Vinyl - Experimental Q2 - Marș funebru la moartea unui astronaut = Funeral March For The Death Of An Astronaut

Pre-Orders Only

''LO-FI private lost recording, live from 1978''

Those of you who have journeyed with the Romanian Sounds Unearthed series from the start will know this is not the first time we’ve offered you a glimpse into the underground music scene of 1970s Cluj-Napoca. In fact you will recognize both the band and the track that gives this album its name from the previous release, “Experimental Q2”, the fourth in the R.S.U. series. Derived from its first iteration but without keeping the original line-up, this band from Cluj-Napoca was, like many others, a collaboration between Conservatory students, inspired by the musical influence of their Western counterparts.

Lengthy compositions have always been the hallmark of progressive-jazz-rock and by 1978 the genre already had examples that have become classics, like the early works of King Crimson (“Lizard”; “Larks’ Tongues in Aspic”) or Pink Floyd’s “Atom Heart Mother” with its full brass section. By comparison, Experimental Q2 appeared to be late to the party: the aforementioned works had been released at the beginning of the 70s when most of the Western prog-rock bands had moved away from this sort of compositions for various reasons. Nevertheless, in 1978, Experimental Q2 came up with the unusual piece you are listening to right now.

“Marș funebru la moartea unui astronaut” = “Funeral March For The Death Of An Astronaut” was performed full-length for the first time at the Conservatory in Cluj-Napoca’s studio hall. Clocking in at one hour and employing the Conservatory’s entire percussion instruments array, it turned out to be the best example of what this band would become known for in the underground music scene: the complex arrangements, the interlocking instrumental solos and of course, the aggressive, driven percussion, a hallmark of this “suite” (to use Pink Floyd’s terminology) and of the band itself.

Like other similar compositions, there is a theme running throughout the entire piece, one best expressed within the title: a funeral march for the death of an astronaut – an elegy for a man facing the infinite, the immensity of the cosmos and the solitude of existence (much like an astronaut on a spaceship), an expression of a journey leading to the inevitable conclusion of the man’s own mortality.

The effort to restore the original material resulted in a unique recording, the result of hundreds of hours of meticulous, painstaking restoration of the cassette tape which was originally recorded by band members during the live performance. Add to that the fifteen years of searching for the tapes in question and you can get an idea about the sort of effort involved.

Veterans of the R.S.U. series who also purchased the previous release by Experimental Quintet 2 and recognized the name from that tracklist will finally get the full version of the 14 minutes snippet, a one-of-a-kind performance in the history of Romanian Avant-garde jazz-rock.

This record would not have seen the light of day in its current form without the contributions of Johann Anton German, Johnny Bota, Ioan Kovacs and Valentin Farcaș, the band members who acted as music consultants for this release, alongside Lucian George Păiș, the man whose artwork adorns this one of a kind album, yet another gem in the unearthed musical treasure this series brought back from the past.

(Promotional text by Mihai Alexandrescu)

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Romanian Sounds Unearthed – 9
180gr. DMM (Direct Metal Mastering)
Made in France
MSRP €22