Forgas Band Phenomena Part 1, Roue Libre 1997, Extra-Lucide 1999, Soleil 12 2005

 

Part 3 really in the overview of this composer, after his solo works.

The title track from 1999's Extra-Lucide is remarkable, with its high energy jazz and synthesizer intensity:

The 2005 work Soleil 12, on the other hand, is notable for the fact it has only 4 tracks and one of them is over 30 minutes long!  At my age I already find it quite an imposition to listen to the entirety of a 20 minute side-long track, and this one is almost double the length in time.  I keep putting off listening to it to some other day but guess what, that day may never come.  For all I know it might even be a brilliant composition well worth the time, like Martz' The Pillory, or the Yeti, or a lot of the Xalph material.  

Note the info:

Recorded live at Le Triton, Les Lilas (France), March 15, 2005.
On the track 4. there is a brief moment of distortion on the violin at around the 8 minute mark. It is not a defect on this CD.

The title track displays this violin playing, a la Didier Lockwood quite nicely:

More Patrick Forgas with the solo works after Cocktail (L'oeil 1990, Art D'echo 1993, Synchronicite 2002)

 

The first two albums continue along the same lines as the first with the falsetto singing on top of typically one chord tracks that develop in a light or playful manner, a bit Canterburyesque but much, much simpler.  That last one from 2002 is a complete all-out new age slow keyboard work, which is radically different from all the other albums and to me a bit uninteresting.

From 1990's L'oeil, Ze / Medley is a remarkable composition but the remainder, almost the whole of it, suffers from the tinny digital synths & 80s drum machine that afflicts so many works from this period in time:

1993's Art D'echo gets a lot more interesting and is sometimes quite crazy creative, consider Cache ta Paine (hide your pain, the de facto motto of all middle aged or older men):

As mentioned earlier, Synchronicite is a departure being mostly new agey keyboards and in fact, it's the only work from him in this style, eg Anima:

At times it sounds like the soundtrack to a video game, such as that for Tomb Raider.  Perhaps inspired by that one?

French Canterburylike / Gonglike drummer / composer Patrick Forgas with the 1977 Cocktail album to begin

 

His own discography is here. As you can see 4 albums on his own and 6 more under Forgas Band Phenomenon.

Profile: French prog rock and fusion drummer, singer, instrumentalist. Self-confessed Robert Wyatt devotee, and creator of a unique French twist on the Canterbury sound.

I think it's less Canterbury more Gong with the tendency to remain on one chord and then meander in a spacey manner on top with light sounds, eg breathy singing or flutes.  The title track of his masterpiece called Cocktail, whose hghlight though is the sidelong work My Trip, which reappeared multiple times, reworked, on later albums, and with a demo version on the later CD release with bonus tracks:

Demo version of My Trip is great listening:

In fact, utterly ironically the demo tracks that follow the composed work are the best part of this CD, perhaps because they were written when he was a young man, much more Canterbury like.

Fumitaka Anzai in his first work from 1982 [DIGITAL TRIP / Juma Densetsu Synthesizer Fantasy]

 

Absolutely a masterpiece of progressive electronic, like some of the Fukumachi stuff.  I don't think there's a bad track on this record.  Artist info here.  He went on to write an incredible number of anime, film score, manga, whatever soundtracks, but this is by far the best one, if you appreciate complex prog that is.  This is as great as anything that for ex. the more famous Patrick Moraz put out back then.

Soto H, track 6, is so unbelievably dramatic:

Track 4, Dasshutsu:

Markku Lievonen's 1977 album, FLAC limited time only

This is a very librarish album with beautiful progressive instrumental compositions, very vivid and interesting, original, and melodic.

From discogs, the briefest of bios:

A Finnish jazz musician. Born on February 16, 1947 in Lahti, Finland and died on December 14, 2016 in Helsinki, Finland. Started his career in the early 1960s by playing drums in a jazz trio. Later he played bass in several groups and as a studio musician. In 1977 he released a solo album.

For me it's quite brilliant and unfortunately forgotten, presumably except in Finland.  His use of different keyboard sounds is particularly worth hearing, as in Monster Rally:

For an entirely different emotional direction, the March for the Lonely Riders: