SBB ‎– "Ze Słowem Biegnę Do Ciebie" (Polskie Nagrania Muza ‎– SX 1434) 1977

Two side long prog workouts,hitting every shade and hue of the Prog Rock Rainbow. A veritable cornucopia of funny time signatures and virtuosity. A smorgasbord of different tempo's and ........I'll stop now.
Basically its a rather good, if not the finest, SBB LP, treading that fine line between Jazz Rock Fusion, and Symphonic space rock.
Whats more is that there's another lengthy prog Rock excursion added as a bonus track. And once again,its never boring or derivative,and so opposite to what the capitalist bloc was selling us in 1977,that if you were a 'Real Punk', this is what you should have been listening to while your mates were enjoying themselves at a Sham 69 concert.

Tracklist:

1 Ze Słowem Biegnę Do Ciebie 19:14
2 Przed Premierą 19:29

Bonus Track:
3 Odejście (Tęsknota/Wyzwolenie/Odejście/Rozłam/Pojednanie) 29:07

DOWNLOAD the opposite to sham 69 in '77 HERE!

SBB ‎– "Pamięć" (Polskie Nagrania Muza ‎– SX 1345) 1976

I often asked my Father whether he'd like to go back to lower Silesia, and revisit his prison camp, to which he replied....."Ooya Bugger!You must be bloody joking! Bloody awful place,flat boring landscape and full of funny Buggers.".......yes, he'd have voted Brexit;But, as the theme of this album seems to be something to do with Fathers and family history, I will let that go, quoting track two,english version in brackets, "From Whose Blood is my Blood". Funnily enough he never had a bad word to say about the Germans!? The French were dismissed as ,and I quote, "A Shower of Shite!"
He'd be turning in his grave if he knew I now live in France.I can now confirm that they aren't quite the shower de merde that he thought they were,butJust as dislikeable,rude,and full of shit as all humans are.....some more than others.....and i'm not excluding myself from this observation before you jump in!
I did put my fathers remains, "Craddled in my Hands" (track one),around the graves of his perished Bomber crew near St Nazaire where they were buried (as documented earlier in this blog,including his very entertaining memoires for download). Scattering his ashes in the small war graves commision cemetery there.I'm sure he'd be satified with that.
So I dedicate this posting of some rather marvellous symphonic polish Prog ,"Ojcu"....(see also track one)


Tracklist:

1 W Kołysce Dłoni Twych(Ojcu)/In The Craddle Of Your Hands(To My Father) 9:09
2 Z Których Krwi Krew Moja/From Whose Blood, My Blood 10:13
3 Pamięć W Kamień Wrasta/Memory Grows Into Stone 19:53

Bonus Tracks:
4 Poranek Nadziei 4:27
5 Barwy Drzewa 2:01

6 Osiem Rąk 4:40
7 Waldie 9:13
8 Niedokończona Progresja 6:24
9 Reko-Reko 4:31
10 Serenada Gia Sena 4:58

DOWNLOAD more prog from poland HERE!

SBB (Silesian Blues Band) - "Nowy Horyzont" (Polskie Nagrania Muza ‎– SX 1206) 1975

SBB themselves...ahhhh they look all sad!?

Remember when Gary Glitter 'retired' and the band behind the great man carried on....the pure liquid genius that was 'The Glitter Band'?...yes?
Well SBB were the genius behind Czeslaw Niemen.
An acronym for the Silesian Blues Band, they were thee best Prog band in Poland, if not the whole Soviet Bloc, and within a chance to be the best in Europe?....well maybe that's going a little too far,but, musicianship-wise, they were smoking daddio!
As their former leader, Singer and keyboard leg end, Mr Nieman went on a electronic journey to the centre of the cosmos, the rockier side of his myth went on a progressive journey to fit as many notes, time signatures, and tempo changes into the medium of Rock fusion as possible. That sounds like my kinda shit....and it is.
I have a family connection with Silesia, as my dear departed Daddy spent three years there as a prisoner of war of the occupying Nazi's.The fucking Germans tried to kill him!?....what were they thinking of? 
But, now we're all friends in that wonderful concept of peace...the European Union......no....wait....the UK don't wanna be friends no more?......which reminds me to remind all forward thinking Brits who may read this before dec 12th, to vote tactically and fuck over your local Tory. There's a small chart in the side column of this blog. Target numero uno is Rees-Mogg, then Posh Fat-Boy Johnson himself.

Tracklist:

1.Na Pierwszy Ogień (Curtain Raiser) 3:15
2.Błysk (A Flash) 2:45
3.Nowy Horyzont (The New Horizon) 7:47
4.Ballada O Pięciu Głodnych(A Ballad About The Five Hungry Ones) 3:55
5.Wolność Z Nami (Freedom With Us) 20:00

Bonus Tracks:
6 Xeni 6:39
7 Penia 15:59
8 Dyskoteka 6:55
9 Na Pierwszy Ogień 6:49

DOWNLOAD a new horizon from silesia HERE!

Czesław Niemen ‎– "Idée Fixe I + "Idée Fixe II" ( Polskie Nagrania Muza ‎– SX 1570-1571, Polskie Nagrania Muza ‎– SN 0770) 1978

You gotta love the Polish haven't you?
On the day that the sad nation of Little England Brexiteers learned that the three men, armed with a Narwhal's tusk (don't ask where he got that from!?) and a Fire Extinguisher, wrestled a knife weilding Terrorist* to the floor during the London Bridge attack last friday(during which two persons were killed! RIP), were....POLISH!.....yep the very same 'immigrants' that are stealing those jobs nobody wants,working all hours, and paying taxes so that Brexit Party supporters can receive their disability benefits.

Our Polish Heroes in action

"Why don't they go back to where they came from?"...will still be muttered when they find out that these heroes were dirty scrounging Foreign types.
As some unashamed and anonymous xenophobe required me to stick to the music in the comments section of Holy Toy's otherwise excellent "Panzer and Rabbits" post,I shall now post a classic Polish Prog masterpiece in tribute to these fine EU citizens who acted, while passing Brits filmed it on their mobile phones.

*Incidently, the 'terrorist' was a British citizen,from Stoke-on-Trent (which is no excuse!), who was let out from prison, early by Boris Johnson's despicable, lying, Tory Government,where he was serving a minimum of 8 years for ....er...Terrorist offenses!?...so much for mr Law and Order then?

"Idée Fixe", which is also the french name of Asterix the Gaul's Dog,Dogmatix as we know him; is generally accepted as Czeslaw Niemen's best album,personally I find it a bit self-indulgent. The title translates as 'Fixed Idea's' or, 'Dogmatism', which fitted the English translaters of 'Asterix' perfectly?
I dunno whether Czeslaw was being Ironic, or if this album follows an obscure musical dogma,as it does seem to stick to a lot of keyboard noodling,and lots of two handed prog-synth work-outs.
If Rick Wakeman-offs are your kind of musical dogma, then this expanded version of the original double album is most certainly for you.Personally I prefer it when he has his regular band SBB backing him up......and even more so, when he refrains from inflicting his terrible singing upon us.

Tracklists:

 "Idée Fixe I" :

1 Sieroctwo 8:46
2 QSS I (Pytanie o nasza skromnosc) 3:02
3 Larwa (1) (Wszechcywilizacji spoleczny blues) 7:23
4 Moja Piosnka 6:47
5 W Poszukiwaniu Źródła 2:36
Chłodna Ironia Przemijających Pejzaży (13:02)
6a Marmur Biały
6b Egejski Błękit
7 Straceńcy (Z wypraw nie tylko krzyzowych) 1:24
8 Laur Dojrzały 5:25

"Idée Fixe II" : 

1 Larwa (2) 7:20
2 Idącej Kupić Talerz Pani M. 5:13
3 Białe Góry 9:33
4 Legenda Scytyjska 3:25
5 QSS II (Nawolywanie) 2:43
6 Twarzą Do Słońca 7:07
Credo (8:20)
7a Pochwala Pracy (Promethidion - fragment)
7b Burza I Kolory Teczy

Sen Srebrny Salomei EP:

8 Proroctwo Wernyhory 0:28
9 Spotkanie Leona I Salomei 0:45
10 W Obozie Ukraińskim 1:30
11 Zazdrość Semenki 0:32
12 Przybycie Regimentu 0:53
13 Defilada 0:50
14 Mazurek Weselny 1:07
15 Pieśń Wernyhory 5:43

DOWNLOAD "Idée Fixe I" dogmatically HERE!

&

DOWNLOAD "Idée Fixe II" with expanded dogmatism HERE!

N.Æ. (Niemen Aerolit). ‎– "Katharsis" ( Polskie Nagrania Muza ‎– SX 1262) 1976

Czeslaw Niemen is hardly obscure in his native Poland,unlike anywhere else outside of the soviet bloc. In fact he's a star there. Actually I should be saying "was" since he kicked the proverbial 'bucket' and left to sing with the choir invisible in 2004. There's even a bust of him in a park somewhere in Poland and even Czeslaw Niemen commemorative coins were minted....a rare honour indeed.

N.Æ. was mainly his fusion-oriented project, but this second release under that moniker,also on the Polish State label, was essentially a Czeslaw Niemen solo album with no outside help.Now he could really indulge himself with his own genius without other musicians muddying the waters.Mike Oldfield Style, but without the tunes or dubious humour. This one veers much dangerously closer to the avant garde rocks. Lots of spacy Minimoog and EMS Synthi A.Plus some of the more raw, in your face, Mellotron ever commited to low grade communist era plastic.

Its always a sign,especially in the seventies when we didn't know any better, that a 'Rock Star' is begining to believe his own godlike status, when they quote 19th century romantic poetry on the rear of the jacket.You know you're in even deeper trouble when every track has sub-titles in brackets,to show how much more intelligent our new God is than you are.

Never seen without a hat,I wonder if his Soul really did 'Return To The Regions Of The Central Galaxy', as the sub-title of the title track suggests it was tearning for?

Tracklist:

A1 Discovery Of A New Galaxy (A Triumphal Dream)
A2 The Milky Way (Travel To The Confines Of Infinity)
A3 The Planet Earth (Gravity, A Gate In The Clouds, Landing, A Terrestrial Landscape, Enchantment, Annunciation)
A4 Fate (The Immutable Law Of Trasience)
A5 The Seal (Biological Reproduction, The Struggle For Survival, The Vanity And Euphoria Of The Privileged)
B1 From A Letter To M
B2 An Attempt To Escape (A Hope In Outer-Space Communication)
B3 Katharsis (The Eternal Yearning Of The Soul - Return To The Regions Of The Central Galaxy)
B4 An Epitaph/In Memory Of Piotr

DOWNLOAD some katharsis for pretentious intelligentsia HERE!

N.Æ. (Niemen Aerolit) ‎– "Niemen Aerolit" (Polskie Nagrania Muza ‎– SX 1192) 1975

Czeslaw Niemen was Poland's Johnny Halliday of the keyboards, but with a major difference.....he was Good.
Starting off in Polish sixties Beat Group contrafactions, evolving through communist psychedelia and the obligatory Jimi Hendrix phase, he discovered Prog Rock fusion and the Mahavishnu Orchestra.
Among the sheer volume of albums Niemen put out in his career, i've chosen this experimental progressive fusion miesterwerk as one of his better creations.Lots of complex progging on here, and oodles of Mellotron.
Released on the Polish state Label, Polskie Nagrania Muza, he's backed by the trusty members of the Silesian Blues Band,or SBB....who had by now,thankfully, forgotten about playing any blues at all,which can only be a good thing.
The Communist authorities even let Niemen out of the country to tour the USA and release records sung in English in the UK,where he could meet and collaborate with his heroes Jan Hammer and John Maclaughlin.

Tracklist:

1.Cztery Ściany Świata
2.Pielgrzym
3.Kamyk
4.Daj Mi Wstążkę Błękitną
5.Smutny Ktoś I Biedny Nikt

DOWNLOAD and fuse with the niemen HERE!