Wednesday, July 23, 2008

ISLAND-PICTURES, LP/CD, 1977, SWITZERLAND





Housed in a striking H.R. Giger sleeve, this Swiss prog crew concoct dense and turbid suites of exceedingly Van Der Graaf Generator-ish moody convolution. Much of what is transpiring here is sensational, if never quite achieving the sense of profound cathartic release of Hammill and co. Alas, amid this brilliance are some truly squirm-worthy vocals that'll have you wishing you could shove a sock in this cat's mouth, though fortunately, said vocals are largely kept to a minimum. Note: despite the LP sleeve being pictured, this is taken from the mid-90's CD reissue, which is both re-mastered and fleshed out with a superb 23 minute bonus track, which finds them pursuing similar ends but in a rather less claustrophobic fashion.

Get pt. 1 Here

Get pt. 2 Here

7 comments:

  1. yet another one borrowed from Craig`s collection ....

    don`t forget your etiquette , Eric

    you`re welcome
    ~C
    ps: personally , the vocals don`t bother me quite as much as you

    ... (if they were NOT in English it would likely solve the problem)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Craig,

    I forgot that you were the one I obtained the burn of the remastered version of this from long ago. My apologies for that. Thanks for the contribution....

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey guys,
    just downloaded both parts but it seems that the second zip archive can not be opened. I got the message: 'unexpected end of archive'.
    Any chance u can check this out?
    Thanks in advance

    ReplyDelete
  4. dokimos-I just tested this link and it downloaded and opened fine for me. No idea why you're having this issue.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ok, second part finally works! Thanks for checking anyway!
    Keep up the good work

    ReplyDelete
  6. muchas gracias por este disco!!!!

    =)

    ReplyDelete
  7. After a single listen, I am completely in love with this album. For me, prog has rarely been to do with the lyrics, and I actually find the quirkiness of lyrics like 'Gastric juices!' and 'Illuminate the Senate!' to simply be a bit of fun in all the chaos. Having recently heard the latest Tangent album, which has lyrics like 'Your kids will sell it off on eBay', I much prefer this. The music is simply phenomenal. I'm kinda glad these guys only made one album, as I can't imagine anyone making a follow up as good as this.

    ReplyDelete