The Grand Rio Connection
Latest scores .... RIO 1 v 0 Zeuhl
It seems that the boundaries that contain RIO have once again broken free as the genre swallows up all
in it's path. Carmaux was the hunting ground and Zeuhl was the meat!
"RIO" as a genre has always stood on shaky ground. Not the music,
which as we know is luvverly! But who's actually a "brother" and who's
not. 30 years ago, on March 12th 1978 the original RIO festival was unleashed
on an unsuspecting public. Tickets were snapped up on Ebay within 1 hour and
a Genre was born. Of the original line up only Univers Zero are to date totally
active, Samla Mannnas Manna are sort of active and Henry Cow are just about
to reform ... Sadly another Ork Alarm wishful thinking porky pie! In its thirty
year wake, many fans have attributed the term RIO to a number of artists, and
who are we to argue? Mainly because who cares? As long as it's good stuff, then
the act of hooking the word RIO up to it will hopefully give the potential listener
some yardstick of quality. This seems "Captin Sensible". Stormy Six
and Univers Zero were pretty diverse so it's no different than branding Alamaailman
Vasarat and Amygdala with the same iron.
Rio Concert Photos and
Artists
I've always been a bit "suck it and see" after reading a RIO review.
Llet's face it, you know roughly what you're in for with a "Zeuhl"
or "Canterbury" nod, but RIO? well that's a tricky one. Nevertheless
I've stuck with it, up to now that is, because this time they've gone too far.
Some upstart, Trigaux I think he's called, hired a shed, made a few phone calls
and cobbled together a few up and coming young hopefuls and slapped the word
RIO all over it! Now I wouldn't have minded but for the fact that a young talented
drummer was sucked along by said "fly by night" and like a baby sacrificial
lamb jumped blindly on board the RIO train! What's more, the drummer phones
up his old school mates (they'd had an argument years back over which classes
to attend) and convinces them to bring along their old conkers and lollysticks
and they too are dragged into the sorded mess! OK perhaps I can understand it,
they're French and the dodgy character is a Chocolate maker (Belgian) so "EEC
and all that - hands not across the water", but the straw that broke the
Zeuhl backbone was the foolhardy acceptance of a naive UK band. I'm not naming
names but they're called Guapo. They'd only been "Zeuhl" for a couple
of years! God! It take other bands years to reach that accolade. They were something
else before. Avant-Thrash (sounds like women's trouble!) apparently. Anyway
It was a done deal and another Genre was swallowed up by the RIO conglomerate.
Sigh!
On a more serious note, WOW what a line up! Were you there? Sadly I wasn't.
The RIO festival made it's 30 yearly comeback on April 13-15 2007 at the Maison
de la Musique in Carmaux (south of France). The brainchild of Michael Besset
and Roger Trigaux (Present) and what a comeback it was! Under one roof, Present
(electric and Acoustic), Zao, NeBelNeST, Magma, Guapo, Faust, Mats Morgan band
and more including Chris Cutler, John Greaves and Peter Blegvad. Quite possibly
the greatest ever artist line up in the history of mankind. Ok I'm a bit biase
cos I've got some of their records. There's a great english review in Issue
35 of Expose Magazine by
Mike Eisenberg and you can follow a thread in the forum at Prog
Archives . As I type, there's no sign of a "promised" repeat performance
this year but fingers crossed that it's not as irregular as either Ork Alarm!
or worse still Hayley's Comet.
RIO Dilemma
So, what to put under Ork Alarm!'s RIO section and what not? Well, I've decided
to create my own RIO, everybody else does so why mess with people's habits of
the last 30 years. So here's the low down, we'll stick with the tried and tested
variety like UZ, AZ, Present, Samla stuff etc. But I'll just make up the rest!
Anything that take's my fancy in opposition to HeartFM and Capital Radio. Top
notch stuff that you can't go wrong acquiring and because of the intermittent
nature of Ork Alarm! the recommendations are unlikely to be spur of the moment.
Chances are I've listened to them dozens of times and so have you. So in reality
this will become retrospective joint celebration of some brilliant artists and
their recent compositions. What more do you want from a website? The unreleased
second Weidorje
album? An unreleased 1973 Magma concert?
No, good old fashioned recommendations that's what.
Hasse and Costa keep the flag flying
Two
of Samla Mannas Nanna ... Samuels Manners Manner ... Two members of Sweden's
premier RIO band have recently released solo CD's both of which are essential
to any self repecting Lars Holmer led Swedish Band fan. Hassie Brunisen ...
Bruneiussen .... Hasse has a CD and DVD released entitled Flying Food Circus,
which keeps the faith with any previous band he may have been in by maintaining
said previous band's knack for incorporating humour into the mix without sacrificing
the brilliance of the music. I haven't seen the DVD but The CD is Superb.
Costar
Apeatrea ..... Costa Apretra .... "C" as he is known to his close
friends has a more serious but equally blistering CD out. Rites of Passage is
by far his best solo effort to date, although the world waits open mouthed as
his official website announces a soon to be released CD called Spiritual Noise.
Actually I don't really care anymore about the quality of C's output because
I've discovered his website. I now have a new hobby. Playing on his website,
hovering over things, slowing down the Discography and then speeding it up again!
It's brilliant!! I wish I was as HTML Flash as "C" ..... The website?
Oh yes it's Here
Amygdala 2 v 3 Unbeltipo
In the
all Japanese clash Amygdala's 2nd CD On the Soleiel Zeuhl label certainly lives
up to its name. Complex Combat follows on where their eponymous 1st offering
left off. It's brain altering stuff (:-) get it!?) that most reviewers are likening
to a cross between Univers Zero and Ruins. I must own up to having a bit of
a problem warming to many of the so called "Zeuhl style" japanese bands. Whilst
they have certainly got the energy and technical prowess I find the music too
clinical and lacking heart. Not sure how many other would agree but I don't
have the same issues with UZ or PRESENT. However in the absence of new RIO material
at least Amygdala are flying the flag. Try them out, but I think the BONDAGE
FRUIT VI CD might be a better choice.
On
a more upbeat note a band that I have been alerted to by the ever thoughtful
Pierre Tassone at Music
by Mail is Unbeltipo, Tsuneo Imahori's follow on band from his work with
Tipographica treads a slighty different path. Whether this is RIO or not has
now become a moot point (so there!) but Unbeltipo do have heart and plenty of
guts! It takes a while to tune it to this band but each of their 3 CD's have
left me cold on first listening but with a promise of more to come if would
just press that play button again! The result is I'm now a fan and would without
hesitation gladly recommend their latest CD Phesantism to any open minded soul
with a failsafe insurance policy. Buy it, listen to it 5 times and if you still
don't like it I'll buy it back from you and pay postage! As the Doctor said
to the man who came in complaining that he couldn't pronounce his F's or T's
"Well, you can't say fairer than that!"
David Wiley - Man or Hamster?
I know this website is not bang up to date, but I've been busy. Treading on
the wheel of life etc. Actually I've been lazy and nowhere near an exercise
treadmill. The same can be said for David Willey of Hamster Theatre fame. He's
getting lazy! Stomach's starting to bulge! Hasn't been on the wheel at all during
2007. Boo! Not that I'm really complaining because after taking the plunge and
investing my lazily earned dosh on his last trundle "The Public Execution
of Mister Personality/Quasi Day Room" (Cuneiform 2 x CD) I discovered the
joys of "Hamsterism". Light and playful but abounding with originality
and enthusiasm. You really have to listen to them as it's impossible to put
them into a category like say .... RIO.
The best short description of this band comes from the Alternative Press "...a
highly skilled chamber ensemble...offering a literate synthesis of rock, jazz
and European folk forms. You can't really put this music into a tidy little
compartment, but it's unforced, sophisticated and highly entertaining."
As a result I've back tracked (no pun intended he lied) and discovered the
other available works of the Hamster Man, including his 1995 "Songs from
the Hamster Theatre" by David Willey. Both this and "Public Execution
are still available at Wayside
Records along with "Siege On Hamburger City"
Thinking man's music
A band close to the Hamster's heart is Thinking Plague who are currently (as
I type) on tour here in Europe. I say "here" even though I don't live
in Europe. As everyone knows here in the UK (technically Europe) and there in
Europe (where we go for our hols) the UK is not and never will be part of Europe.
Anyway, I digress. Hopefully al this activity means there is the possibility
of a new album in the pipe line that I can nestle away next to "In Extremis"
and the Nearfest Live CD "Upon Both of your Houses" and of course
all there other juicy items! If you've never heard of Thinking Plague. Get a
copy of "In Extremis" somewhere from a shop in Europe or perhaps America
(which is an island of the UK's) and just get stuck in mes amis!
While we're on the subject of Thinking men's and women's music, here are a
few more new additions that it would be nice to conjure up and realise. These
are all "lifted" from the Wayside Music website and described as "in
the pipeline but with no fixed date"
BIRDSONGS OF THE MESOZOIC-Dawn of the Cycads: The Complete Ace of Hearts Recordings
(1983-1987) (will include over 40' of material never-before on CD of which 35'
has never been released before released!)
LARS HOLLMER-Viandra (nice new album with Michel Berckmans, Santiago Jimenz,
etc. Cuneiform is releasing this album for world-wide distribution OUTSIDE of
Japan in MAY)
MIRIODOR-Avanti! (not soon, so hold your horses)
PRESENT-new album (mostly recorded now. probably out in 2008 and to be released
by Ad Hoc)
ART ZOYD-Symphonie Pour Le Jour Où Brûleront Les Cités (original
1976 version - never before on CD!)
-Musique
Pour les Odyssee
-Generation Sans Futur
-Symphonie Pour Le Jour Où Brûleront Les Cités (familiar
version)
-Phase IV (unfortunately, all are Japanese-only mini-lp sleeve versions and
will be VERY pricey)
DEUS EX MACHINA-Imparis (new studio CD + live DVD : the studio CD is 55' and
contains 45' of new material and 1 older song revisted - the dvd contains 60
minutes of a 2006 concert in Paris professionally shot and edited and looking
pretty damn swank + extras: interviews + Paris backstage + Fabrizio plays solo
piano + excerpts from Manresa [Spain 2002] + excerpts from Chapel Hill [USA
1996] + excerpts from italian TV [1996] + an amazingly ridiculous music video
that the band did in 1993 that may have you asking for your money back (sorry,
no can do!): total time of DVD is about 2 hours)
Quick! Pocket the Orchestra
Here's a CD you really must get you're grubby little mits on before it vanishes
from all good high street stores and only turns up on ebay in ever upwardly
spiralling price brackets. The Pocket Orchestra (formerly Knebnagäuje)
were a short lived, late 70's band from Phoenix, Arizona, Their style is certainly
within the origianal boundaries of RIO and this brilliant "find" (for
want of a better word) by the sadly defunkt Israeli Label MIO Records has put
their two demo tapes onto this one CD. Whilst the sound quality is understandably
not Hi-Fi spec, the music is superb. Other items to sanp up before they disappear
are as follows: DECIBEL - 3 CD Box set (complete works of this great Mexican
bnad), MOSAIC - Ultimatum (LP reissue with bonus tracks) and BEGNAGRAD - Begnagrad
(LP reissue with bonus tracks and 20 + minute MPEG concert. That should be enough
to be getting on with but there's a whole lot more. Just done a quick search
on Ebay, Gemm and Wayside and the Pocket Orchestra is already threadbare!.
Yugen
How
would you like to hear a band that has influences from: Satie, Stravinsky, Schoenberg,
Cage, Reich, Zappa, Henry Cow, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, Univers Zero? Thought
you might, How would you like to listen to a band that's members have played
in the following bands: French TV, Spaltklang, Ulterior Lux, Stormy Six, Thinking
Plague, 5uus, Present, Blast, Ahvak? Yeah! Well get your credit card out of
your pocket, fend off the moths and order one online. What is great these days
is how easy it all is! Every band has a Myspace page here's Yugen's
And nearly all online shops have pretty uniform shopping carts. It's never been
easier to blow your dough on a hobby! Try it, let Yugen grab a slice of your
wad today
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