Cymbalic Encounters’ prog-rock/jazz album Cerulean Cathedral proves the beneficial birthright advantage to be “Born Ugly.”
Of course, it certainly doesn’t hurt Arizona-born main guy/drummer/songwriter Mark Murdock to have Brand X players Percy Jones and (the sadly late) John Goodsall as huge contributors in this wonderful music.
A personal note: I was lucky enough to see the current Brand X several times at Milwaukee’s Shank Hall in the recent pre-pandemic years with my good friend Bryan Radue (aka Jazz Guy), and when the band burst into the eternal groove of “Born Ugly,” well, any universal dance floor everywhere gamboled with delight. The song just has a tight and very human, shamelessly confessed bounce.
And Cymbalic Encounters’ tunes have that very same delightful “poke” that plays an “unorthodox” poker hand with melodic prog/jazz-rock “behavior.”
The opening title track on Cerulean Cathedral begins with a weirdly elastic synth ride that could be the sound of a cover band playing the greatest hit from the alien bar band in the very first Star Wars film. It’s a terrific wobble, which by the way, also gives Lancaster and Lumley’s “Hopper” (from their Marscape album) competition for the song most likely to disprove Newton’s Law of Gravity. Or, as my friend Kilda Defnut remarked, “In that keyboard bit, every particle in the universe is pretty much given the green light to cut its own rug.”
And then, Percy Jones and John Goodsall, with main guy Mark Murdock on percussion, simply send the tune into prog-rock/jazz warp drive.
The next tune, “The Fallout Shelter at St. Peter’s Sq.,” orbits a bit closer to home with the juxtaposition of ethereal keyboards and Goodsall’s sublime guitar jousting with the lava pulse of Percy Jones fretless bass and MM’s percussion. There’s even more Brand X densely saturated “Nuclear Burn” in “Flight to Catharsis,” with a lovely slow-stepped introduction (and a rather nice piano-bass interlude) that evolves into an emotive guitar which oozes with prog-rock passion, and Percy’s bass again punctuates the sounds of a pretty good sonic novel.
This tune conjures, to spin a memory, the beauty of an Andy Powell solo in the midst of one of Wishbone Ash’s moody epic workouts, like the beginning of “Phoenix” or “The Pilgrim.”
Ah — there’s a carnival voice-over that suggests (with a nod to a Canterbury Soft Machine vibe) “an intermission with a snack bar with good things to eat and drink.” Nice. And then the song proper, “The Ending Film at an Endless Theater” with vocals by Tim Pepper, pretty much lights a votive candle to the sound of (my beloved!) Caravan in their Dave Sinclair organ-driven In the Land of Grey and Pink heyday. Big compliment, there.
Indeed, “The Unwelcome Doormat,” conjures Caravan once again, and besides (sort of) “Holding Granddad by the Nose,” the song continues with the wondrous sound of prog and rock and jazz blown in the delightful wind that “danced” with “the seven-paper hankies.” Thank you, Preston Murdock for the rippling electric lead guitar work. So, yeah (again!), fans of those Decca-era Caravan will love this record.
“Lost Shadows” is the second vocal track, and it hangs with an almost Fripp-pulsed Crimson concoction that wanders into a thoughtful and pretty great prog-rock orbit. By the way, this entire album pretty much manages to, as my friend Kilda said, cut its own zero gravity musical rug.
And the fun-house soundtrack continues on Cerulean Cathedral. “Man with the Changing Face” ups the soaring jazz vibe, while the ensemble certainly echoes the instrumental and quirky prowess of that other great band from Canterbury, Hatfield and the North. Then, “Polarity” bulges with even more prog-rock magic. And, quite frankly, the melodic keyboard certainly smacks of Tony Banks in an early Genesis epic instrumental groove that evokes the intricate touch of “Cinema Show.” Huge compliment, there, too!
Finally, Tim Pepper enters with vocals for “Falling Velocity” that are not dissimilar to Lamb Lies Down on Broadway-era Peter Gabriel, as the band plays its slowly woven tapestry of really nice prog rock music.
Indeed, Cymbalic Encounters is “Born Ugly,” but it finds a delightful and always gamboled groove with a tight and very shamelessly human dance-floor bounce that burns with the beauty of a bleeding bass, orbital guitar, clever percussion, and the occasional cosmic wild and weird keyboard excursion to that eternal and very musical “snack bar” that, as the advert always says, has “good things to eat and drink.”
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