Crawling wind KEITH BRAMICH listens to a rare 1970s hybrid Cuneiform    RUNE 155

Using mostly classical instruments, Daniel Denis's unique Belgium-based 1970s group Univers Zéro chose to create a music based on the European heritage of its members [listen -- track 1, 4:21-5:21] rather than on American jazz. The first three tracks of Crawling Wind represent the first issue on CD of a rare 12-inch EP released (only) in Japan in 1983.

The group's members were mainly from a rock background -- few were classically trained. The resulting music is a kind of hybrid of progressive rock and contemporary classical, or rather various hybrids, since the soundworld varies so much from track to track -- from the Eastern folk music of Toujours plus a l'est, to the bleak, cavernous, aleatoric 'sqeaky gate' urban landscape of Before the Heat [listen -- track 2, 1:00-1:56].

Imaginative, varied and surreal, this is a collector's item.

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Record Box is Music & Vision's regular Saturday series of shorter CD reviews