(Psychedelic Rock/Eclectic Prog) Culpeper's Orchard, 1971-1972 (2 альбома), MP3 (tracks), 320 kbps

This album is the first Danish prog record (or record of anykind from that country!) which I have heard, and it's really a very good album. Though the opener "Banjocul" is quite unneccesary intro without anything interesting happening in it, the following "Mountain Music part 1" really shows the band's talent and their style, that being artistic bluesy hard rock of the early 70's with many kind of details and influences in their sound, creating an unique and personal record. Layers of acoustic guitars soften the quiet parts, which contrast the more faster and heavier parts, creating nice tensions to the songs. Compositions are also quite sophisticated, and the majority of the music is controlled stuff: Lot's of surprising rhythm changes an arrangements for larger amount of instruments. All this is also nicely contrasted with moments of free jamming, and the music sounds free, relaxed and powerful. In the first song's guitar work I'm hearing some similarities in the playing of THE WHO's Peter Townshed style, aggressive rock'n'roll riffs with manic rhythming and roaring sound. The heaviness of this music could be compared to early 70's DEEP PURPLE, only that these guys are much more personal and their music is much more artistic and richer with nyances that the Brittish group mentioned. "Hey You People" is a short upright acoustic piece with multiple vocal harmonies, and it leads directly to "Teaparty for an Orchard", over a six minutes long track with euphoric acoustic beginning, which morphs as a another sequence with different melodies trough an acid soundscape. "Ode to Resistance" has some nice flutes, and as these are companied with an acoustic guitar, baritone vocals and interesting hard rock punches, this could be compared with "Aqualung" era JETHRO TULL. "Gideon's Trap" sounds then like PROCOL HARUM, as it builds up from minor steady beated bluesy tune with piano, organ and bursting solo guitar in the end. The theme of the first song continues in the end, creating a loose concept structure to this fabulous album, which I would really recommend to al those who like artistic 70's classic rock music. What is really pleasant to my ear are also the vocals, as they are not done in the usual fjord vocals style of the days of this record (URIAH HEEP's vocals were called as such, sounding like somebody is falling of a fjord in a very cold day). Check this band out when you find their albums!

The second album of this Danish group has very similar sound textures as their first album, having acoustic, carefully constructed harmonies analogue organs and beautiful singing melodies painting lush feelings, being paired with upright rock'n'roll passages. In addition of the more delicate and dynamic parts, there are also some quite straightforward and more unimaginative moments here, like the track "Classified Adds", a phenomena which exists also on their first album. The beginning of the fourth tune "Late Night Woman Blues" returns back to more ethereal feelings, morphing as a traditional blues number with acoustic slide guitars and amplified rhythm guitars. The fifth song "Mind Pollution / Weather Report" starts then as a more traditional sounding folk number, with still some bluesy element echoing underneath the dreamy sequence, later opening up as a more straightforward rocker. Though there are quite basic rock sequences in this music, the tracks evolve in pleasant way from one feeling and element to another, creating nice contrasts and increasing the musical content to the conventional rock'n'roll passages, making the music pulse with feelings. Again on the next song "Autumn of It All" track the music returns to the folky moods, and the last song "Satisfied Mind" continues the folk style, but maybe moving towards more American country folk music, a style where I understood that part of the band members moved after this release. Though there's some skillful rock jamming on the presented themes in the end of the song, maybe this track wasn't my cup of tea still.
This probably won't make their stuff more poorer, but it surely makes this more mainstream music in my opinion. If you like bands like LED ZEPPELIN, URIAH HEEP, NAZARETH, THE WHO etc. and want to check out something more exotic but little similar, I would recommend this record and also the first album of CULPEPER'S ORCHARD as exceptionally good targets for purchasing and listening!
PS. The album cover picture is done by the Swedish artist John Bauer, and the work is named as "Ännu sitter Tuvstarr kvar och ser ner i vattnet" ("Tuvstarr is still sitting there wistfully looking into the water") from the year 1913. If the style of the illustration should please you, try searching works with his name, as there are much more in my opinion very beutiful fantasy themed works from him available!