Following the obscurities of Hungarian psych (Omega Redstar anyone?) FK bring us some better-known luminaries this time around. Moog pioneer Walter Sear, folkstress Susan Christie (see FK’s own Paint A Lady release) and legendary saxual healer Gerry Mulligan all top the bill on this concept album helmed by the man John Hill.
Hill’s original idea was to compose 13 intergalactic prog suites, with 1971’s Six Moons Of Jupiter leading off. The six movements here, taking in Europa (where it’s been believed that all life originated from – what with it being the only other celestial body with “water ice” and all) and Io, the “horned virgin”, run the gamut of space-rock, jazz, and even some scuzzy garage on Amalthea. In between passages Christie reads excerpts from Ian Michaels’ I Am The Storm Of Dawn “beat poetry”. It doesn’t quite work, however, with platitudes the likes of “open your eyes and now we hear / green the flash and / red the storm searching” breaking the flow too jarringly. For the most part, though, there’s enough here for early progsters to send themselves into hyperdrive over, and plenty of beats’n’breaks for wax spinners too.
