Yezda Urfa-Sacred Baboon, Boris, Nearfest Live

Criminally misconstrued by the music industry, and therefore, kept from a possible audience that might as well give them the break that they deserved, the fact is that Yezda Urfa is one of the best names in the history of USA's seventies prog. Their first recording "Boris" was actually a demo, and so we can have this catalogue comprising a selection of ideas that are still to find a final expression in their self-financed album, but also other tracks that only appear here. All of them are damn great in their own extravagant manner.

The repertoire is a combination of Yessian melodicism and Gentle Giant-like elegant management of counterpoint and dissonance, all of it properly seasoned with touches of jazz-rock, circus music, folk-pop and country. You can notice slight similarities with the earliest Happy the Man ("Beginnings" and "Death's Crown"). This band sure loves to gamble with contrasts all the time, yet they do it naturally, never letting the inventiveness lead to forcefulness nor making their inherent pretentiousness a room for self-indulgent seriousness. The aware listener will quickly recogniza the humour, unhidden by the exhibition of skill and the abundant dynamics in the transitions between sections