Artemiev Nurenberg

The classical conductor Ulrich SOMMERLATTE was more than sixty years old when he fell in love with Progressive rock. Not unlike a certain Eduard ARTEMIEV, who followed a similar path at the same time in the Soviet Union, our man decided to offer his great knowledge to the popular music of that era. Today reissued by the Musea label, "Sad Cypress" has been recorded in 1979 with the help of the Master's son on keyboards, a guitarist-singer, a drummer and a flautist-bassist. The result, as one could expect, is a superb symphonic rock, precious and refined, full of fineness and harmonic tricks. The influences range from GENESIS (above all) to YES, CAMEL and GENTLE GIANT. Add to this that the CD reissue includes four bonus tracks, recorded between 1983 and 1987.

This album dedicates to lost stories of famous science fiction writer Kilgore Trout. "Space-psych outfit from Russia deliver once again, serving up a delicious auditory mix. There are elements of prog, classical, and even gypsy jazz. Instrumentation is the usual: guitars, bass, drums, and also saz, mandoline, saxes, flute, synthesizers, recorder and violin."

Pale Bloom finds Sarah Davachi coming full circle. After abandoning the piano studies of her youth for a series of albums utilizing everything from pipe and reed organs to analog synthesizers, this prolific Los Angeles-based composer returns to her first instrument for a radiant work of quiet minimalism and poetic rumination. Recorded at Berkeley, California's famed Fantasy Studios, Pale Bloom is comprised of two delicately-arranged sides. The first - a three-part suite where Davachi's piano acts as conjurer, beckoning Hammond organ and stirring countertenor into a patiently unfolding congress - recalls Eduard Artemiev's majestic soundtrack for Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. "Perfumes I-III" employs the harmonically rich music of Bach as a springboard for abstract, solemn pieces that sound as haunted as they are dreamlike…

It is quite relevant to notice how many new Russian Progressive rock bands that share similarities with Emerson, Lake & Palmer are arising. In fact, in cases such as Little Tragedies, Edward Artemiev or Horizont, it would be more accurate to evoke XIXth and XXth century classical music, for Slavic culture reasons. Aviva perfectly illustrates this phenomenon. It is in fact Russian virtuoso pianist and multi-instrumentalist Dmitri Loukanienko's project. After a second opus with band name Aviva Omnibus, Dmitri Loukanienko turns back to the joys of the solitary musician, as he presents a third volume that's still quite mindblowing…