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Fantastic but challenging 2014 Melodic Prog that comes in a Triple Panel Matt Card Sleeve that provides a perfect partner to the dark and dramatic audio!
* Please click on the Video icon in the right corner above to listen to a promotional YouTube Audio track *
Scandinavian Prog Rock legends KAUASUS comprise of: Rhys Marsh (vocals / electric guitar / acoustic piano / bass guitar / Fender Rhodes / Mellotron / drum machine / pedal steel guitar), Ketil Vestrum Einarsen (alto & soprano flutes / tenor horn / treated flute / hulusi / electric piano / saxxy / spektrals / EWI synthesizer) and Mattias Olsson (drums / percussion / Mellotron / Orchestron / Optigan / Moog Taurus / VCS3 & Mother modular system / baritone guitar / bass marimba).
Each member hails from a different set of Scandinavian bands, among which there are some very familiar names to CDS Customers such as: MOTORPSYCHO, AUTUMN GHOST, ÄNGLAGÅRD and WHITE WILLOW. These guys have recently joined forces as KAUKASUS to record and release an outstanding adventurous debut album.
Starting life as an experiment into the Krautrock style, the project morphed into a fully fledged, modern sounding, dark, Nordic, Progressive Rock album, with elements and excursions stylistically into Art-Rock and Krautrock, and just touching on World Music. Big name bands as diverse as UK, KING CRIMSON, CAN, JAPAN, RAIN TREE CROW and artists like Brian Eno and early Peter Gabriel can be heard as influential in KAUASUS music.
You may even pick-up on similarities to the more bombastic music featured on the later Steven Wilson releases?
According to their biog, KAUKASUS view themselves as a musical tripod - it's weight firmly in the middle, where the three musicians ideas and styles meet, each band member bringing their own signature to the music, from Olsson's supple and dynamic drumming and Mellotron textures, Marsh’s impassioned vocals and guitar work, to the strange, snakelike and evocative woodwind and synth lines from Einarsen.
This debut album from a trio that some might see as a Norwegian supergroup, is a bit of a revelation!
It really is an outstanding, innovative release that, while there are subtle influences present, reveals a unique, fresh, powerful and exciting approach to the Art/Prog-Rock genre from KAUKASUS! Make no mistake, these guys are a well-oiled unit of musicians with a lot of experience in the business behind them, so you look for music from the band that’s inventive and a bit special, groundbreaking even – and that’s exactly what we get with ‘I’!
The sound is melodic, but can be diverse and challenging in places!
Often dark and moody, sometimes atmospheric, stark and minimal, other times bombastic, dramatic and very aggressive, and then there are passages where it is symphonic and occasionally tinted by sombre melancholy and becomes heart wrenchingly beautiful – ‘I’ really does ride through a gamut of moods!
It is keyboard and percussion driven Art-Rock of a high calibre, with an equal space given to instrumental and vocal arrangements. The standards of song writing and vocals are high, and that’s always a plus with a new Prog band!
The trio record use many vintage equipment within the instrument line-up, like the Mellotron for instance – an instrument that is so well favoured by so many Scandinavian Prog bands, and again, it’s put to good use here, especially for the darker passages… just the way it should be! J
Good as it is though, don’t expect an easy ride from ‘I’ – A bit like many KING CRIMSON albums, it is a “grower” that takes a few airings to reveal its full splendours, and so it’s definitely one for the more discerning Prog listeners among you… and if you’re a Mellotron geek, well then, say no more…
KAUKASUS: I Track List:
01. Ending Of The Open Sky (5:34)
02. Lift The Memory (8:53)
03. In The Stillness Of Time (5:57)
04. Starlit Motion (5:21)
05. Reptilian (9:10)
06. Witness (4:18)
07. Skies Give Meaning (8:06)
TPT – 47:23