CONCEPTUAL EXPERIMENTATIONS (1998)

User tags: elp kingcrimson epic soundscape

This album is remarkably easy to describe by analogy: King Crimson meets up with ELP in classic Genesis concept-album territory. :-)

Marching confidently down the road created by such classic masters of early progressive rock, Conceptual Experimentations (1998) is quite a masterpiece in that genre, its tracks being epic compositions that give the middle finger to today's 3-minute track rule and media-induced Attention Deficit Disorder. Four of Sébastien Gramond's five tracks range from 13 to over 18 minutes in length, and they fill their lengths with interesting variation, not repetition.

The compositions are pretty amazing (unless you have ADD :P).

Track 1 "Happy To Be" gives the Crimson + ELP sound free reign, and is highly satisfying in that mold. It's an intense soundscape of the kind that Crimson delivered on Deja VROOOM, and evolves a lot while exploring its music territory. Vocals makes an appearance halfway through for a few bars, and descend into "vocal sound effects" for a short while, but don't take a lead.

Track 2 "Neuralgia" explores broader ground, evolving the earlier progressive rock into the jazz fusion area -- this wouldn't sound out of place in a Chick Corea or Weather Report album. It's a very well designed creative piece.

I'm not sure what track 3 "So Easy" is doing on the album. At under 3 minutes long and not having anything in common with the rest of the album, but being some sort of light pop song with poor vocals and nothing interesting in its instrumentation, I'm going to ignore it in my rating, else it would have a very negative effect.

Track 4 "Hither And Thither" gets King Crimson and ELP back in gear, but hitches in some classic Genesis too, back from the days when they wrote intricate concept albums rather than pop songs. Even Yes puts in a presence, although that could be because of the occasional similarity between Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman on keyboards. It gets a fusion jazz feel towards the end from the use of what sounds like a fretless bass as a lead instrument.

Track 5 "Austral Winds" has a different sound using a lead keyboard voice that could be described as "tympanic guitar", but no less classic and highly effective. A strong composition that combines keyboard and rock guitar very effectively, halfway through it hints at Genesis' The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway before evolving into a tympanic frenzy and then slowing down for a curious Floyd-meets-ELP finish.

In a word: FANTASTIC!

Thank goodness that someone is still producing symphonic compositions in progressive rock, amid the musical desolation of the 3-minute era. Well done Sébastien Gramond.