Et Cetera: Et Cetera (1976)
Well, I have just recently discovered a whole bunch of Canadian prog albums, specifically those originating from Quebec. Bands like Pollen, Opus 5, Sloche, and Et Cetera have been some of my greatest discoveries of recent (I hear tons of great stuff about Maneige and Harmonium too, so I’m not likely too far off before I get their albums as well). Yes, even the English speaking provinces too had their prog bands, Rush, FM, and Saga (that is if you think of those groups as prog, or if not, then simply heavy metal – in the case of Rush – or New Wave/AOR), plus lesser known acts like Symphonic Slam, Christmas/Spirit of Christmas, True Myth, Robert Connolly, and so on.
By the way, I found a website that all about the prog scene in Quebec, it’s at:
It has a huge listings of bands, and descriptions of each band and discography! There are the occasional audio samples too, depending. Apparently they also reissue the occasional album too on CD, such as stuff from Maneige. Et Cetera was one band included in the list (and with a description), but no audio samples for their stuff, there’s another website where you will get an full audio clip of one of their cuts, which I’ll mention down near the bottom of this review.
Now for some reason, Gentle Giant was once quite popular in Quebec, and many bands would only happily show their Gentle Giant influence to some degree. Case in point: Et Cetera (not to be confused with the 1990s Danish band calling themselves Etcetera). They only released one album in 1976 on the Apostrophe label, before moving on to other things (one member found himself later playing for Celine Dion – yikes! – and another ended up in a Genesis tribute band unsurprisingly called A Trick of the Tail).
This band went out of the way to sound like Gentle Giant. But there were some major exceptions: for one thing they had a female vocalist named Marie Bernard Pagé (who also played keyboards, including an early prototype synthesizer invented in the 1920s called the Ondes Martenot), and they sung in French (the band also had a second keyboardist too, and he was the one who later became a session musician and playing for the dreaded Celine Dion). Pagé would sing those high pitched vocals much like Kerry Minnear would do in Gentle Giant, but some of the other guys also did their share at vocal duties, although none of them sounded like the guys from GG. Et Cetera is the only rock band, regardless of style, to use the Ondes Martenot, this instrument was more commonly associated with avant garde classical, and of science fiction (including the female chorus you hear on the theme song to the original Star Trek TV series).
Et Cetera managed to pull off the Gentle Giant sound with flying colors. You notice this right away with the opening cut, “Et La Musique Tourne”, featuring tons of great use of Mini Moog, clavinet, Hammond organ (played by both Marie Bernard Pagé and Denis Chartrand). Like Gentle Giant, there are plenty of medieval tendencies and of lots of use of counterpoint. Most of the rest follow this similar pattern, with a big exception to “L’Age Dort”, which is more of a Romantic ballad, although there’s a quirky passage in the middle. This piece was by far the least Gentle Giant-sounding cut on the whole album. It was also the most straightforward. Occasionally you hear some strange electronic sounds you know don’t come from the usual Moog, that is the Ondes Martenot. “Apostrophe” was the album’s only instrumental, and given the record label was also called Apostrophe, I suspect this was a private label ran by the band. The vocals are excellent, and while French is often not the best language for prog rock (especially those from France, like Ange or Mona Lisa), it works excellent for Et Cetera (and the other Quebecois bands I’ve heard like Pollen, Sloche and Opus 5), perhaps there’s that difference in Quebecois French to Standard French that benefitted the French-Canadians, don’t know, as I don’t speak French.
This was their only album, and while one always wishes for more albums to see where they go, sometimes it’s better one album than 20+ albums, where most everything the band does after their first ten years of existence ended up mediocre to downright embarassing (many major bands, prog rock, or not, as the case often was, were guilty of this).
If you’re curious about how this album is like, I strongly suggest you go to:
Be sure to type “Et Cetera” in the site’s search engine and look for the one that says “Et Cetera (CA)”, click there, and there’s a full audio clip to “Newton Avaint Raison”, which is a fantastic clip (make sure you’re using Internet Explorer, as it might not work on other browsers).
In conclusion: this is truly a real treat to all Gentle Giant fans who don’t mind non-English vocals, or another band sounding like GG.