Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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SAHARA is a mid-70's act that produced two albums, but prior to that they'd worked and released another as SUBJECT ESQ. The music is rather typical early 70s proto-prog with elements of JETHRO TULL (for the flute-guitar interplay), early YES, and the occasional saxophone riffs remind of early VAN DER GRAAF GENERATOR. There are some spacier and/or symphonic parts that recall NEKTAR, GENESIS (around "Trespass"), and maybe early ELOY. With the arrival of ex-OUT OF FOCUS Hennes Henring on keyboards, the band continued under the new name SAHARA after this album. Sunrise has been a minor classic , especially for its sidelong epic title track. Their second album, "For All The Clowns", is straighter with an overdose of progressive influences, notably FOCUS / YES and CARAVAN and a potpourri styles.

~ Progarchives

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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German progressive/symphonic rock band with two albums in the 70s, Sunrise (1973) and For All the Clowns (1975). They featured sax and flute in their arrangements. See also Subject Esq.. Elements of style in common with The Moody Blues, Barclay James Harvest, Van der Graaf Generator.
Sahara developed out of Subject Esq. After some line-up changes in 1973, this Munich group was signed to Pan (an Ariola subsidiary) and changed their name to Sahara: Hennes Hering (keyboards, ex-Out Of Focus), Michael Hoffmann (moog, mellotron, vocals), Alex Pittwohn (harmonica, sax, vocals), Stefan Wissnet (bass, vocals), Harry Rosenkind (drums) and Nick Woodland (guitar, ex-Gift). The album Sunrise (1974) was recorded in the Autumn of 1973 at the Musicland Studios, Munich. This was an excellent example of complex German symphonic rock, clearly influenced by British bands such as King Crimson, Yes, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Curved Air, Jethro Tull and others. Sunrise was nonetheless of an international quality, combining haunting melody lines with complex arrangements. The Sunrise suite filled the whole of side two. The album was also granted a British release on the Dawn label.

Sahara were never a stable unit. At the time of recording of “For All The Clowns” two years later, only Hering, Hoffmann and Wissnet remained from the 1974 line-up. The new members were: Gunther Moll (guitar, vocals) and Holger Brandt (drums, ex-Missing Link). The resulting album was another great effort - more polished and melodic with long, memorable songs like “The Mountain King” and the title track. Sadly, the band wasn’t able to cope with more line-up changes when Brandt and Moll decided to leave, and consequently disintegrated in 1977. Sahara’s legacy is two really great albums recommended for all fans of symphonic rock.

~ LastFm

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Overlooked progressive rock band from Germany,later known as ''Sahara'',who's roots can be found in mid-60's,when they played beat music under the name ''The king and the subjects''.By 1969 they were renamed to SUBJECT ESQ and began playing a more complicated rock format.In 1972 their eponymous debut was released by Epic Label.
For a 1972 album,I would list it among the best of its time,as it was certainly one of the most varied,diverse and dynamic albums of the year,delivering a great amount of styles,instruments and tempos.There is plenty of tasteful driving flutes,heavy doses of Hammond organ,jazzy saxes here and there and even some harmonica touches to be found in this,making ''Subject esq'' a hard to categorize album,but on the other side one of the most interesting releases of the early progressive rock scene.Hard is also to fully decribe their sound,but a good simulation would if you combined the progressive side of BIRTH CONTROL with all these energetic and complex elements,meeting the vocal harmonies of YES in their 1970-1971 transition era and the elaborated playing of early 70's CARAVAN.So do not pass by this fantastic release,which would heal your ears and fill your time with some excellent music.A lost and overlooked treasure of the past!

Review by psarros, Progarchives

This Munich-based group took roots in the 60's as The Subjects playing beat music, but its evolution Subject Esq. is definitely a 70's-sounding quintet, dishing an organ-driven proto-prog similar to what was done in the UK in the early 70's. Subject Esq. would be at home on the neon, Dawn or Vertigo labels. It was released in early 72 on the Epic label and was coming with a gatefold sleeve where the inner-fold is way more interesting than the outer-fold, presenting a bland red to yellow degrading naпve logo and band portrait. Lead singer Hoffman also handles the wind instruments, except for the harmonica, played by guitarist Pittwohn. Stadler's keyboards are all over the album, mainly in the form of an organ

If the first track Alone is more "straight rock" than prog, it presents a strong riff, while the following Giantania seems headed in the same "riff-y" direction but halfway though, it has some solid organ work and a superb quiet passage with some beautiful flute and bass, before the riff comes back. A rather weaker What Is Love also features an interesting middle section, but I find the sax-led riff rather clichй and the lyrics un-inspired. The inaptly-titled 5:13 (it's only 4:29 long ;o))) is another fast-paced track with double tracking (flute and sax together in the riff), but soon digress into another interesting slower flute-dominated middle section and slowly building back via the excellent organ into a Graaf-esque riff before fading out.

The flipside presents two longer tracks including the Mammon centrepiece, clocking well over the 12 minutes. If the other side featured tracks that were clumsily proggy, mostly by fitting in good middle sections, this track really shows that the group could indeed be more ambitious and even include harmonica in a prog song. This track is probably best described as a mini-epic, filled with many different instrumental passages and constantly-evolving rhythms. A cross between Colosseum and VdGG , if you ask me. The closing Durance Is Waiting has a West-Coast intro, mainly due to the vocal harmonies, but soon plunges into a demented up-tempo prog with plenty of instrumental interplay, before almost dying of a fade-out and just barely clinging onto life with a delicate background vocals and bass and slowly reconstructing the music, but with the finale ending with the help of a violin, courtesy of guest Manuala Gunther.

The Cd reissue (on the great Ohrwaschl label) comes with two lengthy live tracks as bonus, including a much expanded Giantania (now 19-mins long) and an Untitled track (most likely not its real title). While the sound of these live tracks is hardly perfect, it's nothing scandalous either. The tracks add to the album's enjoyment (IMHO, because that might not be a general opinion), as they unveil a different (live) facet of the group: raw, less-focused, more psychey and improvising/jamming. While Subject Esq.'s sole album is generally a bit over-rated by the majority (IMHO), I find it interesting and enjoyable at homeopathic doses, but hardly essential, especially compared to the group's future albums under the Sahara name.

Review by Sean Trane , Progarchives

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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What a change an album makes! Having suffered the departure of keyboardist Stadler, but added an extra guitarist, Englishman Nick Woodland (from Gift), the group changed its name from the strange and unfitting Subject Esq to the more concise Sahara and whatever adventure this new name promised. But the best thing happening to the band is the arrival of ex-Out Of Focus keyboardist Hennes Herring on many different keyboards. Coming in a superb gatefold with a fiery artwork, the album was released on a small German label Pan (Ariola), but also was distributed on the UK on the Dawn label in early 74. Now a sextet, Sahara develops a varied prog sound, sometimes veering classical, sometimes jazz, and at others, bluesy

Starting wildly on ultra quick guitar riff, Marie Celeste (a boat) quickly drops the horns and brings on the church-like organ in a quieter movement, when a sax blows its soul out and the boat sails many different and turbulent musical weather changes. The weaker Circles, country-folk track that shouldn't have crossed the ocean with those indispensable GI stationed around the country, but it's more folk than country, but it sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the otherwise near-perfect album. The following Rainbow Rider is a moody track that delves into jazz, after a piano intro and a fast-paced verse, then giving us an excellent 8-minutes track, if you'll pardon the all-too-predictable repeated choir line at its end-section

If the first side is nowhere near perfection, the flipside with its side-long title track is one of the best multi-movement epic suites ever, certainly one of the most varied: from electronica to classical, but mostly their own typical rock music that has its own sound and cannot be easily pigeonholed to classic UK prog bands. This 27-minutes+ affair (!) is head-twisting, skull-numbing, mind-blowing, will-bending, nerve-wracking, hair-pulling, eye-tearing, ear-piercing, breath-taking, sinus-emptying, throat-clearing, mouth-watering , etc..; and that's just to mention what is does to your upper extremities. And the amazing feat is that the track gets better and better to reacj its apex around the end of these 27-mins+.

Definitely one of the best "trad-prog" (this means more or less symphonic, but there is so much more to it than that) album out of Germany along with the first Grobschnitt album, Herring's OOF heritage did bring the extra touch that the band needed to become excellent instead of merely good.

Review by Sean Trane, Progarchives

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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After the excellent Sunrise, Sahara will again suffer a line-up change, seeing Woodland leave (I suppose he went to Desertland), then drummer Rosekind followed, thus leaving the Subject Esq. survivors to only three (Hoffman, Wissnet, Pittwohn), with Gunther Moll (guitar) and drummer Holger Brandt (ex-Missing Link) to fill in. Little did the rest of the group know that the two newcomers would leave soon after (and despite!) the release of another excellent album. This album was released late 75 on the mother label Ariola, but came with a bizarre humoristic cartoon-esque B&W artwork, that doesn't fit the music at all. Rather important to the group's sound, Hoffman is not playing sax anymore, but he's on synths (including a Moog) and on guitars, while still fluting around, Wwhile pittwohn seems to have become the manager/producer.
After a dispensable average Flying Dancer, the group plunges into a Crimsonian atmosphere, especially in the riff opening and closing of the two-part The Source track, alternating between dark quiet passages and heavier sombre moments. This track segues without much interruption into the title track, which is just as moody as its predecessor.

Opening the flipside is a Herring piano Prйlude, an intro to the remainder of the album, with the two-part Mountain King track, opening on up-tempo riff, soon joined by the flute and some Moog playing, but Herring's organ is much kinder to our ears. The middle section features a jazzy Rhodes and some brilliant electric guitar, the track coming to a stop before the Moog comes back to rekindle the flame and throw the group in a light improve and then a verse-chorus song structure, where the heavy guitar and gentle organ dominate. Dream Queen opens on 12-strings guitar arpeggios and flute, much like an early Genesis song ; but the vocals are bringing you back down to earth, because they're not quite as dream or fantasy-like. Even when the song is fully opened, the flute is taking the front stage, but sounding Tull-ian, now. The closing Fool The Fortune outro is another 12-string guitar arpeggio piece

While this album is again excellent, I personally find it not matching the preceding Sunrise album, but then again many will prefer Clowns and its more symphonic second side. In either case, both Sahara albums are very worthy and essential listening. Unfortunately the group did not record more albums once the two newcomers decided to leave this superb group.

Review by Sean Trane, Progarchives

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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Sahara - Discography and Video (1972 - 2008) [3CD + DVD]

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