Island: Pictures (1977)
If you’ve ran out of Van der Graaf Generator albums to buy, let me suggest to you, Island, a Swiss prog rock band that released this one and only album in 1977, Pictures. I actually think this album is much more how I wished VdGG’s Godbluff and Still Life were like. Island’s music tends more to the chamber end of prog rock, like Univers Zero, except with more standard prog rock instrumentations (Univers Zero tended to use more chamber instruments like violins and clarinets, while Island used Hammond organ, synthesizers, and sax).
The music on Pictures is very complex, and because of how uncompromising this album is, not everyone will like it. This is truly an odd band. No one plays guitar or bass. The bass is all handled by Moog Taurus bass pedals (much like what Mike Rutherford had used in Genesis). Keyboards include Hammond organ, piano, Hohner clavinet, and synthesizers, as mentioned before. The rest of the instrumentation includes drums/percussion and sax.
The whole album has that dark, Gothic feel to it. H.R. Giger, the guy who gave us the 1979 Alien movie posters and the cover to ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery also did the cover to this album (but that should come as no surprise, as Giger, like Island, was Swiss).
Except for the opening cut, “Introduction” and “Zero”, none of the songs are under 10 minutes! The first cut sounds really ghostly, especially with the creepy voices. “Zero” is an all-instrumental piece that is by far the least sinister piece on the album. The title track, at over 16 minutes, is by far the longest piece and is also the very first cut with vocals. The lyrics are really strangs: “Sounds of the air creatures, the whispering of the white branches, in the blowing wings, it’s your well-known voice”. I really dig the synthesizers at the beginning. This song keeps going through many changes, plus there’s a sax solo that really sticks out. There’s this one part of the song that kept repeating, “Gastric juices” that freaked my mother out, and she is very used to my prog rock album collection.
And the weirdness doesn’t end there. The next song is “Herold and King/Dloreh”. Here the song is full of strange vocalizations, and they also sing in reverse with the tape running forward (if you don’t get it, “Dloreh” is “Herold” in reverse). The use of the bass pedals really get to my skin, I can’t remember any Genesis albums where the pedal sounds were so big. The last song is “Here and Now” which simply amazes me. Again, very complex music, but I really dig those mellow passages.
The Laser’s Edge CD reissue includes a bonus cut, “Empty Bottles”. This is a 23 minute cut that sounds nowhere as dark and sinister. Instead it sounds like certain Canterbury bands like Soft Machine or Hatfield & the North, in other words, more jazzy. It sounds like a band simply jamming in their basement. It also sounds like it was recorded earlier than Pictures, maybe around 1973 or ’74 (the band formed in 1971, but didn’t get any album out until ’77). The band even featured a bass player then, but no credits were made.
Regardless, Island’s Pictures is sure not to everyone’s taste. The uncomprimisingly complex music and some of the slower passages might be hard for some to get into, but personally I think this is one incredible album. If you fancy the idea of Van der Graaf Generator meets chamber prog/RIO, you’re sure to enjoy this album.
– Benjamin Jäger: lead vocals, percussion
– Güge Jürg Meier: drums, gongs, percussion
– Peter Scherer: keyboards, bass pedals, crotales, voices
– René Fisch: saxes, flute, clarinet, triangle, voices