Supersister - Pudding En Gisteren

Supersister
Pudding En Gisteren


Released 1972 on Polydor
Reviewed by zmnathanson, 28/01/2009ce


I first got into Supersister by accident when I was in high school at the time. During that period, some of my friends were into shitty fucked up music like; 50 Cent, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit, Papa Roach, and Linkin Park. It made me want to puke my fucking guts out. When I first heard the song 'Radio' by them on the out-of-print 5-CD box set of 'Supernatural Fairy Tales: The Progressive Rock Era" from the Rhino label, I was completely gobsmacked. I was thinking this was different than what I was listening to other Prog Rock gods. That was the moment I knew that how I was looking at the other obscure side of Prog. Since I've gotten into the krautrock scene (Can, Amon Duul II, Rufus Zuphall, and Faust) plus Van Der Graaf Generator (thank you Julian if you're reading this for getting me into VDGG) were dangerous and surreal. The surreality of Pudding En Gisteren, their second album of their follow up to their debut album Present From Nancy, was more of a full scale powerpoint assault. I knew how its dangerous and fucking brilliant at the same time from Robert Jan Stips who was a cross between Robert Wyatt and Mont Campbell and the fuzztone keyboards sounds of Egg's Dave Stewart and Soft Machine's Mike Rateledge meets Frank Zappa's Uncle Meat. Mother of God, this isn't just an album, this is a hellish war from Polydor who were releasing poppy bluesy singles from the Bee Gees and Cream and soon got a taste of their own wine with Medicine Head, Pink Fairies, Brian Auger, and the Crazy World of Arthur Brown. Stips, you could have done some amazing shit with Supersister to be a part of the Polydor label. And let me tell you, you still have it to this day.

Pudding En Gisteren is the avant-garde taste of Prog if Zappa could have done it. No wonder if the Jazz circuit could have handled such insanity of mind-boggling sounds of Psychopathic killers. This was the the Canterbury Prog album of all Canterbury albums because the other prog bands might have been scared shitless of them with their wit of humor. Robert Jan Stips sounded like a quiet school boy as if you think he's getting good grades and being the center of attention at high school. He still has the same sound of the Soft Machine with his Hammond Organ that Mike Rateledge wished he could have destroyed it with his amps to get that heavy sound, but for Stips, he represented the anti-glam status of his looks and his technique on the keyboards that were almost too dangerous for the Royal Performing Arts Theatre to take that kind of music. Sacha van Geest unlike Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull who goes all over the place as a homeless psychopath on the Aqualung and the Stand Up album, plays the flute beautifully in a jazz relative tone. Ron Van Eck who I looked at on the cover of the Present From Nancy album, he looked like a sex god on the cover wearing a black suit and platform boots, but he plays the bass like a cross between Jimmy Garrison and Mont Campbell of Egg from all avant/RIO bass relative players. Marco Vrolijk keeps the tempo flowing as a dyamic flaming firing sound of a drummer. Like I've mentioned before, Supersister in the early '70s, was the band to scare the shit of bombastic prog bands like Yes and ELP as the same with Blossom Toes and Second Hand who wanted to give the Bee Gees the middle finger and a 'I-don't-give-a-fuck-about-New-York-Mining-Disaster-1941 poppy bullshit sound that you scumfuckers wanted to do.' In many cases, don't fuck around with Supersister or they'll come at you.

So let's stop talking about my bullshit story and get into the core of Pudding En Gisteren. So the question remains, what is it that I loved about this album? It's actually the insanity and weirdness of Stips view of the mainstream scene of what's happening. He's not trying to be a fucked-up musician or singing about the trees falling down the leaves on an ordinary love-song ditty. When they sing about the lack of commercial radio scene from a girl who disliked the whole mainstream music, I thought to myself 'That's me! I too hate commercial music or bands who want to put shitty music for promos like GAP or an SUV car driving in the sunset with Madonna's crappy music'. Stips was actually singing to me about the whole thing with the FM market is going downhill.

The introduction of 'Radio' opens up with a wah-wah keyboard sound and then it goes into a traditional jazz fusion technique of a lullaby number. As it becomes a cross between Egg's first album and The Soft Machine's 'We Did It Again', without any fuck-ups on the beginning section. And then it goes into a proto-punk rap like moment from Stips while the band do a Monk-like background vocal relative moment and having the shit we have to put up with Britney Spears destroyed and demanding real music. As a bat flying out of nowhere, the band knows they're having a good moment to poke fun of themselves and climbing up the sexual attic to get it on big time.

You have to understand, Supersister were ahead of their time, because they were getting started in their mid '20s and trying to follow the sound that Frank Zappa wished he could have been a part of. 'Supersisterretsisrepus' starts off as an backward tape for 20-seconds as it segues to 'Psychopath' which is a comedic taste as if this piece could have been written in the 19th century by Mozart and Edgard Varese in a rockin' way and make you wanting for more. And then, things go a little freaky. If you thought Frank Zappa 17-minute piece of 'The Return of the Monster Magnet' was strange and fucking bizarre, this here is the psychedelic jazzy 12-minute freak-out piece of 'Judy Goes On Holiday'. We go through a motorcycling roar on the Stips keyboards and then it goes into a Soft Machine meets Pink Floyd sound in the midsection and Miles Davis fusion sound in there of Geest's flute and then it becomes funny with the sound of the '50s doo-wop homage in the finale in the last 3-minutes. And then, ending with a burp.

The closing that the Royal Ballet wished they could have used, but were too fucking stupid to use and using the Blue Daunbe instead to please dysfuctional families, 'Pudding En Gisteren (Music for Ballet)'
is an avant-garde classical prog composition for 21-minutes of a taste of the shit stains of the ballet dancers getting ready to dance beyond crazy in their pink outfits as fainting of this marvelous piece. They used alot of Electric Pianos and Coltrane relative noises and how it should be done in a good ol' canterbury way. Then it goes a little samba punk from Ron's bass line as Marco plays like Billy Cobham while Robert does some Jan Hammer techniques on the keyboards as Marco keeps the drums flowing ala Keith Moon style as if Varese and Stravinsky have an evil grin on their faces and pleasing themselves by watching them. The last few minutes is another homage of the classical music sinister ballad as Robert's Piano and Sacha's flute fill it to a T as if the ballet dancers danced one last time and then bow for the audience as the curtain closes.

Pudding En Gisteren is brilliant essential canterbury prog album, that makes you wish you could destroy your piano lessons for good and hoping that you could do more of this stuff forever. It is superb, wild, insane, and all-in-all mad. So if you are in the Royal Ballet training to be a ballet dancer and give the finger to your teacher, or just piss off the music majors of insanity keyboard sounds of these fine dutchmen, Go for it and once again, PLAY IT FUCKING LOUD!


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