Space Opera - Space Opera (Korean Remastered) (1972/2014)

The criminally underexposed Space Opera were anything but progressive rock, contrary to the “12-String Prog Rock!” sticker on the outside of this three-year-old reissue Good New Music is bending the rules to review.The Texas quartet did have a spacey edge to their country-rock-classical-jazz mix, though, and multitracked electric 12-string guitars were a major part of it. They were cosmic cowboys in a truer sense than, say, Michael Murphey or New Riders of the Purple Sage.How their eponymous release flew under most people’s radar in 1973 is a mystery. The music is so good it doesn’t just vibrate the tympanic membrane, it envelops the listener in an electro-acoustic bubble that renders its happy passenger weightless and drifts off into the ether.The band had an integrity possessed by few: Never compromising in pursuit of their muse, they turned down Clive Davis and signed with Epic’s Canadian division to retain creative control. It’s as if the members were born to make this album, and everything in life up to that point was secondary. For an idea of what level they were operating at, imagine a parallel-universe Byrds that took “Eight Miles High” as a starting point and ran with it.