An interesting rarity for electronic music fans (Argo - Discophonia, Kaunus Carillon - Kuprevicius)

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Argo - Discophonia, Kaunus Carillon - Kuprevicius
Date:	05/06/09 (34 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A very crisp sound, interestingly experimental

Disadvantages: The beginning is poor

I'm not quite sure how I ended up with a version of this album. Having a bit of knowledge on modern day Lithuanian bands due to going to festivals there, I suppose I was intrigued to check out a band I'd never heard of.

Argo in fact, were never that well known in their home country either. This album released in 1980 is the work of a duo from Kaunas Theatrical School, it's a piece of electronic music which has hints of jazz and funk to it. It's minimalistic but I've come to the conclusion that it was extremely ahead of its time and is the kind of chill out techno you can expect to find in lounge-bars and the like today. This isn't my really thing but a couple of things amazed me about this album. Lithuania was USSR in 1980 and virtually all music of a non-mainstream variety (the majority of rock, punk, electronic was deemed too naughty by the Soviets) had to be sold and took place in an underground way, therefore the recordings are usually a bit shabby with a fair amount of crackling and other problems on, this however is clean as a whistle.

The next thing that I was impressed by was the complexity of some of the songs, it starts off very simple but the album progressively gets more technical and interesting.

I personally like the 2nd track known just as A2, it got better and better as the song went on, there's a clever amount of jazz and funk included in later tracks and whilst I'd not call this an outstanding album, it definitely punches above its weight for a budget Lithuanian electronic album of 1980 and could appeal to wide markets from your intense club goers to your chill out trendies and ardent collectors of rare music. The cover is a blatant rip off from the Rolling Stones album Sticky Fingers.

Summary: Not really my thing but not bad