Circus - Circus All Star Band: Live(1978) [2022 Japanese Edition]

While much of Europe was winding down out of the progressive rock era and heading to safer grounds while the flood of punk and disco sounds were trumpeting around the world, the Swiss band CIRCUS continued to swim upstream by cranking out some of the most complex sounds of the entire 1970s. While forming in 1972 in Basel, the band nurtured its intelligently designed art form to the point the four members of Marco Cerletti (bass, bass pedals, guitar, backing vocals), Andreas Grieder (flute, alto saxophone, backing vocals, tambourine), Roland Frei (lead vocals, acoustic guitar, saxophone) and Fritz Hauser (drums, vibraphone, percussion) succeed in carving out an utterly distinct niche within the prog universe that to this day still sounds like no other.

One of the most startling aspects of this CIRCUS that came to town for a brief moment and then faded into the obscurity bins for decades to come was that this band crafted some of the most magnificent organic prog sounds WITHOUT electric guitars and even MORE surprisingly the total lack of keyboards. Now THAT should get them into the record books for that lofty feat alone however after CIRCUS unleashed its crafty debut onto the scene in 1976, the band fine-tuned the dreamy oft amorphous nature of its first offering and channeled all those skills into a vibrant and uncanny followup. MOVIN' ON was dropped onto the music world like a prog bomb on steroids and is pretty much unanimously considered the best prog specimen the tiny nation of Switzerland nurtured within its borders. The only problem was that very few were listening yet CIRCUS' sheer determination kept them relatively successful by declining prog terms for a brief moment in the latter 70s. At least in Europe that is.

This phenomenal nugget has been the best kept secret for decades but it seems its time has finally come with CD reissues and a revival of all things prog finally exposed en masse in the internet age.

Tracks:

01. Eight Miles On A Highway 10:57
02. Drivin' Wheel 6:05
03. Andante Maestoso / Rondo Furioso 5:48
04. Augusta Rauricorum 20:51
05. Swingin' On A TIght Rope (bonus track) 8:24

Personnel:

Acoustic Guitar, Other [Stage Announcements], Vocals – Roland Frei
Alto Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone – Alan Solomon
Bass – Marco Cerletti
Congas, Drums – Ditschgi Gutzwiller
Congas, Other [Stage Announcements], Percussion, Vocals – Polo Hofer
Drums – Fritz Hauser
Flute, Alto Saxophone – Andreas Grieder
Guitar – Eric Flückiger, Shiver Schafer*
Keyboards, Producer, Composed By – Stephan Ammann
Trumpet, Flugelhorn [Fluegelhorn] – Theodor Jost
Vocals – Corina Curschellas, Kathryn Gurewitsch