Freak out with this prog/psych/jazz dark weirdness from French composer Jean-Pierre Massiera’s band Visitors whose 1974 self-titled LP, Visitors, has just been reissued on vinyl for the first time.
Massiera had been impressed by violin-fronted jazz-rock acts such as the Mahavishnu Orchestra and Jean-Luc Ponty. He decided that his new psychedelic nightmare should be a concept album on the theme of extra-terrestrial contact. It is a truly startling mix of prog, psych, fusion and zeuhl elements, with complex arrangements and grandiose vocals. Massiera kept the basics: keyboards (Hammond organ and mini-Moog), guitar, and rhythm section. That said, he also insisted on a type of vocal polyphony, with voices singing in unison or performing call-and-response echo effects in the style of Vanilla Fudge. The VISITORS album which resulted from this musical alchemy is a dark and doom-laden psyched-out masterpiece: other-worldly, with outer space violins, burning guitar leads, layers of lysergic organ, and twisted choral voices creeping up on you from behind the shadows.
Visitors (Amazon)