Eela Craig - One Niter FLAC album

I always felt Eela Craig's 1971 debut was an anomaly. Mainly because it had a much stronger bluesy and jazzy feel that shows little of what they'll be sounding like in the late '70s (it's a fine album in its own right, but it also demonstrates what happened in the 1970s when there's a five year gap between albums).

After a rare single from 1974 (Stories/Cheese), which already headed towards a symphonic direction, they secured a deal with Vertigo Records and in 1976 came One Niter. This was the beginning of the late '70s Eela Craig sound people are most familiar with. They now had three keyboardists with Hubert Bognermayr, Harald Zuschrader, and Hubert Schnauer. Check out the back cover. It's no doubt in my mind that it was inspired by Pink Floyd's Ummagumma, showing for all the world all the gear the band used (and all the band members, even Alois Janetschko who also did live mixing). You'll notice a couple of Hammond organs, a Mellotron, some synths, apparently a Logan String Melody (the original, as the String Melody II didn't come out until 1977), electric pianos (Wurlitzer, Fender Rhodes), plus all the guitars Fritz Riedelberger had, and basses from Gerhard Englisch. There's Frank Hueber and his drums, so basically all the gear the band had at the time.

Unlike so many other symphonic prog bands of the time, Eela Craig included funk influences, lots of wah wah guitar (as if "Shaft" was done by a prog band) and clavinet all over (the funk influence was toned down after this album). You get treated with big blasting Mellotron brass, some really nice gentle flute passages, intense funky jamming with clavinet and Moog, some classical influences (even a Bach piece shows up with some electronic modifications) showing up, and a straight up acoustic piece called "Venezuela".

While an vinyl enthusiast like myself can probably find a copy for a fairly reasonable price, for those that don't collect vinyl, it's nice to know that Esoteric had reissued this on CD (Si-Wan in Korea did years ago). It beats the Symphonic Rock CD, while containing both Hats of Glass and One Niter, omits one song from each album ("Venezuela", "Caught on the Air"), which means it's better to buy them separately. This is usually regarded as their best album (if you like a more underground style, then go for their debut instead), and a great place to start with.