Circle — Prospekt
This new reissue comes in a rather wonderful full colour mini gatefold sleeve. It features great surreal/ tripped-out artwork that places oversized dragonflies, insect pods & fish over pictures of 1970’s architecture, windmills & parkland .
The albums original six tracks find the band mainly locked into very urgent, dense, muscular and unstoppable riff’s- which tie together bass, guitar & drums into a taut circular structure. Around this taut riff structure we have a mixture of sometime jazz tinged 70’s organ, melodic yet moody & edgy violin, and atmospheric synth trails. Mostly the album feels very precise, powerful & insistent, which puts one in a fairly tense yet hypnotic state. In a few places the pace drops down to more jazzy or more atmospheric tinged moments, but these never last too long before we’re back into the locked riff-craft setting again. All but the first track here are vocal-less, meaning the riff is the centre of worship & wonder here.
This reissue adds in an extra re-mixed live track. The near eighteen minute’s of “Työläisten Laulu (Encore Apocalypse Mix)”, which finds the band sounding very noise seared & noise blurred. The track opens with a ominous mixture of descending mid-toned electronics, which slowly faded out over a huge sounding rumbling wall of noise texture. By the 5th minute the noise has been stripped back, and a more recognisable pumping drum beat, guitar ‘n’ bass & ranted/shouted finish singing has started up. As the track goes on it’s locked ‘n’ pounding path the sonic elements seem to get more warp/ reverb laced in their feeling. By the 10th minute the guitar ‘n’ synth sound like some kind of mechanical chopping ‘n’ grinding machine, with nice booming fuzzed noise haze surrounding them. In its last few minutes the drums exit leaving just a scorching trail of sustained 'n' noised-up guitar feed-back. “Työläisten Laulu” is a nice addition to the original album, and works as nice noise release after the taut urgency of the original album.
All told “Prospekt” is another very effective slice of locked groove genre mixed circular rock from the mighty Circle, and it surely does show the band at their most pounding & urgent too.