Clearlight is a French

progressive rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Init ...

band formed in 1973, although their best known work was produced in England and released by a major British record company. While progressive rock is an appropriate overall genre for the band, much of their work delves into other genres including

psychedelic music Psychedelic music (sometimes called psychedelia) is a wide range of popular music styles and genres influenced by 1960s psychedelia, a subculture of people who used psychedelic drugs such as LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, mescaline, and cannabis ...

jam band A jam band is a musical group whose concerts (and live albums) are characterized by lengthy improvisational " jams." These include extended musical improvisation over rhythmic grooves and chord patterns, and long sets of music which often ...

music,

symphonic rock Progressive rock (shortened as prog rock or simply prog; sometimes conflated with art rock) is a broad genre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom and United States through the mid- to late 1960s, peaking in the early 1970s. Initi ...

space rock Space rock is a music genre characterized by loose and lengthy song structures centered on instrumental textures that typically produce a hypnotic, otherworldly sound. It may feature distorted and reverberation-laden guitars, minimal drumming ...

jazz fusion Jazz fusion (also known as fusion and progressive jazz) is a music genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined jazz harmony and improvisation with rock music, funk, and rhythm and blues. Electric guitars, amplifiers, and key ...

, and

new-age music New-age is a genre of music intended to create artistic inspiration, relaxation, and optimism. It is used by listeners for yoga, massage, meditation, and reading as a method of stress management to bring about a state of ecstasy rather than ...

. "Clearlight" consists of pianist and composer Cyrille Verdeaux alongside other musicians, who are usually guest participants with no compositional input, except on a couple of occasions, like the second album '' Forever Blowing Bubbles'', where bassist Joël Dugrenot had virtual co-leader status, composing two of the tracks, or '' Visions'', which prominently featured Didier Malherbe (formerly of Gong) and Didier Lockwood (formerly of Magma and Zao) as soloists.

History

In the mid to late 1970s the band was managed by Jacques Reland, now a lecturer at the

London Metropolitan University London Metropolitan University, commonly known as London Met, is a public research university in London, England. The University of North London (formerly the Polytechnic of North London) and London Guildhall University (formerly the City ...

and Head of European Research at the Global Policy Institute. The Rennes-born manager negotiated the band's first four album deals. Clearlight has rarely performed live. In 1975, Virgin sent a variation of the '' Forever Blowing Bubbles'' band on the road supporting Gong, but it broke up soon afterwards following Verdeaux's decision not to relocate to England as Virgin insisted he did - which ended his relationship with the label. In April 1978, a new version of the band was unveiled at the Olympia in Paris, a performance intended to be followed by a proper tour to promote Visions, but lack of interest from promoters dictated otherwise. In the 1980s, the name was largely retired as Verdeaux concentrated on albums released under his own name, although there was another one-off performance at an electronic music festival in 1988 featuring Verdeaux and regular collaborators Christian Boulé and Tim Blake. In the 1990s, Verdeaux began recording under the Clearlight name again. His latest release, 2014's ''Impressionist Symphony'', again features all three Gong members who had appeared on ''Clearlight Symphony''. Verdeaux and

Don Falcone Don Falcone (born November 5, 1958) is an American producer and multi-instrumentalist, and the guiding light behind the Spirits Burning space-rock collective. In Spirits Burning and other offshoot bands and projects, his primary collaborations h ...

have collaborated in Spirits Burning (under the name Spirits Burning & Clearlight). Their 2012 release was titled ''Healthy Music In Large Doses'' and their 2016 release was titled ''The Roadmap In Your Head''.

Discography

*'' Clearlight Symphony'' – 1975,

Virgin Records Virgin Records is a record label owned by Universal Music Group. It originally founded as a British independent record label in 1972 by entrepreneurs Richard Branson, Simon Draper, Nik Powell, and musician Tom Newman. It grew to be a worldw ...

V-2029, UK; this album has no artist name *'' Forever Blowing Bubbles'' – 1975,

V-2039, UK *'' Les Contes du Singe Fou'' – 1976, Isadora Records ISA-9009, France *'' Visions'' – 1978,

Celluloid Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporar ...

/ LTM Records LTM-1005, France; says LTM Records on cover, Celluloid Records on label *''Symphony 2'' – 1990, Mantra; a re-recording of the 1975 album *''In Your Hands'' – 1994, Legend Music *''Infinite Symphony'' – 2003, Clearlight Music *''Impressionist Symphony'' – 2014, Gonzo Multimedia

References

External links

* * French musical groups Musical groups established in 1973 {{France-band-stub