A message from L'ile de joie

I still remember clearly my discovery of this musician clearly: it was almost 20 years ago when they presented his work on a spanish Tv program called "Musica NA" very late in the night with a song called "L'ile de joie":



I felt immediately mesmerized by the classic-epic sound of his music, with some under tunes the remind me slightly of vangelis and yanni. With "L'ile de joie" it began a search of over ten years to buy "Equateur" and find his other works, likely I bought it an an astronomical price (80$ from 2003) but was worth it!

Stricly speaking he is not a true lost musician, more of a cult, niche musician as he was quite well known on the instrumental circles of Europe, but lacked the projection of other artists as Klaus Schutlze, JM Jarre or Vangelis.

His style falls well within what's called the "Berlin School of electronic music" including among many others Tangerine Dream or the already mentioned Klaus Schultze, Bernd Kirstenmacher, etc... A very electronic sound, rich in armonies and with some classical influence that in the case of Blenner has become distinctive, almost becoming a new Classical Music of sorts for the 21st century.





He is still active (see http://www.blenner.com/) even though his last work "Musique de chambre" is from 2008.





I hope you all fall mesmerized by the magic behind the music of Serge Blenner

Ultima Cruzada

Ultima Cruzada (The Last Crusade) was an Aragonese rock group formed in the late 80's that tried to achieve success during the early 90's with little to no result as it failed to publish a CD and their only recording -that I know of- is a Demo tape.

They reached some public notoriety by participating into "La 5à Marcha" group contest of which they were finalists, and winning a similar contest organized by a rival TV station both during the early 90's. In both contest they presented their song "Caso Terminal" (Terminal Case) a very emotive song about a dying son, saying goodbye to his parents and loved ones.



Unfortunately for them, they choose to appear with the rise of "Heroes del Silencio" across Europe -they're the biggest selling Spanish group in Europe- and the single mindedness of the spanish disco-graphic industry which really does not take any risks at all, relegated them to be lost in the history of music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs3IcP1rUVo&feature=related

A sad lost if you ask me, but a lost nonetheless.

Ultima Cruzada finally disbanded silently around 1995-96. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsdRsguuKTc&feature=related PD: I updated the links with new videos as my own uploads have died.

This Picture

My first post will be about "This Picture" a british band formed in the late 80's and dissolved in 1995, after two LP releases ("Violent Impression" and "City of Sin") and a single hit "Naked Rain" that made some impression across the Uk charts.



Naked Rain grew from new wave inspired rythms into a pop-rock song with epic tints, maybe too easy to listen, but the lyrics were quite over average.

Their second album was even more U2, and even though some would classify them as clones of the irish band they retained their own identity even though the irish shadow was long and killed them amidst the grunge avalanche.



If one thing can be said about This Picture is the awesome quality of their lyrics, as shown on the above "Highrise" or "StepUp"



They tried to publish a 3th album in 2005 but as far as I know, they never manage to, in my opinion a sad loss since this band had the quality to be much more than it was.

Starts are always hard ...

I have always had a taste for the unexpected, for that that might have even shined for a moment and then faded into darkness. In the case of music that has always shown by a taste for one hit groups, second or absolutely unknown groups that I cherish and enjoy.

This blog is my way to give them new life, to return to them the enjoyment they have given me