who I only knew from Astral Weeks before I heard this album) playing bits of Spanish guitar, to evoke "the period of the Spanish Inquisition, and El Greco's mood of oppressive poverty and death".  Yes, there's weighty themes here, much of it Mingus' reflection of the Black American experience, but there's much joy too.  To finish, and to sum up the album really, here's the full title of the final section: Of Love, Pain, and Promised Revolt, Then Farewell, My Beloved, 'Til It's Freedom Day.

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Anna Thorvaldsdottir - Aerial (2014)

Second album from Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir (b. 1977), which saw her sign to Deutsche Grammophon and unleash these six brooding, dynamic pieces in all their eerie glory.  Opening the album is the striking, funereal gloom of Into - Second Self for brass and percussion, followed by the equally unsettling Ró for chamber ensemble.  For all the more accessible, melancholy Icelandic composers who I enjoy - Ólafur Arnalds, the sadly departed Jóhann Jóhannsson - this music is the stark, barren inverse, evoked by the wilderness expanse on the album cover above.

Thorvaldsdottir is currently composer-in-residence for the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra, who perform the album's majestic centrepiece Aeriality.  Influences here - I've got lazy brain today, so will just go for Ligeti/Bartok in the strings, and perhaps even two favourites who I really should get back to posting soon, Avram/Dumitrescu - but more subtle and refined.  There's some respite afterwards in Tactility, for percussion and some nicely odd harp sounds, and Trajectories, a piano/electronics piece.  Lastly, Shades Of Silence is performed on baroque instruments, which just makes its droning textures sound even stranger and out of time.  All in all, a magnificent hour of modern composition, and really promising for her future endeavours.

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Claude Schryer - Autour (1997)

 More environmental/radiophonic sound composition to kick off this week, courtesy of Claude Schryer, born 1959 in Québec.  Four of his works covering 1995-97 are featured on this collection, but rather than being lengthy tracks like when I've previously posted this sort of thing, Schryer works in short snippets averaging two minutes (excepting the 11-minute closing piece).  The result is more like a gallery of photographs in sound than an immersive film, but no less evocative for that.

First up is Musique De L'Odysée Sonore, which did actually start life as the soundtrack to a National Film Board of Canada documentary about Québec City, before Schryer revised and condensed it into 11 minutes.  For me, the most striking of the seven sections here is Église, which encapsulates Schryer's talent for weaving together his sound sources (a grandfather clock, a boat horn, a Popol Vuh-esque choral improv, a Native American chant and garbled spoken poetry) into something truly ear-bending.

Switching continents next, Schryer uses recordings from Mexico City and Oaxaca state for El Medio Ambiente Acustico de México, itself cut down from a 50-minute radiophonic work Marche Sonore II.  Ocean sounds and fields give way to inner-city subway sounds, trains, trucks and marching bands in a parade, and another ambient trip back into nature - all of it evoking its sense of place beautifully.  After that, there's a trip back in place and in time with Vancouver Soundscape Revisited, where the source sounds were recorded in the early 70s for the World Soundscape Project.  Schryer describes his method as selecting a few hundred samples from the project by sonic spectrum, pitch, function and context, and again deftly combines them all into a stunning work.

Closing the disc is the standalone piece Autour d'Une Musique Portuaire, where the harbour sounds, bells and trains originally used for a live radio broadcast (with Schryer directing the 'performers' on the boats, trains and cathedral bells to play together by walkie-talkie!) were re-purposed in the studio for a saxophonist, trombonist and clarinetist (Schryer) to improvise over.  The result makes the most of the wide open spaces and long boat-horn drones to let the instruments fill in the gaps perfectly.

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John Surman - Upon Reflection (1979)

As Devon-born reed legend John Surman returns for his first ECM release in six years, let's dig out the all-solo-with-overdubs masterpiece that kicked off his relationship with the label.  Surman's credited here on soprano & baritone saxes, bass clarinet and synth, and it's a shimmering, crystalline loop of the latter that introduces the first track here, giving it an Azimuth-like feel straight away.  The 10-minute Edges Of Illusion then proceeds to introduce its various sax lines in an engrossing patchwork.

The following Filigree is based entirely of sax tape loops with a melody winding over the top, and the folky Caithness To Kerry just lets its joyous melody spin into the air unaccompanied.  Little ice crystals of synth return for the last track on the original side one, as the noirish jazz balladry goes on a melancholy closing time swagger.

Upon Reflection's second half starts on an equally sombre intro, but soon picks up the pace as the 'dance' part of Prelude And Rustic Dance starts to hold sway, the overdubbed parts again interlocking perfectly.  The Lamplighter's synth pulse sets its darker tone, before an upbeat minute-long interlude for baritone sax and reverb sets the stage for the 8-minute closer Constellation.  With a suitably sci-fi synth sequence providing the momentum, Surman weaves yet more magic, with the result sounding like a jazzy Deutsche Wertarbeit.  Surman would go on to grace the ECM catalogue with several more great albums, with different groups of musicians and varying styles, but this solo effort remains a jewel in his discography.

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Arsenije Jovanović - s/t (1994 compi of works 1977-1993)

Four remarkable and engrossing works from Serbian radiophonic composer (and theatre, radio and television director, and author/professor) Arsenije Jovanović, b. 1932.  We're in similar sonic and conceptual territory here to Ivana Stefanović, who I posted last year - they even shared an album once, which I'll need to track down.

For today, we join Jovanović on a few of his many travels, first of all in a cave in an old abandoned Serbian village.  Invasions (1978) is certainly an apt primer for what an accomplished sound recordist and mixer Jovanović is - goes without saying this a headphones turned up the max album - as the sounds for voice, percussion and a wind instrument bounce around the eerie space.  We stay underground for Resava Cave (1977), where the percussive sounds apparently include the stalagmites and stalagtites in Jovanović's search for the natural, timeless acoustic.  He also wanted the vocal performers to sound as primally liberated as possible, the unsettling results suggesting that million-year-old spirits have been summoned.

Back on the earth's surface, Jovanović hears some very strange seagulls on an uninhabited island, and learns that elderly donkeys were once abandoned there, the birds over time mimicking their forlorn cries.  His liner note then veers off into an unrelated donkey encounter, and doesn't clarify whether or not the sound sources for Island Of The Dying Donkeys (1988) feature authentic field recordings and/or recreations - most of the voices sound suspiciously human.  Either way, the 20-minute piece is so head-spinningly bizarre that it simply has to be heard to be believed.

Finally, Jovanović returns home, and reflects on some of the many odd objects and strange sounds that he's collected over the years. (This is as much as I could figure out from the description, the French record label's liner note translator having apparently given up at this point.)  Ma Maison (1993) certainly sounds like an extended inventory of interesting sounds, from voice, percussion, wind instruments and all kinds of environmental recordings.  As with everything on this collection, the end result just sounds phenomenal, which is probably the main reason I keep going back to it repeatedly.  Highly recommended.

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Czesław Niemen - Niemen Vol. 1 & 2 (1973)

Staying in 70s Poland for the moment, here's a couple of fascinating albums by the legendary singer, organist and songwriter Czesław Niemen (1939-2004).  Released at the height of a jazz fusion phase, Niemen Vol. 1 and Niemen Vol. 2 are actually regarded as a double-album released as two separate LPs - most subsequent reissues have them as one CD under the title Marionetki, but the one I managed to get hold of was on two CDs under the original titles.  Which is nice, but anyway, on to the music.

Since the late 60s, Niemen had been gaining popularity as a classical-influenced, progressive rock organist, and a strong, soulful singer.  Both are very much in evidence here, and the lyrics are settings of verse by Polish poets.  The language barrier unfortunately precludes me from enjoying the latter, but that doesn't matter much on Vol. 1, which is dominated by two lengthy instrumentals.

At 17 minutes, Requiem dla Van Gogha is the longest and most abstract - lots of atmospheric organ and scraping violin.  After a short, upbeat piano and fuzz-guitar based song (the guitarist is SBB's Apostolis Anthimos, who worked with Tomasz Stańko in the 80s), the 13-minute Inicjały brings back the organ, violin, has intermittent wordless vocalisations, and introduces lengthy trails of smeared trumpet.  The result of that is strongly reminiscent of 70s Miles Davis at his most open-ended - think He Loved Him Madly - and is probably my favourite thing here.

Vol. 2 has five tracks, all with vocals - even if the only Polish I can remember from my brief time there is 'dwa bilety prosze' for the bus stations, it's hard not to be moved by how great Niemen's voice was.  I've read comparisons to Joe Cocker, but he's not quite as gritty/bluesy as that to my ears.  Anyhow, we start with Marionetki, with doomy organ and drums for a few minutes, before setting off on another epic journey with Piosenka dla zmarłej and some enojyably knotty jazz-prog in the intro.  There's much more guitar on Vol. 2, and Anthimos' solo midway through this track is a good taste of what's to come.

Nine minutes of Z pierwszych ważniejszych odkryć are announced with some driving guitar, before Anthimos switches to a mellower slide for the verses.  Lots of good gear-changes follow, more fuzz lead and even some funky drumming - I think this track is my highlight of Vol. 2.  The minute-long oddity Ptaszek made me look up the lyrics and pop them into a translator just to find out what the manic laughter was about - it's a great absurd verse describing a crazy bird.  The writer, inter-war poet Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, certainly seems to have been a fascinating character.  Lastly, Niemen stretches those great pipes of his again for Com Uczynił, a powerful ballad with another fantastic jazz-funk middle section.

Disc 1
Disc 2

Arp Life - Jumbo Jet / Z Bezpieczną Szybkością (2014 compilation, rec. 1975-78)

In 1975, library music composer Mateusz Święcicki (1933-1985) teamed up with film soundtrack composer Andrzej Korzyński (b. 1940) to start off a studio ensemble for Polish Radio.  The name given to the project, which Święcicki had been using a couple of years earlier, was Arp Life: he'd liked how the Arp Odyssey synthesiser sounded much more refined compared to the rougher Minimoog.

For the next three years, additional musicians associated with the radio studios, most of their names lost to history, would come and go to add strings, brass or percussion as desired.  And ironically enough, Arp synths were scarcely, if ever, used - pretty much everything electronic here is either Fender Rhodes or Minimoog.  The best known artefact to emerge from this arrangement, and a mainstay of crate-digger blogs for as far back as I can remember, was the Jumbo Jet LP, released by Polskie Nagrania in 1977, and featuring new core member Maciej Śniegocki as writer and arranger.

Whether on a vinyl rip, or a remastered CD like this, the sampling appeal of Jumbo Jet is undeniable - wah-wah guitars, funky Rhodes and nifty bass & percussion riffs are everywhere, along with a handful of great fuzz guitar leads and melancholy disco strings.  Vocals are either wordless or limited to the track title; only the title track has more than that.  Only two tracks top the four minute mark - Jumbo Jet is basically a library LP par excellence, and a few tracks saw use in film, with Baby Bump and the gorgeous Hotel Victoria featuring in Andrezj Wajda's Man Of Marble.

original cassette cover, 1978

The following year, the Wifon label released a series of cassettes specifically promoted for in-car use, with the titles encouraging Poland's motorists to 'have a nice journey', 'don't dazzle [with your headlights, presumably]', and 'drive at a safe speed'.  That last one - in Polish, 'Z bezpieczną szybkością', was effectively Arp Life's second and last album.  Three tracks on the tape were taken from Jumbo Jet (Motor Rock was presumably a no-brainer to open the tape with), and the remaining ten were never released in any other format until this 2014 CD, which was followed by individual vinyl reissues.  The sound of these tracks is much the same as on Jumbo Jet, although Korzyński is the dominant writer rather than Śniegocki, leading to a bit more brass in the arrangements.  A couple of non-album singles and an unused signature jingle written for the Tonpress label round out this great compilation.

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