Surgery

PERSIAN SURGERY DERVISHES is Terry Riley at his best. This is intensive, energetic, hypnotic, trance-inducing sound for strange people. It lacks the polish of A RAINBOW IN CURVED AIR and SHRI CAMEL, but maintains a similar style. That style is Riley alone at his organ playing away as if there were no future and no past, only an eternal now which is a river of ever-changing sound.

Originally released in 1980 it pretty much went underdiscovered. The band doesn't stray far from the fusion formula. Electric keys, sax, guitar, bass and drum feature some blazing guitar solos and well as some more laid back tunage - all the while emphasizing the interplay between musicians. At that time, a small edition of 500 copies was released by the artists themselves. It should remain their only album. In collectors' circles it is little known until the present day. The CD was drawn from the master tapes, and the ten bonus tracks of the same style were as yet unreleased.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer's most successful and well-realized album (after their first), and their most ambitious as a group, as well as their loudest, Brain Salad Surgery was also the most steeped in electronic sounds of any of their records. The main focus, thanks to the three-part "Karn Evil 9," is sci-fi rock, approached with a volume and vengeance that stretched the art rock audience's tolerance to its outer limit, but also managed to appeal to the metal audience in ways that little of Trilogy did. Indeed, "Karn Evil 9" is the piece and the place where Keith Emerson and his keyboards finally matched in both music and flamboyance the larger-than-life guitar sound of Jimi Hendrix. This also marked the point in the group's history in which they brought in their first outside creative hand, in the guise of ex-King Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield…

"Brain Salad Surgery" is the fourth studio album by progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer, released in 1973 and the first under their Manticore Records imprint. It features cover art by H. R. Giger.
The album fuses rock and classical themes. Lyrics were co-written by Greg Lake with fellow ex-King Crimson member (and frequent ELP collaborator) Peter Sinfield.