The fifth album from this band from Slovakia.
The band is a quartet with a lineup of drums, percussion, bass, mandolin, guitars and keyboards.
Fermata's first four albums has really impressed me and rekindled my interest in fusion and jazz.
The band mostly operated behind the Iron Curtain in a country called Czechoslovakia. A country made in the aftermath of World War 1 and later split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Hence, they and their albums did not get the recognition the likes of Weather Report got. And that is not justice.
Weather Report, minus Wayne Shorter's woodwinds, is a good reference here. The keyboards and the guitars does the solo stuff here. There is not many solos here. But the music still sounds like a Weather Report album.
This album still has it's own identity though. Very much so.
The eight compositions are all named after famous explorers. Biela Planet = the white planet in English and I guess it refers to the white, unexplored parts of the planet 150 years ago. All the explorers mentioned here did indeed explore those parts of the planet.
This is indeed a very good album and one fusion and jazz fans should explore. Prog rock fans too, for that matter.
It is time to include Fermata in the list of the alltime great fusion bands.
3.5 points
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