Riverman Music /
The Seventh Dawn : Dreams + 6 (US,1977,re.2008)****+°°°
distr.: Bella Terra Rec.
The band did record one more album at the Virginia University’s electronic music department. It has a more ambitious lead and more pushing but emotionally driven energy, an energy burst which on the first two tracks is symbolized by the use of the breaking out of a storm, first as a distorted sound with the electrified guitar on the intro, and then with the sound of the breaking out of the storm itself, with piano and up tempo on beat drums with cymbals and then with additional energy some fuzz guitar outbreaks. This conceptualized and still fragile creativity brings for me very much the “Ithaca” album in mind. The beautiful analogue and sometimes somewhat mellotron-alike synthesizer arrangements however can make an association with Emtidi’s “Saat”. These two associations will give an idea of many of the present the elements, like the moody use of amplified guitars, small reverb on the vocals or second guitars, the male, female or dual vocals, the keyboard arrangements and the minimal use of drums. Especially the up tempo drumming sounds slightly amateurish in its strictness (2,4), but without disturbing much, because the whole album shows a great flow and structure, which has good ideas and a few times wahwah effects in the evolution (7). There are instrumental breaks, the arrangements and vocal leads alternate brilliantly to make this album work well. The vulnerable naivety of some of the more sparse songs luckily is adapted well into the musical concept.
The bonus tracks, from the same sessions, are also lesser arranged tracks, sounding more naked, but with that little spacey reverb still working well. Only the harsher recording of the also less appealing song “Hating you” (15) and “Jack Daze” (16) for me should have been left out.
The band continued to exist, starting some gigs and with some line up changes until 1981.
Extremely limited, so be quick !
