Grey Past Records
Surprieze : zeer oude klanken
en heel nieuwe geluiden -LP- (NL,1971-1972)****
I first read the reviews of the Surprieze LP's and did not expect to hear what I heard when I finally had the chance to listen. The descriptions I read were possibly not written by reviewers who liked or knew albums like Kalacakra, Dom, Siloah, etc., German acoustic improvisational Krautrock albums with a raga-like effect...
This band who started with their career with R&B in 1966 evolved to something completely different, something more psychedelic through avantgardistic and more pure mood improvisation styles. "Suprieze" refers to "surprise" and the music is surprising indeed, because there is not much music like this being made in Holland.
The first track is like Kalacakra, improvisational raga like.
The second track start like an experimental sounds creation like very early Kraftwerk. This kind of creativity with music being born from within the mood and sound creation was very ahead of it's time, and even now it's still not always understood by music writers. -Thanks to the newer more accessible works of Kraftwerk some people did take time to get into the earlier works of Kraftwerk for instance, but other groups were often still denied, although such "sound creations" on its own have abilities to look for and dig into the 'essence' of musical creation. Such transformational potential, within a psychedelic / bluesy raga like mood continuation, creating its own structures, becomes an accessible and enjoyable, mind expanding experience.
After the first two long tracks in the described style two less appealing underground blues tracks come after that. The first track on side B, "Zero" is experimental acid blues, with a psychedelic repetitive rhythm, and with, let's call it "Native screams" and blues mouth harmonica.
The very short track "In Galop" to be followed are completely experimental free sounds. "Lazarus" is a long acid psychedelic improvisation, completely tripped out, with distorted electric guitars, bagpipes, echoed effects, psychedelic voice sounds / singing, flutes. "Lazarus" is a Dutch word for being completely farout which you can be by being drunk or stoned, but can become also when you would listen to this music. The title of the album itself means something like "old sounds for a new sound".
Except for the two blues tracks this is a very interesting psychedelic record, maybe even the most psychedelic record from Holland.
According to Forced exposure : "Reissue of highly osbcure and utterly rare private pressing of ´one-man project´ Surprieze. Noisy, disjointed Psychedelia with lots of fuzz and effects. Pure acid-psychedelia! Imagine a Dutch freak attempting to overdo Velvet Underground´s ´Sister Ray´. Eddy vermeer plays a 3-string guitar with a sound somewhere between Ravu Shankar and Dick Dale, but then totally demented. Originals fetch summs of $600, as they not around anymore. Eddy was so disappointed in the sales when he releaed it in 1973, that he took then to the coast and threw them in the sea!"
Some extra remarks on "Lazarus" at my next playlist (see last item on the list)
