Van Der Graaf Generator (1971) Angle of Incidents - LOST70SGEMS

This track was criminally left off their fourth album, Pawn Hearts, but deserves another listen, as in five short minutes you can almost imagine a whole scenario.


We get some tentative tom tom pounding from Guy Evans; it slowly get things started racking up the tension in their muted poly-rhythm. Then the snare bursts in, playing some marching band inspired double stroke rolls, similar to the kind employed by their dark-prog rivals, King Crimson in 21st Century Schizoid Man; where it gave an 'Iron Man' mechanical quality to a song about the rise of dystopian warfare.

It swiftly turns into a feeding frenzy as a horde of saxes break onto the scene like elephants from Hannibal's March. Squeaks of wild birds are also channelled from the very powerful lungs of David Jacksons as his fantastic saxophone parts dominate the mix. His deafening elephantine squeals could crack an ear drum but also make your most primal instincts flair up. The rabid squawking of David Jackson's 'double horn' approximate the cacophony you would hear under a jungle canopy. While the depth of the chamber reverb create a feeling as if a faint echo from a prehistoric age when beasts stomped the earth.
But the key is the reverse echo, clipping and sucking the various elements till it distorts, anteing up into swirling cauldron of sounds, panning in and out and endlessly rotating. Soon the maddening layers of drums and brass ramp up as the beat goes fully ballistic; the creatures are now in heat. Now all manner of ghastly sounds blare out from bleats to yelps; some saxes even seem to bear a guttural gargle like sound of cockerels, while others shriek like deranged monkeys going haywire under a molten sun. Reverse echoes add an urgency to proceedings as if things are spinning around and the saxes are sped up to raise their pitch before an abrupt finish; a glass pane smashes.


What follows is a collage of sounds playing out like some sort of nightmarish orgy in the middle of the African bush. A trebly signal pulses from left to right channel like tge reflections of a wiffleboard, and a key chain sound zips just like the sound a tape measure makes when it retracts. This plants an image in my mind of a grasshopper, praying mantis or smaller insects like a beetle scuttering along.

Smaller glass objects smash all around like crystal goblets dropping out of the hands of people suddenly caught off guard. You can almost picture nature launching an attack on some colonial retreat in the middle of a savage terraplane. Next are some sharp zaps that resemble ray gunfire, but ricochet out like that of aimless musket fire from heavily outnumbered imperialists. The saxes pierce simultaneously in horrid screams and booming battle cries as cymbals crash all around us to add to the mayhem and chaos; even a gong can be briefly heard. The whooping alto-sax is the key ingredient it could be any animal with it's curdling and the way the baritone saxes bay like a herd of stampeding Mûmakils marauding the dusky East African dry lands. But it's no good; the snare and saxes return in a barrelling assault as the elephants and creatures of the jungle retake man's outpost.

It ends with those insects scurrying over the debris, as if kicking over some glass shards, at the bottom of the food chain they enjoy little of the remains of the day; they may only feast once the larger mammals' bloodlust have been fully quenched.

Peter Hammill (1974) Gog/Magog (In Bromine Chambers) - LOST70sGEMS

The two-part song starts with some haunting organs and springy bass pluck sliding in on top of it as well as some drums rattling all around it. The creepiness is immediate as Hammill gets his cue wrong and we hear start the line twice, as he reveals 'some have me Satan, others have me..GOG!' The bizarre cadence that follows no accessible melody but instead seems to follow a more theatrical monologue as Hammill's voice rises with the droning church organ, soon some hyperspatial  reverbs animate his voice to demonic proportions as his vocal takes on more resonance. He pushes his voice to a croaky raw as he rails about the 'corridors of power'. His voice increases in electronic processing, cascading in terse static yelps, the dreaded organ sound just keeps searching in the background. By four minutes in I am completely spooked as Hammill sings with a very pronounced phasing and chorusing that echoes back in response, it's chaotic as the bombastic drums add more violence to this earth flattening composition. His strange (there's no other way to put it) vocal mannerisms are so draconian, he belts intentionally with little breath to gain a ragged, strained muster to it, embodying that of a coiled beast, or a werewolf undergoing some sort of transformation. The bass player plucks some nice notes before the track soon transitions with the drums heavily panned back and forth.


We're now thankfully it seems in Magog, the musique concrete half of the composition, but things are only about to get scarier and more ingenious in their ability to unnerve you with just the slightest of everyday objects and production technique. There is a whirring bass signal, the panned drums somehow as if by Magick transform into some more ordinary clutter sounds, still oscillating as does something dissonant like a alien radio or a Metalic organ. An armchair creaks, as do several other objects which glow with an electronic whoosh as they rattle back and forth.
Some timbales rustle like wind chimes, a foghorn briefly toots its horn (I think that's what it is)as more tapping on planks of wood or some sort of surface pan back and forth veering from right to left channel endlessly. 

 It's like a haunted house effect but a spatial audio version and far more terrifying, I propose listening to this in the dark with a pair of decent headphones in the dark should become a true Halloween custom, if you dare! The tapping could either be a ball bouncing down some stairs, or the devil at this point..and I continue to hear some sort of horn you hear on cruise ships but that could just be me. 

Some faint industrial sound effects are in the background, either recordings of a steam train chugging or the heavily treated clanging of a factory floor, who can trust their ears at this point.
There are now all kinds of soundings peeking out from the depths, a strange spring, some sawing sounds, and the rumble and phasing of an echoplex and some of it's feedback as it crackles away like cockroaches on flypaper. I hear a bell toll, probably the clearest sound so far and most recognizable as a brooding bout of bass heavy noise rumbles and Hammill begins to throat yodel like a 12th century monk in the dark caverns of a well as the bell is struck with immediacy and panic like a village being warned of an incoming danger. 

As he warbles a second voice in a very distorted filter chants intelligible incantations; the filter is incredibly crackled, electronically rendered and has that thin tinny, distant tone you would get from a megaphone. A mix of modern and old as the disembodied voice sounds like some evil overlord sending a warning, odd collages of sound continue in the background full of vibrations and white noise, once recorded sounds now some mangled wall of sound transformed from its original audio source as another wooden or steel object is dropped into something hollow to give a rippling 'plop', maybe 'ball in a cup', everyone's favourite pastime!

We get invaded by a litany of cracks like pots and pans being played come across as the static continues to oscillate and undulate into something more smoother, and audio waves rise in the mix to a more mellifluous whole. Soon some reverse echoed gongs, flexatones and pots and pans sear across the mix along with the introduction of a saw at one point, the wobbly signals seem to coalesce and provide a seeming score from all this before abruptly ending and we get more goofy percussion and bird whistles. The pulsing sound never goes away, the soup of sound keeps burrowing away into our ears, it becomes an elephantine bray towards the end as more clear-cut objects beak through. The delay continually adds a computerised tremolo and the frequent cracks of objects make for an audial nightmare bar none.

Quicksilver (1970) Good Old Rock and Roll - LOST70sGEMS

What About Me (1970) features a wonderfully mellow yet tripped out cacophonous jazz jam full of flute and wiry rhythms not to mention a lilting dreamlike quality like a more tripped out Santana; though the loud blasting chorus vocals will soon wake you with a startle as David Freiberg yearns, a funky guitar clanks away, horns punch through vibrantly and ghostly effects 'whoosh' away like an organ. The driving blues stomp of Local Colour reintroduces their traditional love of roots music as does the song Baby Baby which if you took away the funky drumming could've easily fitted on any 60s gospel country record with it's hoe hum drawl. The same could be said for the bluegrass Don't Kill Me aside from the slight satanic howl in David Freiberg's delivery and of course their love of the cathedral drenched reverb effect. Long Haired Lady is a very 60s sounding highlight with it's psych countrified folk balladry style not as in vogue as it was a year before but the echoplex cracks, the slight flanging (or phasing) and muffled production add a muggy submerged atmosphere that ramps up capturing this foggy drug induced melee of thoughts as Freiberg's vocals are echoed by a more aggressive inner voice towards the end. 

Subway is a groovy and very dated Hendrix lite romp, very derivative of Crosstown Traffic by the great Jimi himself; I'd skip it if it weren't for the circular guitar riffs at the root of the song. Nicky Hopkins' Spindrifter is a truly magnificent instrumental, his lead piano melodies surge forth accompanied by acoustic arpeggios and tough shuffle beats but his choice of stallion wedding march chords with a very loose sense of groove and a trickly solo overdubbed on top towards the end is very reminiscent of his work with the Stones. Good Old Rock and Roll is another murky echo chamber reverbed track with an oriental tinged rocker and some hippie lyrics and braying vocals; the distant piano solo with a guitar solo over it does sound incredible on headphones like a hazy dream. All in my Mind is a samba song with some mellifluous vocals and playing and a creaky intro; Sergio Mendes and Brasil 66 they may not be but it certainly suits their drugged out productions and their jazz guitar work is often very good. Last track Call on Me is less flavourful with it 60s rock vibe only distinguished by some pretty terse horn parts and far longer than necessary outro.