Moving Waves

Product Information

No one in English and America, and I’m including Frank Zappa, could have created a song so utterly off the wall.

We provide a range of musical instruments and accessories for beginners, intermediates and pro players. My pal Martijn informs me that “If “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” didn’t exist, “Hocus Pocus” would be the greatest song ever. I bought this CD to save any further wear on my original vinyl LP which I bought in the early 70's just after the shortened single version of "Hocus Pocus" had been a belated hit in the UK.We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. But proof that Focus was capable of bending the time-space continuum can be found in the album’s opener—also the band’s biggest hit.

Moving Waves” is a Keith Emerson doppelganger right down to its pseudo-classical piano and portentous vocals by resident genius Thijs van Leer. The album features " Hocus Pocus" a hard rock song featuring keyboardist Thijs van Leer's yodelling, scat singing, and whistling, and "Eruption", a 22-minute track inspired by the opera Euridice by Italian composer Jacopo Peri. Two are natives of Liechtenstein and probably fibbing, seeing as how they hail from a country whose very name begins with a lie.

Focus II aka Moving Waves Unlike the debut album, that had the vocal version of Focus removed to be replaced by House of the King, this album was just renamed for international release. The guitar playing by Jan Akkerman is sublime as is the keyboard work of Thijs Van Leer and it is driven along by the superb Bass of Cyril Havermans and drums of Pierre Van Der Linden.

Aquí se incluye su tema más representativo, "Hocus Pocus", una maravilla que no se puede describir en palabras, pues siempre nos quedaríamos cortos. The latter theory is demonstrably false, which makes me wish the folks in their commune had traded Tarkus for a copy of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

Euridice" is a classical lied which segues into the Gregorian-inspired "Dayglow" and followed by van der Linden's drum solo, "Endless Road". White Blue Horizon labels with text in blue, ⚭ Stereo to the left and lower-case Britico below it, unlike Moving Waves which has BRITICO in caps. The Dutch quartet’s second full-length album, Moving Waves —alternately titled Focus II —is one of the least-probable success stories of the early part of the 1970s. Proof that Focus was capable of pulling off pretty much anything in those days can be found in “Eruption,” a 22-minute hard rock rendering of Jacopo Peri’s opera Euridice that canvases the record’s second side.

It’s a prime embodiment of what later became known as “progressive rock”: a melding of classical composition elements with rock ’n’ roll tempos in the vein of Frank Zappa, plus jazz fusion passages and a handful of truly masterful guitar licks. Following the departure of original bassist Martin Dresden and drummer Hans Cleuver in 1970, the band recruited Cyril Havermans and Pierre van der Linden, respectively, and prepared material for a new album. Of course, Akkerman and van Leer were exceptional in writing to each others’ strengths as musicians: Akkerman’s “Janis” is really a showcase for van Leer’s multitracked flute parts, while Akkerman totally steals the show with his guitar arpeggios on van Leer’s fusion track “Focus II. The group wanted to incorporate an element of humour in the track because they felt it was missing in the rock genre.Side two contains the 22-minute track "Eruption", a loose rock adaptation of the tale of Orpheus and Euridice from the opera Euridice by Italian composer Jacopo Peri. Eruption” includes tributes to classical composers and other Dutch fusion acts, and an intense drum solo by Buddy Rich disciple van der Linden.