Kandahar (Belgium)

Kandahar - Long Live The Sliced Ham (1974, Dwarf - 2009, Sony Music Belgium)

Coming from Belgium's fourth city, Ghent, Kandahar chose its name after the third city of Afghanistan, sign of keyboardist & leader Karel Bogard's love of Eastern philosophies, flavours and etc.The quintet, a standard prog quartet plus a wind player, played a pleasant humorous jazz-rock that could be easily related to Canterbury's best moments with the invariable songwriting team of guitarist De Visscher and Bogard reminiscent of Caravan meeting Hatfield. Coming in an orange and pink speed-related futuristic artworks, and humorously titled LLTSH was recorded in November 74 and the group invited many guests to make this album quite a pleasant debut.
Starting on the smooth-gliding instrumental Down At Finckle's, Kandahar has three frontmen to showcase and here Jacky Eddin that gets the early call but De Vusscher's guitar takes a solid revenge just after. The lengthy Eye Of Glass is a striking difference to its fore runner, the group constantly changing tempo and moods, where it was absolutely not the case previously. Here, the hero is bassist Cleays, but Bogard,s songwriting is the key among his keyboards. Influence-wise, Supersister or Hatfield are not far away here. Again an ever-changing tempoed track, Outside Of Reality is a rare sung track where Eddin gets help from guests to boast a very brassy attack. Surviving Boogie is the obvious hit on the album (it was a single twice), but it's clearly the weakest track, developing a fast reedy blues with relatively weak vocals (this is not a strong point of Kandahar, but it's generally not too catastrophic.. Just weak) and gain strong brass section.
The flipside starts on the weird and fast Walkin Piles, but it's mostly the dissonant saxes and flutes in the background of demented percussion passages that draw the attention of the listener. Too bad the beat stays too rigid in its Magma-itude, though. This could've been much better exploited with a better production. Another instrumental beauty is Hobbit, the gentler track on this album, filled with smooth keyboards. The following Fancy Model has a difficult intro, but once the track is settled, it turns into an infernal inferno filled with spiralling swirls of flames filled with fire, and Eddin's blowing buddies are back to let us know that Kandahar was a force to be reckoned with, especially when they all shut up to let drummer Delaruye shows his chops with Cleays, before reprising. Very enthralling and Canterbury- esque. The closing When She Flies Away is not the album's strongest track, and it has a déjà-vu feeling, especially when the vocals kick in, we get to think of Hendrix's Hey Joe.
True the group's weaker vocals might be an embarrassment (to some), but the rest of their music is nearly spotless and certainly the best thing they've done artistically. Their vinyl albums have become rare and expensive and no official Cd reissue. had happened since Sony surprised us with a cheap reissue.

Kandahar - In the Court of Catherina Squeezer (1975, Dwarf - 2009, Sony Music Belgium)

Difficult not thinking of Crimson's debut album when citing Kandahar's second album, but it is only a humorous wink art Fripp's gang, rather than a real homage to their music. Indeed the unchanged quintet (the two added windblowers not being permanent players) delivers their second batch of sonic delicacies recorded in the late 75 spring, but they changed a bit the accompanying toppings, giving it a slightly funkier feel, but we're still into delightful jazz-rock with a tad of Kent's county capital. With their suggestive artwork, once again Kandahar proves non-sense humour and surrealism are Belgian trademarks.
The opening Jungle Dreams confirm the funky thing, as we could be out of Philly or Isaac's Hayestack.
Indeed the track oozes of De Visscher's funky guitar, Bogard's ultra-symphonic ARP Synth and Power Of Tower horn section. The following Still Have My Soul is probably as much Memphis Tennessee (Stax records) a track they'll go. LA Mood is a horn-laden track, but thankfully does have the funky flavour of the previous tracks. Song For Catherina is as close to being to the title track, and if it wasn't for a cheap-sounding synth line, this might have been one of the album's highlights, even though the last part is sung.
The flipside starts on the slow (at first anyway) Lehti Jumps and hearing that track evolve into a frenzied Colosseum-type track is a pure joy, and it's just too bad that the track ends in a an aborted manner the way it does. The 16-mins Day I Came To Life is obviously the album's highlight and the group's chef d'oeuvre. And they knew it too as they'll even go through the trouble of hiring a string quartet for just one section, but the fact is that evertuy section of that track is pure bliss as it goes from almost baroque (the horn entering the track and repeated later on) to excellent jazz-rock, but plenty of progressive rock just the way we like it. With this epic, Kandahar sounds like themselves and nobody else except for a tad of Quebecois prog between Maneige and Harmonium (the passage with choirs and flute), but I doubt this these groups ever got to Belgian (even Flemish) ears back then. This is their crowning achievement, but it'sc also sad they never kept up the effort, because it's likely they would've done more of these.
After this album, keyboardist Karel Bogard will travel to the eastern Asia and eventually end up in Far- East Asia for a while, studying philosophy before coming back. But he's actually moved over there on a permanent basis for more than two decades. In the meantime, ITCOFCS is a worthy successor to Sliced Ham, and in some ways it easily surpasses the debut album. Should you one day chance upon it, don't hesitate for a second on either the debut or this one.