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Black vinyl, limited to 300 copies. Originally released on Blue Master in 1974, now officially reissued on vinyl for the first time.
As the short but winding road of Blues Section reached its terminus in the summer of 1968, the vocalist of the groundbreaking Finnish blues rock team relocated to his native UK where he had been born 22 years earlier in Bradford-on-Avon. However, Frank Robson was to return shortly as he was summoned to join guitarist Jukka Tolonen, saxophonist Juhani Aaltonen, bass player Måns Groundstroem and drummer Vesa Aaltonen in the ranks of highly tipped new group Tasavallan Presidentti. The year was 1969 and the band would release the single Time Alone with You/Obsolete Machine concurrently with debut album Tasavallan Presidentti I just in time for Christmas. Built mainly on compositions by Robson, Tolonen and Groundstroem, the jazz-tinged disc was received very favourably by the media where the quintet, consisting of well-travelled top Finnish musicians, was immediately hailed as something of a supergroup and a prime local representative of the exciting progressive rock scene emerging all over Europe. ”Coming up simultaneously with Wigwam worked well for both parties”, says Robson now, half a century after the fact.
”We were all friends but our amicable rivalry added a nice edge to the action. Somehow the bands also seemed to complement one another well. Wigwam’s beginnings were a tad more melodic and not so musician-oriented whereas we were straight up prog rock. We listened to albums by King Crimson, Van Der Graaf Generator and others. On the whole Finland was surprisingly ready to take the leap and embrace prog. When we toured Sweden in the fall of 1970 I was hard-presed to find a similar scene there.” Black vinyl, limited to 300 copies. Originally released on Blue Master in 1974, now officially reissued on vinyl for the first time.
As the short but winding road of Blues Section reached its terminus in the summer of 1968, the vocalist of the groundbreaking Finnish blues rock team relocated to his native UK where he had been born 22 years earlier in Bradford-on-Avon. However, Frank Robson was to return shortly as he was summoned to join guitarist Jukka Tolonen, saxophonist Juhani Aaltonen, bass player Måns Groundstroem and drummer Vesa Aaltonen in the ranks of highly tipped new group Tasavallan Presidentti. The year was 1969 and the band would release the single Time Alone with You/Obsolete Machine concurrently with debut album Tasavallan Presidentti I just in time for Christmas. Built mainly on compositions by Robson, Tolonen and Groundstroem, the jazz-tinged disc was received very favourably by the media where the quintet, consisting of well-travelled top Finnish musicians, was immediately hailed as something of a supergroup and a prime local representative of the exciting progressive rock scene emerging all over Europe. ”Coming up simultaneously with Wigwam worked well for both parties”, says Robson now, half a century after the fact. ”We were all friends but our amicable rivalry added a nice edge to the action. Somehow the bands also seemed to complement one another well. Wigwam’s beginnings were a tad more melodic and not so musician-oriented whereas we were straight up prog rock. We listened to albums by King Crimson, Van Der Graaf Generator and others. On the whole Finland was surprisingly ready to take the leap and embrace prog. When we toured Sweden in the fall of 1970 I was hard-presed to find a similar scene there.”
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