METAMORPHOSIS
DIP
Leo CD
LR 357


Are you old enough to remember what Virgin Records were like in the early 70s? Metamorphosis would easily fit right in that roster. This band is likely to find many fans, but only if the fans find them. Inside, the booklet says ? Contaminated Chamber Music.? Too askew for NPR, yet not as ascerbic as chamber Bartók, Metamorphosis should find favor among fans of Gypsophilia and Steeleye Span, the current jazz-klez-Euroethnic breed, as well as those of Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt. This apparently Czech-Austrian group often uses folk-like instruments in a prog-rock manner.

The opener starts off with strings of minimalism, detour through new age territory but doesn?t stop there, going on to finish as a wild ethnic folkdance with skirling guitars. ?Good Night, Michael Night? irks me, but its folk-meets Koyaanisqatsi ?ho-oh? vocal haunts will have its partisans. All the tracks save two are instrumental, and have a rich folk texture, and a riveting momentum. ?Knecht? could be an early Jethro Tull instrumental.

The two vocal tracks are my favorites. ?Under The Sun? features a surprisingly strong proggy-psychedelic lyric (Eastern Europe is where prog has thrived and taken a rich life of its own) with growly, creepy voices intoning, ?Lies, lies...? The group?s name, apparently in homage to Kafka (there are no liner notes), finds home in the final two tracks. ?Stubnitz? find the alienated narrator walking, the pace pinned down by emphatic guitar and a sound like a jaw harp: ?Twenty thousand cigarettes ago, I was someone else...?

?Sudler?s Nightmare,? the closer, and the only one labelled ?improvisation,? is a strong five minutes. Although it doesn?t come near to Frank Zappa?s intensely wild Kafka piece, it concludes the album perfectly, its string sounds appropriately folky, eerie and free.


--Steven Koenig


Track Listing: 1. Love & Napalm; 2. Under The Sun; 3. Paserák; 4. Mina; 5. Sabah; 6. DIP; 7. Good Night, Michael Knight; 8. Knecht; 9. Stubler?s Nightmare


Personnel: Martin Alaçam, acoutsic and electric guitars, vocals; Richard Deutsch, electric guitar, vocals; Christoph Pajer, violin, vocals; Christof Rothaler, cello