Goodies from GFreedom's Music Collection #7

                         LAZULI: 4603 Battements  (2011)

   Lazuli is a French band which was founded in 1998, and they have released 5 albums so far, with “4603 Battements” being their latest endeavor.

  The band’s current line-up is: Dominique Leonetti  - Vocals, guitar, mandolin/ Gédéric Byar – Guitar / Romain Thorel - Keyboards, French horn / Vincent Barnavol - Drums, percussions, marimba and Claude Leonetti  -  Léode.

   For those who might wonder what “Leode” is;  it is pretty much a unique mid-electronic plug guitar instrument that comes with a unique sound.  This instrument is used most of the times with distortion, and gives the band a very unique and personal sound. Another fact that gives Lazuli a unique sound is the use of French language in their songs. Well, there is a possibility that some people may find it not to their liking, but I believe that in Lazuli’s case the French language matches their sound perfectly.

  The album is a great combination of loud electric guitars mixed with more acoustic sounds, but also many melodic and darker parts. I mentioned it before, but I have to relate to ‘Leode’ once more. This bizarre instrument gives so unique a style to their sound which is very difficult for me to explain here. If you have never listened to it before you can’t simply understand what I’m talking about. That’s why my best advice could be to go and buy this record!  But not only for ‘Leode’.

Mostly because it is a really good record, with  great  production, interesting compositions, and in a nutshell it is a record worth every penny you will spend for it!

   The best moment which catches your attention right away, is the song 'Je Te Laisse Ce Monde' which is my most favorite by far. But above that, there are many other worthy songs here. For example, the more intimate ‘Le Miroir aux Alouettes’, the beautiful ‘Les Malveillants’, or the more trippy ‘Saleté de Nuit’.

Of course this is just my personal opinion, other people might feel differently about the songs which are included in this album.

   Speaking objectively, “4603 Battements” is surely a very solid and a very intriguing record, which I recommend not only to Progressive Rock fans, but also for eclectic listeners who wish to discover and enjoy unique bands.

   In the following video you can listen to 'Je Te Laisse Ce Monde' so you can have an idea about the band.

Thanks for reading... :) 

PROG & ROLL Radio show (15/9/2013) Top-5 & full playlist....

Good morning all! :)
   Last night we had one more Prog & Roll radio show as usual.
This time we thought of splitting the 2-hours show into 4 half hour parts, and on each part we would play a different music style.
So, on the first half hour we played some not so famous bands from England and Germany from the 70's, with the music style being mainly Krautrock and Heavy Rock. On the second part we played mostly  Hard & Heavy bands, on the third part again some not so famous bands from different countries, and on the fourth and last part, the style was more melodic and mellow with a Folk finale.
The main idea was to present some bands which are unknown, and we had never played before in our shows, because as we often like to say, radio is not only for enjoyment but it is also a good way of learning new bands songs etc.
  We had a good crowd last night listening and participating, and as it seemed the show and the music were very pleasant. We had 2 very nice hours, and everybody seemed happy & satisfied.
Well, that's the point, right?
 And as usual, we encouraged the listeners (old & new) to grade the songs we are playing, and once more they did. So, according to their grades here's last night's Top-5 songs:

1. Metallica: One
2. Tool: Sober
3. Loreena Mc Kennitt: All Souls Night
4. Mystery: Time Goes by
5. Dead Heroes Club: A Secret Never to be Told

I have to admit that the average points the Irish band 'Dead Heroes Club' achieved to gather were very surprising, but I'm guessing that some of our listeners from Ireland put some really high points in order to boost them, because... well, it's an Irish band! hehehe
  The first 3 songs in the Top-5 achieved to gather the minimum average of 8.5 points which is required in order to be able to participate in the final stage for "The Song of the Month". We have got 12 great songs in our list so far, and one more show before the contest. So I'm guessing in the end there will be about 15 songs participating in the contest for the title of the 'Song of the Month". This will be a really tough one I think!
  As for the whole playlist, you can see it here:

Part 1: AUDIENCE: Belladonna Moonshine / GRAVY TRAIN: The New One / JANE: Air / LUCIFER’S FRIEND: Ride the Sky / TWENTY SIX & THEN: At my Home.
Part 2: LED ZEPPELIN: Over the Hills & far Away / THE TEA PARTY: The River / RIVERSIDE: Artificial Smile / TOOL: Sober / METALLICA: One.
Part 3: ABSTRACTION LAYER: Glass Flower / BLUE MAMMOTH: Who we are / CLEPSYDRA: God or Beggar / DEAD HEROES CLUB: A Secret Never to be Told / FRUUPP: Prince of Darkness.
Part 4: GENESIS: Afterglow / MYSTERY: Time Goes by / MOSTLY AUTUMN: The Ghost Moon Orchestra / LOREENA Mc KENNITT: All Souls night / FAIRPORT CONVENTION: Meet on the Ledge / RALPH Mc TELL: Streets of London. 

GFreedom Team wants to thank all of you who joined last night, and altogether we had 2 hours of good music and nice company.
See you on next Sunday night again.
Till then, take care! :)
Have a  great week all, and thanks for reading...
 In the following video you can listen to the song that reached at No.1 last night...

 

GFreedom's Juke Box Nο.58

Hello all!
 Another Saturday came, and another 'Juke Box' post is here!
As many of you know already, every Saturday I'm posting here my top-5 songs for the week.
This week I was really busy with many things, so I didn't have so much free time to listen to music.
So this time I had limited options in order to make this list.
Anyway, without further ado, these are my 5 best songs for this week:

Genesis: The Lamia (The Lamb Lies down on Broadway) - 1974
Mostly Autumn: The Ghost Moon Orchestra (The Ghost Moon Orchestra) - 2012
Verbal Delirium: Sudden Winter (From the Small Hours of Weakness) - 2013
Chris De Burgh: Crusader (Crusader) - 1979
Mystery: Time Goes by (The World is a Game) - 2012

If any of you is in the mood, he/she can write as a comment here or at G+ his/her Top-5 songs or albums for this last week. It's interesting to see what music other people like to listen in their free time. And furthermore it's a good way to find out more bands and songs...
Here I'm posting 2 songs from my top-5 list for you to listen. First is the very beautiful 'Crusader' from Chris De Burgh, and second is the song 'Sudden Winter' from the Greek band Verbal Delirium.
Enjoy, and have a great weekend!
Thanks for reading... :)

                                        

The Progressive Rock Encyclopedia: C (Part 7): (Crucis & Curved Air)

                                                          CRUCIS
Crucis were a not so famous Argentinian band, formed in Buenos Aires in the mid '70's.
They were a 4-member-band, all of them locals with the only exception of their drummer (Gonzalo Farrugia) who was from Uruguay. They were active from 1974 until 1977 and they released 2 records: 'Crucis' (1976), and 'Los Delirios Del Mariscal' (1977).
   Their music is a typical '70's example, with emphasis on the keyboards. Their compositions are interesting, with surprising breaks, and more often instrumental. There are also some songs of course, with Spanish lyrics. Their second album is considered to be their best, because of the "maturer" sound, the longer and more sophisticated compositions, and the Jazz-Rock influences.
 In the following video you can listen to the instrumental piece 'Los Delirios Del Mariscal'.

                                           CURVED AIR
   Curved Air were formed in 1970 in England by musicians from mixed artistic backgrounds. This fact had  a major effect in their style and sound. Their music was a mixture of Progressive Rock, Folk Rock and Fusion, featuring many classical elements.
    Their first line-up was featuring Sonja Kristina (Vocals), Darryl Way (Violin), Francis Monkman (Keyboards) and Florian Pikkington (Drums). Along with 'High Tide' and 'East of Eden' they were the first British Rock bands to feature a violin in their sound. (But not the first in general, because "It's a Beautiful Day" and "The United States of America', both American bands, were the first to try it).
   Their first album 'Air Conditioning' was released in 1970, and reached at No.8 in the British album charts.
The next year (1972) 'Second Album' was released, which was a "maturer" and less experimental album. In 1972 'Phantasmagoria' was released, which was maybe their best work. In this album they added one more member to the band, the Bass player Mike Wedgwood.

After 'Phantasmagoria' and the long tour which followed, they almost split up. There were many problems among the members of the band, and as a result Darryl Way quit and he was replaced by Eddie Jobson (Violin). After the release of 'Air Cut' (1973) 2 more members quit the band: Mike Wedgwood (joined Caravan) and Eddie Jobson (joined Roxy Music).
  Although they had practically broken-up, Kristina made an effort to 'resurrect' the band. So she gathered the original line up, and with the addition of Stuart Coppeland on Drums (later became famous with Police), they released the albums 'Midnight Wire' (1976) and 'Airborne' (1977) which was their last official release.
   In 1990 they made a reunion for a concert in London, and from that concert the album 'Alive 1990' came out. Later the same year the album 'Lovechild' was released, which was containing unreleased material.
   In 2008 they made another reunion, and they are just giving concerts so far, without any new record on the horizon...
In the following video you can see the song "Marie Antoinette" performed live for the Belgian TV in 1972.

Goodies from GFreedom's Music Collection #6

                   CROSBY STILLS NASH & YOUNG: DEJA VU (1970)

   After the success of their first self-tilted album which was released in 1969, the talented American trio, decided to add one more member to their line-up. The new member was no other than the not so famous (at the time) Canadian musician/composer/singer Neil Young.The band became a quartet, and their name changed to Crosby Stills Nash & Young.
  According to Steven Stills estimation, the album took 800 hours (!) of studio time to record.  Although this number looks exaggerated, the truth is that they did spend many hours in the studio. And that's because all the tracks in the album (except of "Woodstock") were recorded as individual sessions by each member, with the others contributing when it was needed.
 There are two guest musicians in the album, Gerry Garcia (Grateful Dead) who plays pedal steel on "Teach your children", and John Sebastian who plays harmonica on the title track.
   The album was released on March 1970, it reached at No.1 on the album charts, and stayed there for one week. Also 3 singles entered the Top-40 singles charts, 'Teach your children' 'Woodstock' and 'Our house'.
In 2003 'Deja Vu' was placed at No.148 on Rolling Stone magazine's list with the 500 greatest albums of all time.
   On a personal note, I bought this record on vinyl when I was a teenager, it was destroyed after hours and hours of listening, I bought it again later on, and many years later I bought the cd version. Although my music likings are rather different than the music style here, it is a really good album, that every rock music fan should have in his/her collection.
If I had to rate this album, that would be: 3.5 out of 5.
   In the following video you can listen to one of  my most beloved songs from this album. It's called 'Almost cut my hair'.
Thanks for reading... :)

                          

PROG & ROLL Radio show (8/9/2013) Top-5 & full playlist....

Good morning everybody!
Last night we had the second Prog & Roll radio show of the new season. When we were making the playlist for this show we decided to play less "hard core" Progressive Rock, and try to play more songs from  Rock, Hard and Heavy groups.
The main idea was to make a "lighter" show for our audience. And so we did.
The result was very good I think, and the people who were listening to our show seemed to enjoyed it a lot! (As we understood from their reactions and the grades they were giving to the songs).
So, according to the audience's grades, these were the Top-5 songs from last night show:

1. The Beatles: I Want You (She's so Heavy)
2. The Who: Behind Blue Eyes
3. Judas Priest: Dreamer Deceiver
4. Fates Warning: Chasing Time
5. Savatage: Gutter Ballet

All those 5 songs (+ 1 more), gathered an average rating of 8.5 and more, therefore they are going to participate in the final stage for the "Song of the Month" contest. (The 6th song was Straight to my Heart by Camel).

And here you can see the full playlist from last night's Prog & Roll:

QUEEN: Killer Queen / GENESIS: Harrold the Barrel / MARILLION: Punch & Judy / ROXY MUSIC: All I want is you / RAINBOW: Still I’m Sad / URIAH HEEP: Traveller in Time / RUSH: Bastille Day / SOLARIS: The Lion’s Empire / TAMALONE: Good Earth Wine / JETHRO TULL: Nothing is Easy / PSYCHOTIC WALTZ: I Remember / SAVIOUR MACHINE: Legion / SAVATAGE: Gutter Ballet / GALAHAD: Termination / PORCUPINE TREE: Hatesong / SPOCK’S BEARD: Waste Away / FATES WARNING: Chasing time / JUDAS PRIEST: Dreamer Deceiver / THE WHO: Behind Blue Eyes / THE BEATLES: I Want You / TRAFFIC: Evening Blue / CRESSIDA: Summer Weekend of a Lifetime / CAMEL: Straight to my Heart.

GFreedom Team want to thank all the people who joined our show last night, and to all of you who are there on every Sunday and with your kind words are giving us strength and encouragement to continue...

Thank you all! :) 

P.S: In the following video you can listen to the song that reached at No.1 last night:

GFreedom's Juke Box Nο.57

Hello all!
This is the usual post I'm writing on every Saturday, and it is my weekly Top-5.
This week I dealt with music a lot, because of the preparations for the radio show, and for pleasure as well.
From all the songs I've listened, I managed to figure out which ones would go in my top-5.
So without further ado, here is my weekly Top-5:

Transatlantic: We all Need Some Light (S M P T) - 2000
Adventure: The Swan (Beacon of Light) - 2009
Pavlov's Dog: Of Once & Future Kings (Pampered Menial) - 1976
Trees: Murdoch (On the Shore) - 1970
Judas Priest: Dreamer Deceiver (Sad Wings of Destiny) - 1976

Have a great weekend everybody, and thanks for reading! :)

P.S: I chose two beautiful songs from my Top-5 to post here for you to listen.
On the first video is the song "We all need some light" from the Prog super group "Transatlantic".
On the second video is the song Dreamer Deceiver from Judas Priest's legendary album "Sad Wings of Destiny".
Enjoy! :) 

                          

                 

2nd PROG & ROLL Radio Show of the season...

Hello folks! :)
I'm writing this post in order to inform you that on this Sunday 8/9/13 we have the second radio show of the new season. Our show started again on the 1st of September, and it was quite a success.
On the first show, we thought of opening the new season with some noise, so our playlist was more Metal-orientated. (For the first hour at least). (If any of you want to check that playlist, you can find it in a couple of posts further down in this page).
For this Sunday we decided to make a more relaxing and happy playlist, which will be less of a "Prog" and more of a "Roll"... :P (Meaning that we will play more Rock tunes this time).
We have 23 excellent songs in our playlist, and we believe that the people who will join us are going to have some nice time.
 I want to remind you that Prog & Roll is a live show, and the broadcasting is in English & Greek language, because we have many people that are listening from Greece, and from many European countries as well.
We also have a very lively chatbox, and if you are in the mood you can chat with us and the other people that are online at the time.
 Well, that's all for now, and I hope that I'll see some of you online on Sunday night.
Greetings
GFreedom
P.S: If you want to log in just press this link: Just In Case Prog Radio. Our show starts at 20.00GMT.
Thank you...

TV Series: MAD DOGS (Season 3)

Here is a small review for the 3rd season of the English mini series named "Mad Dogs:".
As I mentioned in a previous post, I had never heard these series before, and I was pleasantly surprised when I decided to watch them. If anybody is interested to read that review, please check here: TV Series: Mad Dogs (Seasons 1 & 2)
 So, after having watched the first 2 seasons during a weekend, I was really curious to find out what would happen next.

*Spoiler*

Because at the end of season 2, things are taking a really bad turn (once more) for the 4 main characters.

*End of Spoiler*

Finally I found season 3 and watched it during an evening. (Every season consists of 4 episodes with an average playing time of 40-45 minutes each one). (In season 3 there is a 5th "Behind the scenes" episode).
The result was a bit disappointing I have to admit. This time they took the story too far! Yes, the actors are playing their characters very well, yes there is enough action and many dozes of black humor, but....
I don't know how to explain it without giving hints of what is going on.
So I will only say that this was the weakest of the 3 seasons, and I was really glad when I read that they are planning one more final season and that's it!
But in general "Mad Dogs" is a very interesting and easy going series to watch, and I surely recommend them!
If I had to grade the 3 seasons, this would be my rating:
Season 1: 8.00, Season 2: 7.30, Season 3: 6.70.
IMDB has a rating of 7.3.

And here you can watch a very small trailer for season 3:

                  

"Prog & Roll" radio show. Last night's Top-5 and full playlist....

Goodmorning all!
Last night we had our first radio show for the season.
We faced many difficulties and technical problems the previous days, but we were able to short them out just on time! pheww...
 Because of the almost 2.5 months break we were both very happy to start again, but also kind of stressed if everything will go ok. Finally everything was fine and smooth.
 We had in mind to make this new start a bit noisy, and that's what we did. For the first part at least.
During the first half hour we played more Heavy songs, and we continued with a theme second half hour.
The theme was "The tragic concert summer of Greece". In that part we played songs from bands that gave live performances in Greece this summer. 
 During the second hour we slowed down the rhythm a lot, and we played more cool music.
   For those who don't know it, we like to play a little "game" with our audience.
We ask them to grade the songs we play according to their likings. (The points are from 1-10) So, at the end of the show we make some calculations, and we find out the Top-5 songs of each show. But that's not all... The songs that are achieving to make an average of 8.5 or higher, are going to a separate list, and in the first show of every month, we play all those songs once more, and our audience is voting again. And the song which is achieving the highest rating is named as "The Song of the month".
  On last night's show we played 21 songs in total, and 3 of them achieved to gather the minimum of 8.5 points that are required in order to be able to participate in the final stage.
 In the following list you can see last night's Top-5:

1.Van Der Graaf Generator: House with no Door (Av. rating: 8.60)
2. Dead Can Dance: Radharc (Av.rating: 8.57)
3. Shadow Gallery: Ghost of a Chance (Av.rating: 8.51)
4. Pink Floyd: When the Tigers Broke Free
5. Van Morrison: Streets of Arklow

 And here you can see the whole playlist:
1st Hour: Black Sabbath: End of Beginning / Distorted Harmony: Breathe / Epica: Unleased / Dunwich: Escape from Innsmouth / Siena Root: As we Return / Riverside: Out of Myself / Septic Flesh: Therianthropy / Dead Can Dance: Radharc / Pink Floyd: When the Tigers Broke Free /  Neal Morse: Heaven in my Heart  2nd Hour: Eloy: De Labore Solis /  Crippled Black Phoenix: Hold on / Subsignal: The Last Light of Summer / Crusis: Los Delirios del Mariscal / Trees: Geordie / Van Morrison: Streets of Arklow / Led Zeppelin: Going to California / Emerson Lake & Palmer: Lucky Man / Shadow Gallery: Ghost of a Chance / David Bowie: Five Years / Van Der Graaf Generator: House with no Door.

I want to thank all of you that joined our show last night, and all together we had 2 very enjoyable hours filled with nice music. 

In the following video you can listen to the song that reached at No.1 last night...