Ergo Sum (France) Early French prog/jazz-rock! First known as Lemon Pie, was formed by Ledissez and Guerin in 1968. Their innovative blend of rock, jazz and other ingredients characteristically failed to attract French record companies, until Laurent Thibault recognised them as being really impressive in early 1971. At that time he was just about to launch his own label Thйlиme (distributed by Barclay) and offered the band recording time in the legendary Chateau d'Herrouville studio (whose famous clients have ranged from Elton John to Jethro Tull and Pink Floyd). Mexico (because Ledissez had lived there), became Thйlиme's first release, setting high standards from the outset. Ergo Sum had a really refined and tasteful sound with Ledissez's broken voice (reminiscent of Roger Chapman from Family and Alvarro Fella of Jumbo), Meynet's violin (quite similar to Dave Arbus of East Of Eden) and Guerin's chilling electric piano as their main forces. This was not 'progressive' in the sense of 'endless instrumentais', rather more like Traffic's song-based approximation (on their second album), characterised by impeccable musicianship and songwriting. Ergo Sum used English lyrics, which was most common before Ange strengthened bands' confidence in using French. The album Mexico is a classic and still a refreshing experience to hear today. Regretably the group only just survived into 1972, with Marc Perru (ex-Cruciferius) and Edouard Magnani replacing Leonardi and Touat. This line-up recorded a last single ('Tijuana"). Their last live engagement was performed by a different configuration, including Francois Breant (also ex-Cruciferius), Jean-My Truong (pre-Zao) and Marc Bertaux. Breant and Perru then formed a new group named Nemo. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ERGO SUM (Chile) Genre: Prog Folk This is a Chilean quintet featuring Alexandros Tefarikis (electric - and acoustic guitar), Sebastián Iglesias (bass), Sergio Menares (drums, percussion and keyboards), Juan Daniel Rios (flute) and Gonzalo Muga (drums, marimba, vibraphone and keyboards). In ’97 they released their eponymous debut album, 3 years later followed by a second album entitled "Mixolidio". The music has hints from JETHRO TULL and FOCUS. The CD release from their first album contains the six LP-songs and two bonus tracks from 2001. ERGO SUM sounds like a progressive mix from folk and metal with lots of changing moods, including swirling fluteplay (like Ian ANDERSON) and heavy electric guitarplay (in the vein of VAI, SATRIANI or MALMSTEEN) with many blistering solos. The use of instruments like the marimba gives the music a fine touch. The second CD is more varied (acoustic guitar, saxophone, vibraphone and flute) and divided into three parts. The first contains five songs from ’99: swinging, dynamic and alternating (flute, heavy guitar, 2 vibraphone-players), a quite unique sound. The second parts includes 7 live tracks from ’99: the emphasis is more on the heavy guitarplay. The last section features two bonus tracks from 2001 with alternating and captivating progrock, again an interesting blend of folk and rock with flute, vibraphone and electric guitar. ERGO SUM’s sound is not loaded with keyboards but nonetheless they sound very progressive. http://www.ergosum.scd.cl/ Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.