Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Ellufant - Release Concert (Hol 1972)

Ellufant - Release Concert (Hol 1972, Obscure Dutch Experimental Rock)

Formed: Rotterdam, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands

Members:
* Ernst Kersting (keyboards),
* Cees P. de Visser (percussion)

Tracks:
01. Ubiquinon (E. Kersting) 16:05
02. Ouabaïne (E. Kersting) 16:49

Information:
- Recorded live on April 7th, 1972 at Ruimtes Situatie Centrum, Rotterdam.
- Engineered by Koos Groeneveld- Produced by Lou Thiel
- Cover by Fred Julsing - Originalaly only 150 copies pressed.
- This is the limited repress of 500 copies (vinyl not on cd).
- Has two 16 minute+ jams.
- It's similiar to early "Pink Floyd" and German bands like "Can"and experimental electronic music.

Ernst Kersting and Cees de Visser formed a duo under names like Abandoned Elephant, 11 Phant, Ellef-Fant and finally Ellufant. Kersting played his self build organ and de Visser played drums and a sort of echo machine played . Their music was very much improvised and during live performances tracks could last for about a half hour to three quarters of an hour. In 1972 they recorded a live album on behalf of Release, an organisation to help drug addicts. From this album 150 copies were made.

Reviews:
Ellufant's Release Concert has to be one of the weirdest Dutch obscurities, belonging less to the symphonic-influenced group of bands that would come later in the 70s and more to the psychedelic underground where bands like Ahora Mazda, Dennis and Ame Son reside. For 1972, Release Concert is a pretty dated album, with those late 60s organ and super wahed/fuzzed out guitar tones rambling on improvisationally. Ellufant mixed up this run of the mill, Iron Butterfly-like jamming by altering their tones, substantially at times, sometimes creating noises that sound like they originated from electronic equipment of years later. While some of these improvisations are occasionally interesting, they don't hold up too much over a full-length album, particularly because the music backing up the tonal manipulation varies very little. Surely, Soft Machine was an influence here at least in terms of the keyboards, although Ellufant don't have close to their level of chops. Not really a whole lot to say - plenty of reverb, mostly unexciting jamming, with only a bit of weird tone-tweaking to make it a bit better than average. Some obscurities were meant to be.
~ (Mike McLatchey@Gnosis).
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The Dutch equivalent of Hardin & York or Sixty Nine, this was an organ-and-drums duo. 150 copies of their album were issued and sold at gigs in order to support an organisation helping drug addicts. Included were two tracks of long live improvisations with good use of wah-wah and other pedals, resulting in a sound resembling early Mike Ratledge. Listening to the album will transport you back to the heyday of the Dutch underground. It's quite a good live performance. The album is better than you might expect in the circumstances.
~ (Scented Gardens Of The Mind, D. E. Asbjørnsen).

Download Links:
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3 comments:

zappahead said...

This is good stuff....thanks for turning me on to it......much appreciated...cheers.

Anonymous said...

Any chance of a re-up?

alfaios said...

NEW link posted. Enjoy!