Search - Terpandre :: Terpandre

Mellow French prog

BENJAMIN MILER | Veneta, Oregon | 01/14/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Terpandre was one of those French prog rock bands in which things didn't go their way. In 1978, they recorded this, their one and only album, but because of the rise of punk and disco, the recording was left to collect dust, and didn't get released until 1981. The band even tried to get their album released on ECM Records, the big name contemporary jazz label, but to no avail. So it was in '81 that this album got released, on the small Dionysos label, based in their hometown of Lyon (same town that gave us Pulsar). It's not hard to see this is a '70s recording: the album is absolutely loaded with Mellotron, with plenty of '70s Minimoog. Electric piano is also use, as well as standard piano. There are some fusion tendencies, thanks to the presence of an electric violinist (Patrick Tilleman, later a member of the reunited Zao) who played much in the style of Jean Luc Ponty. What you get, for the most part, is all-instrumental, mellow Romantic prog that gets compared to such bands as Italy's Celeste or Spain's Gotic (the band that released Escenes, that is). I guess that's true, somewhat, although the PFM influences are completely absent with Terpandre, unlike Celeste (since Terpandre was French). I also notice some Genesis, Camel and Focus influences as well. But also the album gets bogged down by a few uninspired spots, and it gets a bit overdramatic as well. And for the bonus cuts, I can live without them, as the recording quality is so poor, it sounded like it was recorded off someone's home tape recorder (and likely was). Although one of them is a 1977 version of the song that appeared on their album that sounds so much the same, that it's only the awful sound quality of this early version that you can tell the difference. Aside from the bonus cuts, this is a recommended album to those who like the soft end of the prog spectrum."