Wydawnictwo 21
Bayon : -First recordings 1971-1973- (D/CAM,1971-1973)**°°
Bayon’s two core members were the East-German band leader Christoph Theusner and the Cambodian member Sonny Thet, (who came to Eastern Germany to study western classical music), together with a whole group of musicians, which were often students from Cuba, Vietnam and Cambodia.
From their homepage’s biography in German I will translate a resume of this to get a good background picture of the band :
In his early years Christoph had worked mostly with more heavy rock & blues associations with J.Hendrix interests, but without falling back on easy patterns. With Bayon he wanted even more to work out a sort of harder to classify musical structure with classical foundations, which are meditative, and which have mood depending different sections, like in suites. Bayon is a Cambodian God-like figure with four heads looking in heaven’s 4 directions. The same way the music of Bayon should not direct in rock, folk, jazz or classical standards but looks further away with all of this. This challenge works further on the public which can’t fall back on personal standards and expectations, so it is only with the help of their own sensibility and fantasy that they can fully understand the music. From their early days, the band made stage scene music, like for Heiner Müllers Drama “Der Traktor / Die Schlacht”, radio plays and film music, always with the idea to create an art form, and without fleeing ever into mannerism.
This compilation features more or less most recordings from their earliest period, years before their first LP from 1977. Here you can hear well how the band organises itself in the way it was intended. Most of the tracks show their vision very well to combine the already mentioned styles into a convincing independent form.
“Stand in the middle of the rain” is a nice minor key song accompanied by acoustic and amplified guitar and flute improvisation. The improvisation has a rock context but also a jazzy flavour, besides there clearly is also some classical arrangement involved. Especially the acoustic guitar in it changes its flavours in some different sections. The next song, “The Night”, has come to bluesier associations a few times. In the same way as the first track, it has ideas of splitting the song into different, subtle, well hanging together contexts which are classical arranged like a suite. Also here are some flute improvisations involved and it also features some conga percussion. “The Lark” is a translation of a Cambodian folk dance into German. Also this is done very well, because while keeping the traditional context intact, and while still remaining relatively close to this context, in the arrangements there are added rock/blues and folk flavours to it, and a few classical arrangements. The next Cambodian traditional, “Oh, Mango Tree” however unfortunately is not worked out equally well, and didn’t come to the sort of suite-context which all other tracks have. There is some cello added, but the track could have been worked out better, especially when compared to all the others. “Synthetic Waltz”, after this, for a large part is a bit more jazz-rock orientated (also for one violin part and some vocal improvisation part). It also includes more flute improvisation, amplified guitar, and drums and bass which don’t contribute from the start. The last track, “The Bayon-Suite” is, -even when it is the earliest recording included-, worked out best, and might be also the most rewarding track, or at least show the talent of the band most clearly. It is a larger suite in various parts of over 12 minutes, and is arranged at first with organ, drums, choir vocals, and so on, keeping a song context, which parts are sung with some emotional strength. There’s also a jazzier part in it mixed with classical composition but in a rock context, a complex rhythmic part, and of course the song parts. The last improvisational part of it includes harpsichord, jazzy electric bass and flute, and on top of that a wahwah electric guitar solo. This electric guitar part might be the only reference to Christoph’s earliest electric guitar solo interests. This last improvisation part is a mixture of bluesrock and jazzrock with a certain psych effect, and, like always, with some classical touch nearby. This track was published before, in 1972, on the Amiga-sampler “Hallo nr.2”. I have to give notice that there also was a “Bayon Suite II” published, in 1973, on “Hallo nr.9”, but this was not included on this compilation ; but I’m not sure if this last, live track, is a different piece or not.
The liner notes add that after this early period, the band experimented with jazz-rock in 1973, and since 1975 combined chamber rock with elements of folk, jazz and contemporary music, all of which can be noticed already here in their early form.
