Wind, Fire and Reverie
The Story
Geneva, 1979. In a record shop, I find a flyer announcing a new prog band is gigging in the surroundings... A band called Flame Dream with a logo a la Roger Dean! Ouch, a Swiss band playing progressive rock... Surprising! Progressive, not cosmic I should say : no connection whatsoever with Tangerine Dream! In fact one of the greatly unknown yet basic prog bands to be with a destine similar to Anyone's Daughter's. One of the best groups at the beginning of the eighties on the European symphonie prog scene, no less...
The band could have been compared to Genesis during the Peter Gabriel era (similar vocals, flutes and keyboards) with influences of Van Der Graaf Generator (dark climates and sax) and Gentle Giant (syncopated structures), however it Kwas by no means a clone! The compositions moere characterised by the stress on the keyboards and the virtuosity of the keyboards tiwizard playing tunes, always melodic and often melancholy, on top of a very dynamic and complex rhythm section, the whole stuff embroidered by superb flute and sax parts. The sound was characterised too by the absence of guitars, and by the singer's peculiar colour, often reminding Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins.
They released 6 albums. The 4 first album (Calatea, Elements, Out In The Dark and Supervision) are available on CD on Tachika Records). professional sound since they luckily signed for a major by the very first opus (Phonogram). "Those were the days..." The first and second album were produced by the band yet, while the further works were produced by John Acock : remember this man coproduced most of Steve Hackett albums.
The group was a quartet most of the time : Peter Furrer (drums), Urs Hochuli (bass, vocals and... cover illustrations), Peter Wolf (woodwinds, main vocals and lyrics ; notice this guy had nothing to do with J. Geils band's singer!), Roland Ruckstuhl (keyboards and compositions). Another founding member of Flame Dream, John Wolf Brennan (keyboards), Peter's brother, left the band before the first album. He concentrated on jazz, new music and contemporary classic and published several CDs. Flame Dream vas reduced to a trio by "8 on 6" (Peter Furrer, Peter Wolf, Roland Ruckstuhl), Urs Hochuli being only a guest on some songs. The band had two guitarists episodically : Urs Waldispuhl who only played on the first album, and Dale Hauskins on "Out ln The Dark".
The Albums
"Calatea" (1978) is a good album with a light jazz-rock touch, rather ordinary vocals (Peter Wolf was perhaps a bit Young at that time), guitars on accompaniment only. It was recorded in the famous Aquarius studio in Geneva (see Pulsar, Yes...) and remains, being very rare, a real collector.
"Elements" (1979) is a great album featuring very
symphonie prog, with mellotrons, pianos, flutes, without guitars, based on poems by English writers (such as E. Spenser, R.W. Emerson...) about the four elements and thus a bit clumsy sometimes : it's hard to sing poems, you know, to put music along verse. It was recorded in the Aquarius studio too.
"Out In The Dark" (1980) is perhaps the best dise, the most Genesis-like, a concept featuring two Bides (dark and sun) a bit long though. It was recorded in the Aquarius studio once again.
"Supervision" (1982) is good too. It features short, contrasted and dense songs a la "And Then They Were Three" (Genesis). And has a cleaner sound (very dry drums and rhythrnic). lt was recorded in London.
"Travaganza" (1982) is the twin brother to "Supervision" but not so good. Flame Dream tried to be more commercial, composing songs like Phil Collins's "In the air tonight", or Genesis's "Turn it on again". Curiously the name of the
band turned to Travaganza when a small British label, Aura, decided to publish this record in UK...
"8 on 6" (1986), despite its gimmick cover, is not really nice. After this long silence, the fandom expected much more. It contains simple compositions, automatic rhythms, concise and direct tracks, typically 80's sounded (in the way of Genesis's "Abacab" or akin to New Music's). This album sadly ends the story of a great band... A band leaving no live testimony, curiously.
