Gil Keltch
New member
אטמוספירה
Atmosphera (Israel) Album: Lady Of Shalott (2002, recorded 1975-78) Formed in 1975 and based on the nucleus of keyboardist Yuval Rivlin and guitarist Motti Fonseca two young Prog fans, who were joined by bassist Alon Nadel and drummer Ami Lipner (AKA Me El Ma, later a member of Zingale), all of them were 16-17 years old at the time. the band Atmosphera remains one of the finest (some say The finest!!!)and most obscure groups to emerge out of the Israeli Prog scene of the seventies. the few who do know their work however rate them very highly. Inspite of their young ages, the band members were all highly professionl players of the highest standarts and gifted composers, strongly influenced by Yes (circa 1972) and to a lesser degree by Genesis. The guitarist Fonseca was known as Motti ´Steve Howe´ Fonseca, keyboardist and main composer Yuval Rivlin could be concidered as the Israeli answer to Rick Wakeman, While Nadel and Lipner could easily fit in the ´Close To The Edge´ sessions (and this is no exgageration!). After establishing themselves as a major live act, among Israeli prog fans gigging with other legendary Progsters of the era including Piamenta, Cosmic Dream and Zingale who´s vocalist/guitarist Efraim Barak will eventualy join them. the band (now including Efraim Barak) was offered a recording contract with ´Hataklit´ record label (which also released the legendary Zingale album) and entered the studio to start working on their two original great compositions; ´The Lady Of Shalott´ and ´Cuckoo´. both of these compositions were highly complex and acomplished and had running time of over 15 minutes each. As mentioned before the group was highly influenced by Yes, yet they still managed to sound fresh and original, especialy on ´Cuckoo´ which shows more maturity and individuality. Judging by the quality of music and the top notch and complex playing, one gets the impression that this is a bunch of extremly expirienced musicians, rather than the bunch of high school kids they were in reality and the result is indeed very impressive. The band spent over six months in the studio and managed to complete the recordings (which were engineered by another Zingale member David Rosental)of the "Lady Of Shalott" track and a non-finished version of ´Cuckoo´which was roughly mixed by Me El Ma to a reasonable quality, before the recording sessions were abrupted by the record label who was afraid of a commercial disaster. during this era the band´s popularity has reached it´s peak resulting in a perfomance at the legendary ´Neviot´ Festival alongside Richie Havens and many top Israeli acts as well as doing radio sessions and a TV perfomance which was never aired. as a result of the label´s veto and due to the fact that several members were drafted to the army, the band broke up and their tapes were concidered lost for over 20 years. however about two years ago a medicore quality CDR´s of these sessions started circulating among collectors. Now almost 25 years after the original sessions, MIO records in Israel had managed to solve out all of the legal problems, concerning the copyrights and released these (now remasterd) recordings as well as unearthing early demos and several later recordings by ofshoot band Istopy (who recorded only one track, but what a track!!!)and some interesting electronic solo tracks by Me El Ma, in addition to this they managed to find the radio sessions and the fragmented lost TV footage which was concidered lost and which was faithfully restored and edited to a marvellous clip (one of the very few filmed documantions of Israeli Prog band, ever). further to this a new and great alternate version of ´Cuckoo´ was made especialy for this release with great new Mellotron parts which adds even more distinction to this great track. this limited double cd is highly reccomended to fans of Symphonic Prog (Yes fans in peticular )and also gives the curios listener a chance to hear and see one of the best Israeli bands of all times at their peak Additional info can be found at: http://www.miorecords.com/releases/atmosphera/atmosphera.htm Gil Keltch
Atmosphera (Israel) Album: Lady Of Shalott (2002, recorded 1975-78) Formed in 1975 and based on the nucleus of keyboardist Yuval Rivlin and guitarist Motti Fonseca two young Prog fans, who were joined by bassist Alon Nadel and drummer Ami Lipner (AKA Me El Ma, later a member of Zingale), all of them were 16-17 years old at the time. the band Atmosphera remains one of the finest (some say The finest!!!)and most obscure groups to emerge out of the Israeli Prog scene of the seventies. the few who do know their work however rate them very highly. Inspite of their young ages, the band members were all highly professionl players of the highest standarts and gifted composers, strongly influenced by Yes (circa 1972) and to a lesser degree by Genesis. The guitarist Fonseca was known as Motti ´Steve Howe´ Fonseca, keyboardist and main composer Yuval Rivlin could be concidered as the Israeli answer to Rick Wakeman, While Nadel and Lipner could easily fit in the ´Close To The Edge´ sessions (and this is no exgageration!). After establishing themselves as a major live act, among Israeli prog fans gigging with other legendary Progsters of the era including Piamenta, Cosmic Dream and Zingale who´s vocalist/guitarist Efraim Barak will eventualy join them. the band (now including Efraim Barak) was offered a recording contract with ´Hataklit´ record label (which also released the legendary Zingale album) and entered the studio to start working on their two original great compositions; ´The Lady Of Shalott´ and ´Cuckoo´. both of these compositions were highly complex and acomplished and had running time of over 15 minutes each. As mentioned before the group was highly influenced by Yes, yet they still managed to sound fresh and original, especialy on ´Cuckoo´ which shows more maturity and individuality. Judging by the quality of music and the top notch and complex playing, one gets the impression that this is a bunch of extremly expirienced musicians, rather than the bunch of high school kids they were in reality and the result is indeed very impressive. The band spent over six months in the studio and managed to complete the recordings (which were engineered by another Zingale member David Rosental)of the "Lady Of Shalott" track and a non-finished version of ´Cuckoo´which was roughly mixed by Me El Ma to a reasonable quality, before the recording sessions were abrupted by the record label who was afraid of a commercial disaster. during this era the band´s popularity has reached it´s peak resulting in a perfomance at the legendary ´Neviot´ Festival alongside Richie Havens and many top Israeli acts as well as doing radio sessions and a TV perfomance which was never aired. as a result of the label´s veto and due to the fact that several members were drafted to the army, the band broke up and their tapes were concidered lost for over 20 years. however about two years ago a medicore quality CDR´s of these sessions started circulating among collectors. Now almost 25 years after the original sessions, MIO records in Israel had managed to solve out all of the legal problems, concerning the copyrights and released these (now remasterd) recordings as well as unearthing early demos and several later recordings by ofshoot band Istopy (who recorded only one track, but what a track!!!)and some interesting electronic solo tracks by Me El Ma, in addition to this they managed to find the radio sessions and the fragmented lost TV footage which was concidered lost and which was faithfully restored and edited to a marvellous clip (one of the very few filmed documantions of Israeli Prog band, ever). further to this a new and great alternate version of ´Cuckoo´ was made especialy for this release with great new Mellotron parts which adds even more distinction to this great track. this limited double cd is highly reccomended to fans of Symphonic Prog (Yes fans in peticular )and also gives the curios listener a chance to hear and see one of the best Israeli bands of all times at their peak Additional info can be found at: http://www.miorecords.com/releases/atmosphera/atmosphera.htm Gil Keltch
