Quasar Gidge

Quasar was formed in the late 70's and even if they to date only have two studio albums in their discography, they have apparently endured as many line-up changes as some of the most prolific and famous Prog bands! Indeed, band leader Keith Turner is the only member who is present on both of their albums. Fire In The Sky was Quasar's debut album and in a way this can perhaps be regarded as Proto-Neo-Prog. However, there is little indicating the release date of 1982. This sounds more like second-division classic Prog; this could have come out of the mid 70's, just as well. The vocals do, however, sound like they were recorded in the 60's! The mood is rather mellow and the tempo is often slow with only occasional and brief instrumental outbursts. It reminds slightly of the Irish Symphonic Prog band Fruupp, particularly their later efforts, with a slightly Jazz-tinged feel to the vocals.

Written by Paolo Paroni (keyboards, piano) & Roberto Sgorlon (guitars, vocals) essentially "Abraham" is a 2 CD classically influenced symphonic prog rock musical exploring the dawn of Christianity. Musically we are transported into a multi layered symphonic landscape of shapes & colors. Quasar are a 4 piece outfit who play a highly theatrical styled classically influenced prog rock mixing many different style and forms throughout. Instrumentation is quite solid with some tasty analog sounding keyboard work standing out throughout the album much of which is tastefully classically influenced…

Founded in Montreal in 1993, Quasar is a saxophone quartet devoted mainly to new music, and particularly to the creation and promotion of Canadian works. This disc presents an exciting selection of works, most of which were commissioned and premiered by Quasar.

A hidden masterpiece from Italy (once more). After their wonderful "Abraham", Quasar Lux Symphoniae gave to prog music another beautiful stuff, plenty of rich and emotive melodies, always delicated. Both male (raw and emotive) and female (operatic and expressive) voices fit perfectly in desperated and shattering tunes, touching the listener soul and giving a feeling of majestic sadness. Music flows slowly, always in desolated landscapes. The progressive elements are mixtured with classical musicians influences. In "The Punishment of the Submerged", the forth track, are the heavier rock moments, but the whole album shows a real sense of refinement.

Canadian composers have managed, at least to some degree, to avoid the dichotomy between "high" and "low" art that causes so much animosity on the American new music scene; advocates of "popular" classical composers such as Glass and Adams, and of "serious" classical composers like Babbitt and Carter, tend to be divided by distrust, if not downright contempt for each other's aesthetic. Québécois composer André Hamel is one of a substantial group of Canadian composers who draws freely and productively on a variety of traditions, without embarrassment or apology. His À Huit for eight saxophones is remarkable in that it sounds like it was created almost entirely with computer-generated sonorities and not by live performers.

Quasar Lux Symphoniae performs a refined music with elaborated and successful arrangements and subtle melodic inspiration in the compositions. The Dead Dream is the first lysergic trip of Quasar L.S. (before Lux Symphoniae's majestic works), originally dated 1977, recorded again in 1995 because the original tapes were lost, with absolute respect of the original recordings. A psychedelic pearl in a concept album. A visionary and dramatic story too. Not only the psychodrama of Roxy, maybe a soundtrack and an epitaph for the death of the lysergic and hippy dream.

Ask anyone about electronic music and chances are you get names like Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze, Vangelis, Kraftwerk and Jean-Michel Jarre thrown at you. Obviously there's plenty more where they came from but to the untrained listener these are the major names linked with synthesizers, samplers, rhythm composers and above all atmosphere!
It's that particular atmosphere which forms the backbone for the third CD by Belgian electronic musician Frank Quasar. Aptly titled Atmos, the seven tracks take us on an hour long journey through various themes and indeed… atmospheres. So far Frank has released an album every two years (not counting his vinyl output Dusk from 1988 and his presence on the Ambient Nation sampler) and each time he goes further and further, getting better and better. The sleeve design is a delight whilst the music is yet again professional in every aspect…
He uses the classic electronic components, juggles with analogue and digital equipment and doesn't fear to throw in some rhythmic patterns to create something new and exciting.

Frank Quasar is a Belgian composer, living and working in Oostende (Westcoast). His musical formation was accomplished after a study of 5 years at the Music Academy of Oostende, later on complemented by several studies for composition. Since 1975, he was passionately interested in the electronic music scene and in the fast development of synthesisers.
His first solo LP "Dusk" was released in April 1988 and there were several presentations of other compositions in the weekly broadcasted programs "Maneuvers in het donker" and "De gewapende man" (Belgian National Radio).
Frank Quasar composes music for films, video and theatre and he produced several compositions for the biennial Benelux Video- and Shortfilmfestival at Oostende…