Monday 19 September 2016

Ocean Orchestra, from 1979 Germany [lossless available]






Sadly we present this too late for the glorious summer just passed to which it would have been a fitting tribute, coming from the one-off Beach Records...  thanks to my friend for ripping in such a professional manner and allowing us to share here.

Another huge German soul rock band here with the population of a small village in the Alps, their LP is a bit of a mixed bag with some ordinary rock, soul, but some very interesting instrumentals without which I wouldn't have bothered to post.

This large cruiseship seems to have been anchored down by H. Gronemeyer (who, oddly enough, acted in the most famous German movie of all time-- Das Boot-- and who later founded a record label) and Bernt Laukamp, a trombonist and composer.

Part Two of You Can't Win:





A stunningly exciting and dramatic composition by one J.P. Ostendorf who was clearly, for most of his life, a 'modern classical' composer.  His presence in this band should provoke a little bit of surprise, especially since some of his contributions here are quite poppish, though it seems analogous to Jobski's (who composed the famous prog LP Einstein in Eden) in the previous Messengers band.

Note also the appearance of M. Stockhausen (who is credited with the wonderful track B3, Song of the Waves), son of the famous composer Karlheinz generally considered one of the greats of 20th century music:





Trumpterer/composer Markus had a great discography with the albums Aqua Sansa (with master J. Van't hof) and Continuum (with Burninghaus) both highly, highly recommended, being thoughtful, gorgeous and well-written ECM-style jewels.

How unfortunate those two masterminds couldn't have stormed the bridge of this oceangoing vessel, manned the helm, and steered them towards some really progressive sounds-- would they then have made too many waves?



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