Geographical February 2000

Northward ho! Sébastien Daucé and his musicians here make a geographical detour, forsaking England and France in order to explore Lutheran Europe before J. S. Bach. One is struck by the expressive vigour of these finely detailed works, which have retained all their power to fascinate today’s listeners. Merging old and new, the austerely beautiful language of Buxtehude, Schütz and the much more rarely heard Dijkman unexpectedly echoes the music of their contemporary Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

Though Les Rallizes Denudes, also known as Hadaka no Rallizes, were one of the earliest and most revolutionary Japanese psychedelic rock bands, and have existed off and on through four decades, they are also one of the most obscure, barely known even in their native country. This cult of noise terrorists shrouded themselves in mystery, seldom touring and releasing very few records, usually with no discernible label. Their sound presages the later psychedelic experimental noise of Fushitsusha, High Rise, and others in the current crop more than any other Japanese psychedelic group from the late '60s…

We could call Lands End the first "aquatic progressive" band. The fact that they live on the shores of the Pacific Ocean seems like it has quite inspired these musicians and we find many allusions to the sea in their albums. Starting from rather simple neo Progressive rock, they built their own style made of energetic guitar assisted by keyboards, over which added vocals. Their music is very progressive, somewhere in the middle between Pink Floyd, Genesis and Yes, and the musicians don't hesitate to adventure themselves into long instrumental jams…

This is a brilliant idea for a CD. Composed within a time-frame of 11 years (1917-28), at a similar geographical distance from the main cosmopolitan centres of music, and with similar stylistic overlaps between late Romanticism and modernism, these two pairs of quartets make for genuinely illuminating comparison.

Although the music here was originally said to be recorded in Europe, it actually comes from a Chicago concert, and the five additional selections were supposedly performed in Chicago, but are from an appearance in Los Angeles. Despite the geographical mixups, the music is consistently brilliant and often wondrous. The trio of Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis, and Ray Brown had been together for over four years, and these would be among the threesome's last (and finest) recordings. The very tricky arrangements sandwiched remarkable solos, with pianist Peterson sounding especially inspired. Together with the Trio at Stratford Shakespearean LP of the previous year, this set features the trio at the peak of its powers. Highlights include "The Lady Is a Tramp," "Budo," and "Daahoud."

The Norwegian six-member a cappella group, Nordic Voices here presents the extraordinary polyphonic music of Tomas Luis de Victoria, a Spanish composer whose music has continued to move people for more than 400 years, crossing geographical, cultural, and even religious barriers. This surround-sound recording comes ten years after a "warm, consistent and moving" (BBC Music) album of Lamentations, which featured pieces by sixteenth-century composers, including Four Lessons by Victoria.