Here is an excellent example of the US Progressive rock scene of the Seventies: having both technique and excellence, imagination & talent. They seemed to be influenced by a variety of styles. Their sound was a little folky at times, poppy at others, even a little jazzy at times, loosely in the shadow of Kansas, Yes, Genesis, early King Crimson and others, with lots of vocals everywhere.
Excellent addition to any prog-rock music collection
ETHOS were an excellent 70’s US based 4 piece prog rock band whose second album “Open Up” remains a landmark album for this music lover.
Irreversible Entanglements’ third full-length album OPEN THE GATES is ethereal shards of jagged onyx, a melancholic exploration of the post-colonial debris that surrounds us. Let’s watch and listen, as this platter snakes through the sandy ashes of possible histories, dialogs with a nervous present, and asks to be birthed into a holographic new future. “Together in holy sound!” the band stitches patient anthems out of atmosphere. Pulling from a wider sonic vocabulary than on previous excursions, the agit-jazz found here is simultaneously pre- and post-apocalypse, as bass lurches in a tranced-out loop, horns are up in the track grooves like poltergeists playing in the streets, poetry cascades like a warrior call at a satsang, the drums both wild and refined pulse with uhuru-heart cadence. This is Irreversible Entanglements on new ground; same as the old ground.
As the second long-player by the Grateful Dead, Anthem of the Sun (1968) pushed the limits of both the music as well as the medium. General dissatisfaction with their self-titled debut necessitated the search for a methodology to seamlessly juxtapose the more inspired segments of their live performances with the necessary conventions of a single LP. Since issuing their first album, the Dead welcomed lyricist Robert Hunter into the fold – freeing the performing members to focus on the execution and taking the music to the next level. Another addition was second percussionist Mickey Hart, whose methodical timekeeping would become a staple in the Dead's ability to stop on the proverbial rhythmic dime.
Before the issue of Blacknuss, Rahsaan Roland Kirk was already exploring ways in which to make soul and R&B rub up against jazz and come out sounding like deep-heart party music. Volunteered Slavery, with its beat/African chanted poetry and post-bop blues ethos was certainly the first strike in the right direction. With a band that included Charles McGhee on trumpet, Dick Griffin on trombone, organist Mickey Tucker, bassist Vernon Martin, drummers Jimmy Hopps and Charles Grady, as well as Sony Brown, Kirk made it work. From the stinging blues call and response of the tile track through the killer modern creative choir jam on "Spirits Up Above" taking a small cue from Archie Shepp's Attica Blues.