Pollen

Pulsar | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 29, 2003)
• Original Release Date: January 1, 1975
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Musea
• ASIN: B0000CDE8P
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #168,070 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Pulsar

2. Apaisement

3. (I. Puzzle/II. Omen)

4. Le Cheval De Syllogie

5. Pollen

Editorial Reviews

PULSAR’s third album, issued in 1977, "Halloween" is generally considered one of the ten best symphonic albums in the world. A masterpiece of refinement, sold out for a long time and at last reissued with a wonderful 16-page booklet that includes biography, photos, words and history of the band from Lyon. Definitely indispensable for all progressive rock fans! The re-issue of "Pollen" from 1975, includes a biographical booklet with words and pictures. A year later, "The Strands Of The Future" showed us its charms in the format of hyper-sophisticated, elaborated and refined music, filled with exacerbated lyricism and romanticism. Probably as good or even better than "Halloween" ! In the early Eighties, PULSAR took the path of theatrical creation: with the director Bruno CARLUCCI, the famous quartet (Gilbert GANDIL at the guitar and bass, Victor BOSCH at the drums, Jacques ROMAN at the keyboards & Roland Richard at the flute and saxophone) adapted a short story by! Austrian novelist Peter HANDKE in 1981, "Bienvenue Au Conseil D’Administration !". The result is worth it for a lot of reasons ! With "Görlitz", PULSAR made their comeback in 1988 and played an actualised music with beautiful themes, and with the same melodical beauty and the same refinement they had shown on the four previous albums. Those are milestones of Seventies French Progressive rock !

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pulsar is off to a clumsy, albeit promising start, May 7, 2006

By 

Jeffrey J.Park (Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Pollen (Audio CD)

This 1975 debut by French prog band Pulsar is actually quite good, and although a bit clumsy and raw at points, lays out the spacey and haunting blueprint that they would develop further on Strands of the Future (1976) and bring to crystalline perfection on Halloween (1977). The lineup at this point included Jacques Roman (Hammond organ, acoustic piano, ARP synthesizers (mostly 2600 and Pro-Soloist I think); Gilbert Gandil (electric/acoustic guitar, vocals); Philippe Roman (bass, vocals); Victor Bosch (drums) and Roland Richard (flute and ARP string ensemble). In addition to the core musicians, Carmel Williams provides a "reading" in English on Puzzle/Omen, although all of the vocal parts by Gilbert and Philippe are in French.

There are five tracks on Pollen that range in length from 3'00" to 13'05", with three in the 7-8 minute range. The basic Pulsar sound at this point includes delicate flute work, washes of string synthesizer, gloomy and heavily echoed vocals, spacey, Rick Wright-ish Hammond organ work (with the characteristically tiny modulations), and a very Pink Floyd-ish rhythm section (although admittedly, Victor Bosch is a technically superior drummer to Nick Mason). The guitar playing is also quite nice and acoustic passages balance nicely with sections that feature the electric guitar. I should note that Gilbert gets some very nice tones out his electric guitar, even when distorted. In addition to the trademark gloomy and haunting Pulsar soundscapes, there are some moderately sprightly and proggier sections (e.g. on Puzzle/Omen) along with some psychedelic, electronic experimentation and electronically altered vocal passages (e.g. parts of Le Cheval de Syllogie). Speaking of the vocals, they are OK, although they would get much better with subsequent releases.

This Musea reissue is pretty good and the liner notes provide a nicely detailed history of the band up to 1975. Interestingly, the band had existed under the Pulsar name as early as 1971 - a fact that was news to me. This album is significant in that Pulsar was finally up and running after several years of gigging throughout Europe without any recording contract to speak of. Although I ultimately prefer Strands of the Future and Halloween, Pollen has enough of the haunting and spacey Pulsar sound in place that I find it very enjoyable and can easily overlook the clumsiness. Recommended to fans of Pulsar, Meddle-era Pink Floyd, and spacey prog in general.