UNIVERS ZERO Relaps: Archives 1984-1986 2LP dark Belgian chamber prog Magma NEW

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UNIVERS ZERO Relaps: Archives 1984-1986 2 x LP

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(Sub Rosa)
*** This is a new and unplayed item, direct from the CRUCIAL BLAST shop. ***

DESCRIPTION FROM CRUCIAL BLAST:
Now available on vinyl for the first time ever.
The latest in Cuneiform's ongoing campaign to keep the seminal recordings of dark European progsters Univers Zero alive, Relaps: Archives 1984-1986 is a thrilling collection of live recordings that captures the band in the live setting, where their creepy fusion of Magma-esque prog and 20th Century classical is often at it's heaviest. I've been on a serious Univers Zero kick lately, and am working on getting all of their in-print releases in stock here at Crucial Blast; even though many of their recordings date back as far as the late 70's, this Belgian band remains one of the heaviest, darkest prog bands ever, and even within the ranks of the Rock In Opposition movement that they helped to create, Univers Zero stood out as one of the more intense groups, infusing their eerie chamber-jazz-prog with a doomy atmosphere that was years ahead of its time. For fans of newer bands like Kayo Dot and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and even the later Iceburn albums, hearing Univers Zero for the first time is a revelation, and both of those bands (as well as legions of others that we listen to all the time around here) owe a large part of their sound to what this band was doing back then. The often-epic compositions of Univers Zero were entirely instrumental, and featured an assortment of instruments that included clarinet, sax, cello, synths, violin, and viola with the rock-style lineup of electric guitar, bass and drums; the songs weave through intensely complex arrangements that shift from lighter jazzy passages to astoundingly heavy (for their time) dirge-like sections and ultra dense chamber-prog workouts, and there is a constant tension at work in their music, a sense of dark foreboding that seeps from everything that Univers Zero has recorded, at times suggesting a much more complex and orchestrated Goblin. I'm amazed that their music was never used for horror movie soundtracks back in the 80's when the band was heavily active, 'cuz their doom-laden music would have been perfect as an aural accompaniment for some of the decade's more phantasmagoric exercises in horror cinema.
Relaps collects live recordings that were taken from two different lineups of the band during the early 1980's, culled from four different shows in Germany and Belgium. There are two shows from 1984, and one each from 1985 and 1986, and some of the tracks are embryonic versions of music that would later appear on the UZED and Heatwave albums. Some of the highlights featured here include an improvised version of "L'Etrange Mixture du Docteur Schwartz" (from UZED), and an extended 18-minute version of "The Funeral Plain" (that would later appear in a more truncated form on Heatwave) that fuses howling dissonant acid guitar and pounding abstract drumming with multiple keyboards, strings, and clarinets over a series of distinct movements, with some supremely heavy classical dread emerging towards the end. It's all killer, though, and just as essential as any of their studio albums, with an intensity and precision performance that proves that Univers Zero were masters of their craft. The tracks benefit from an excellent recording that made me forget that the material was live more than once, and the disc comes with a thick 16 page booklet that is filled with fascinating liner notes on the history of the band and never-before-published photos. Like everything else from Univers Zero, this is crucial stuff for fans of the modern heavy dark-prog of Kayo Dot and Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Zs as well as anyone into older heavy prog like King Crimson and Magma.   © CRUCIAL BLAST
THIS IS A NEW, UNPLAYED ITEM. Please note that for LP vinyl orders, we usually remove the vinyl from the jacket prior to shipment in order to avoid seam splits or any other kind sleeve/jacket damage that might occur during transit. This may require that we open the shrinkwrap on the record in order to carefully remove the vinyl from the inside of the jacket (if the record was originally shrinkwrapped). Feel free to contact us with any questions regarding this policy.

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