Mercator Projected

オリエンタル/ワールド指向を取り入れた特異な音楽性をもつ英国産ジャズ・ロック・バンド、英Deramから発表された'69年デビュー作が欧Trading Placesより'23年アナログ・リイシュー!
バイオリン/サックス奏者を含む特異な編成を生かしつつ、当時のサイケ・シーンも反映したジャケットそのままの幻想的、かつエキゾチシズム満載のサウンドが、このバンドならではの個性となった次作と並ぶ代表作の一つです!

East of Edens debut LP is one of the hardest-rocking albums to come out of the progressive rock movement, and maybe the best non-Rolling Stones albums issued by English Decca label during the late 1960s. Its also one of the most daring debut albums of its period, less tightly focused than, say, King Crimsons Court of the Crimson King, but otherwise equally bold and maybe more challenging. The whole record is eerie -- coming from a pop culture where most psychedelic rock tended toward the light and airy -- East of Eden use high-impact bass, drum, and guitar parts mixed with the distinctly Oriental and Central/Eastern European classical influences. The first track is a surprise coming from any British psychedelic band of the period, opening with a pounding heavy metal beat pumped out on Steve Yorks bass and Dave Duforts drums, while Dave Arbus electric violin subs for what would normally be the rhythm guitar part, and Geoff Nicholsons guitar twists a blues riff around before setting a Jimi Hendrix-like wave of tonal pyrotechnics ablaze for the finale. Though most of the rest isnt as hard rocking as that, it is still progressive rock with balls. Isadora may have a few flute flourishes too many, but it also has a beat, and Waterways (described on the original jacket as Niotic Landscape in 5/4), after a meandering opening, breaks loose in a hard-edged piece of heavy metal raga rock (with a sax part that fits in perfectly), something like what the Yardbirds mightve attempted if theyd stayed together through 1969 and forsaken their pop pretensions -- and then it finishes with the kind of brooding, violin-based ballad that anticipates the 1973-era David Cross/John Wetton/Bill Bruford lineup of King Crimson. And Centaur Woman takes us back to almost a mid-1960s blues-rock mode, reminiscent of the Graham Bond Organisation, except that East of Eden quickly kicks out the song structures, taking Coltrane-like sax excursions before throwing in an extended bass guitar solo. Side two of the album opens with the brooding Bathers, perhaps the most conventional progressive cut on this album and, not coincidentally, the least interesting song here. Communion, by comparison, is a composition whose inspiration was a Bela Bartok string quartet, and is dominated by Arbus violin. The album finishes with the high-energy In the Stable of the Sphinx, a blazing showcase for electric guitar, violin, tenor, and alto sax thats worth the price of admission by itself and mustve been amazing to hear on stage. Mercator Projected was reissued on CD in Japan in 2000 as part of the British Rock Legend Series by Universal Music Group. ~ Bruce Eder