One listen to this self-titled album from Czechoslovakian jazz-rock outfit Mahagon, and the first thing to pop into your head is: "this is on some
other sh*t." At least that's the first thing that I thought. It's not
that left-field, per sé...but any album that opens up with a near-deafening scream has got to have some interesting material, no?
Fortunately,
Mahagon doesn't disappoint. Formed in 1973, this band was bubbling a little bit on the Czech scene before releasing their first album in 1978. Mahagon would later disband in 1980 after releasing a not-as-good-but-still-enjoyable follow-up titled
Slunečnice pro Vincenta van Gogha the same year, which I may post sometime in the near future. I -- err, I mean my
friend (heh heh) was digging the smooth grooves so much that he sampled one of Mahagon's stand-out tracks, the heavenly "More Klidu", for an instrumental titled "
Sky's The Limit". It sounds nice, but it needs more cowbell, not klidu. What's a "klidu", anyway? Probably not a whole lot. Get it? "Kli-
do?" Yuk yuk yuk!
Anyway! You came for records, not lame jokes. Neither Mahagon's debut nor their second and final album are that hard to come by; after coming across
Mahagon in a record store I was able to cop their other record off of
eBay for a little over $20. However, if you've been really
really reading my blog entries and not just skimmin' through 'em, you may have noticed that everything good always comes out in the end. (
download)
