Вторник 17 Апр 2007, 1:36

What a curious career the New England prog band Jasper Wrath has had. One of the first American bands to be making bona fide progressive music, they only officially released one album under their own name, their eponymous 1970 debut for the Sunflower label. (currently reissued, but only on vinyl!) They continued playing and recording up to 1976, but never released another album…themselves anyway. The Dellwood label (a tax-scam record label) released two LP’s worth of the band's recordings under the fake band names Arden House and Zoldar & Clark.

Disc One of this double CD anthology contains tracks from the band’s Sunflower-label LP, as well as some of the Arden House tracks and a goodly chunk of the Zoldar & Clark album. The earliest tracks have a flowery, psych-folk-turning-to-prog sound that make me think of an American Moody Blues, or perhaps an East Coast It's A Beautiful Day. The classical influence is obvious from the very beginning. The Arden House and Z&C material, being recorded later, is more explicitly prog, with loads of analog synths and Mellotron proving they've been listening to a lot of Yes and the like. It's all very American, though.

Disc Two is largely unreleased demo tracks and live material. Interesting, if a bit redundant. I think I would have preferred a CD box set of all three albums in their entirety. (actually, since they're so short, they could probably do it on a double CD!) It's a bit of a moot point, as this anthology is long out of print, with only the vinyl issue of the first album and a pirated Japanese CD of the Z&C album generally available. I have a soft spot for this band's music, so making it more readily available can only be a good thing.