The Nimble c Suite

Gilgamesh's 1975 eponymous debut portrays a fine group that emerged during the waning days of Britain's Canterbury scene. The album by keyboardist Alan Gowen's quartet - also featuring guitarist Phil Lee, bassist Jeff Clyne, and drummer Mike Travis in this incarnation - was issued by Virgin Records' budget-line Caroline imprint. By the mid-'70s, Virgin's support for bands of this ilk was approaching its end, with punk and new wave soon ruling the day. Arriving late in the game, Gowen and company sounded most similar to Canterbury supergroup Hatfield and the North, and in fact Hatfields keyboardist Dave Stewart co-produced the album. Gilgamesh had clearly mastered the Hatfields' suites'n'segues approach to Canterbury-style complexity while sidestepping blatant imitation - for the most part…

This marks the first release with Robin Ticciati leading the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, and it makes the requisite splash. There's a world premiere: even if you're not on board with the trend of enlarging the repertory through arrangements of works that are perfectly good in their original form, you will likely be seduced by mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozená's ravishing reading of Debussy's voice-and-piano Ariettes oubliées, inventively arranged by Brett Dean. There's a little-known work: the opening one, Fauré's Prelude to Pénélope (a sparsely performed opera, with a slightly less sparsely performed prelude) is a lush and beautifully controlled arc. Controlled and detailed are two words that come to mind for Ticciati's interpretation of La mer, the warhorse work on the program; it may seem a bit deliberate, but there are many hues in his performance. The two Debussy works are balanced by two of Fauré's: the fourth work is the suite from Fauré's incidental music to Pélleas et Mélisande (in Charles Koechlin's version), also deliberate and lush. Linn recorded the performance in Berlin's Jesus Christus Kirche, which allows the full spectrum of orchestral colors to come through. Worth the money for Kozená fans for her turn alone, and a fine French program for all.

Long Hair is not only proud to present Tortilla Flat's legendary sole album 'Für Ein 3/4 Stündchen', but also the group's lot more legendary broadcast sessions for Germany's leading underground and krautrock program on radio SWF. The mainly instrumental album is very flute-driven, in opposite to the latter album, which was more electric violin-dominated, with very exciting guitar playing accompanied by rocking drumming and nimble bass lines. Very tight! And very Teutonic! There were not so many progressive rock bands in the early 1970s which were flute and violin dominated, but also don't forget the great solo play of lead guitarist Manfred Herten. An early version of their main opus 'Tortilla Flat' shows the band with violinist Werner Knauber and Herman Basten on flute at its best, a dramatic increase with great tunes…