Rock On! Wednesday, 10 january 2024 – Harmonium, Pollen, Beau Dommage, Ungava, Contraction & Octobre

Psychedelic, heavy, prog and more innovating sounds spanning the late 60s and the early 70s –  Wednesday January 10th.  Dan’s pick of the week: Harmonium (Si on Avait Besoin D’une Cinquième Saison), Pollen (Jacques Tom Rivest), Beau Dommage (Beau Dommage), Ungava (Ungava), Contraction (Live 1974) & Octobre (Survivance).

Si on Avait Besoin D’une Cinquième Saison is het tweede album van de Quebecse groep Harmonium. De plaat werd uitgebracht op 15 april 1975 door PolyGram. Het album markeerde een wijziging van het folkrockgeluid van het titelloze debuutalbum een nieuw progressief rocksound.

Sputnik Music review: “On their second album, Harmonium had expanded from a trio to a five-piece as they were joined by the keyboardist Serge Locat and Pierre Daigneault who handled various wind instruments, including flute, clarinet and saxophone. This time there were actually no drums around at all, but you won’t probably give it a thought at all when you’re listening to the rich and progressive sound of this album that has a concept based around the different seasons of the year. And, as we know, an Italian used the same concept exactly two hundred and fifty years earlier. Of course I’m talking about of the famous “The Four Seasons” of Antonio Vivaldi, the great Italian composer of the Baroque classic period. However, Harmonium added their twist by including a mysterious fifth season. This imaginary season was represented by the fantastic 17-minute “Histories Sans Paroles”. This complex and mostly instrumental masterpiece shows compositional talent and abilities from Fiori that put him in the same class as Richard Harvey from Gryphon. And although Gryphon and Harmonium doesn’t sound much like each other, the comparison is still justified by the fact that both bands evolved from folk to their own kind of complex progressive rock that still maintained the folk roots within their sound. (…)

Si On Avait Besoin D’Une Cinquieme Saison is, without any doubt a great album, an absolute masterpiece and it’s also, in my opinion, one of the best albums released in the 70’s. It’s almost an acoustic album, musically very beautiful, that sounds different and it’s, in a certain way, a special and unique album in the progressive music scene of that time. If you like the sound of the acoustic albums mixed with some electric parts, especially Mellotron, and you are searching for something that sounds beautiful and different, you shouldn’t miss it for any reason. If the perfection and the beauty exist, they’re here.”

Wednesday, January 10, 2024 12:00 noon CET Brussels – 11 a.m. GMT London. Repeated: 16:00 & 20:00 hrs CET Brussels, 3 p.m. & 7 p.m. GMT London

Ends: 12 midnight CET Brussels, 11 p.m.  GMT London.