ProgressoR / Uzbekistan Progressive Rock Pages

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Yalla (Uzbekistan) - Overall View
1982 - "Three Wells" ****
1983 - "The Face of My Sweetheart" ******
1988 - "The Tea Room" *****

Uzbekistan's oldest, most famous, and established Rock band Yalla was formed in 1971. Composer and singer Farrukh Zakirov was and still is the permanent leader of the band. Yalla (i.e. Melody) still exists and is by no means a dead band, despite the fact that in the beginning of this year, Zakirov became the vice-minister of culture of our republic. During thirty years of Yalla's existence, the band released (through "Melodiya" and a few of the foreign labels) no less than a dozen of different EPs and three full-length LPs (see discography below). The second of them, "The Face of My Sweetheart", was internationally recognized as one of the best Progressive Rock albums ever released in USSR. Based on the poetry of Rabindranat Tagor, the Indian writer, philosopher, and poet, this is the band's only completely concept album. Since none of the band's albums, but "The Best of ...", were re-released on CD, "The Face of My Sweetheart" is now a real hard-to-get LP: not only in the CIS, but also in Japan and a few of the other countries where Yalla have been touring. Both of the remaining albums by the band, "The Tea Room" and especially "Three Wells" (with which, though, Yalla quickly reached the mega-star status in the USSR), aren't that progressive. Nevertheless, thanks to the presence of wonderful tunes of Uzbek national music everywhere in Yalla's creation, both of these albums sound at least unique. content

Yes - 1994 - "Talk" (UK) ****+

So very few Prog-bands exist whose names begin with one of the last three letters of the English alphabet! Nevertheless, the band named Yes is one of the most noteworthy Prog-performers that ever appeared. In my opinion, "Talk" is another very underrated album (see also Light, Xitizen Cain, the others). This one was made by Rabin & Co in an absolute conformity with the stylistics of "90125" album (1983), which gave a chance to so many young Prog-heads (me too) work backwards to Yes' roots for understanding "Tales..." or "Relayer". "Talk" is a very strong album, only it was very badly promoted. Really, is "Talk" worse than the albums of Arena, Galahad, and other current (Neo)"high-fliers"? Do you think so? In that case, please, listen to "Talk" once more, especially the last trilogy. content

Yezda Urfa (USA) - 1976 - "Secret Baboon" ****+

Obscure US' Progressive band formed in the 1974 year. They released only the two albums and then, unsuccessfully searching for the major label, disbanded. "Secret Baboon" is the second one, last and best work by these talented musicians. These five guys played a wide variety instruments: drums and metalophone, guitars and mandolins, bass and contrabass, cello and flute, vocals and strange "air" guitar. As well as Yes, they used polyrhythmic vocals, and a voice of the lead singer Rick Rodenbaugh often sounds like Jon Anderson's. They were very influenced by Yes and Gentle Giant, however an excellent complex arrangements plus a high technical level of the musicians could make happy those of you, who's sure that Progressive Rosk has died sometime in the same '70s. content

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ProgressoR / Uzbekistan Progressive Rock Pages