Quidam - Quidam (1996) [10th Anniversary Edition 2007]

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Quidam - Quidam (1996) [10th Anniversary Edition 2007]

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Quidam's debut album remains as impressive as it was 10 years ago. Rarely have I heard a progressive rock band made such an impact as Quidam did with their first release. Although the sound of the album is at times slightly metallic the production sounded incredibly professional. This was something to be expected since the producer and mixing engineer of the album were no others than Szadkowski and Palczewski (both of Collage fame and currently active with their new band Satellite).
And not only the production was top-notch. The songwriting abilities of the band, in particular those of guitarist Maciek and keyboardist Zbyszek, were of a standard one normally only finds among well established prog dinosaurs. Sure, the band were obviously heavily influenced by bands like Camel, Genesis and Marillion (often paying tribute to the first two by playing covers in their live sets) but they nevertheless had their own sound and identity. Probably the presence of a female vocalist with an enchanting voice in the person of Emila Derkowska added that finishing touch to the magic of Quidam.

As mentioned the album only contains quality material, among which some real classics like Sanktuarium, Chocbym, Gleboka rzeka and Plone, all of which remained live favourites in the years that Emila was still behind the microphone and as far as I'm concerned are among the highlights of prog rock in the nineties. The guitar solo in Plone alone would be more than worth the price of this CD.

There's quite a few surprises with this new edition. First of all the booklet for the original album features translated lyrics. A nice touch since it finally - after 10 years - enables me to understand what these songs are about. Second, the promo video of Warkoce can be found on the first disc in AVI format. Surely not one of Quidam's most interesting songs, but interesting for those who haven't seen this on the The Fifth Season DVD yet and quite impressive from an artistic point of view (not to mention Emila's sexy dress).

Most important however, this new anniversary album comes with a bonus disc which might well be the most interesting one in the series since it's full of unreleased material that rates high on the rarities scale.

Szukajac szczescia is basically a rough demo version of Chocbym of the debut album that the band got to record in a professional studio after winning a band competition. The guitar solo in the intro is still missing and the lyrics are different but overall it's already quite close to the final version. The next three songs, Koleda Nocka, Los and Snilem, are performances by the band Ogrodnicy which featured Emila, Zbyszek and Maciek, as well as Quidam's current drummer Maciej. The three songs were recorded at the end of 1996 and seemingly concluded the existence of this band. The music is completely different from Quidam's, with trumpet and a style ranging from groovy blues (Koleda Nocka) to pop ballads (Los and Snilem). Nothing much progressive here and a bit too mainstream to get overtly excited about, but interesting from a historical perspective nevertheless.

The album continues with two cover versions the band played live at a 1996 concert in Krakow, being the acoustic guitar ditty Horizons by Genesis and the long White Rider by Camel. There's a few bum notes here and there and the band don't play as tight yet as we've come to know them but these cover versions show their great potential nevertheless. Also keep in mind that the mix of this recording is far from perfect.

Another Camel cover is the album opener Irish Air (from Camel's Harbour Of Tears), which is a demo that Emila and Ewa recorded and sent to Andy Latimer when he came to tour Poland in 1997. It immediately prompted Andy to invite the two ladies to open the Harbour Of Tears set in Krakow with their rendition.

The next song, Modlitwa, was recorded by a band called Talath Dirnen, who seemingly were recording in the same studio where Quidam were working on their debut album. They were so impressed that they invited Emila to record guest and backing vocals with them. From a prog rock perspective this might well be the most interesting non-Quidam track on the bonus disc (not counting the covers and Szukajac Szczescia), even though the Quidam connection is rather limited. The song has a bit of a Floydian feel and even features violin and saxophone.

Czas is a song by a band called Belgrad, whom Quidam met at the aforementioned band competition. Belgrad's flute player Jacek would eventually replace Ewa on flute on Quidam's second album. Belgrad were also the band that played an early version of Sanktuarium, unfortunately not present on this bonus disc. Czas itself is a nice piece with a blues-rock feel and a splendid guitar solo and (if I understand the liner notes correctly) guest appearances by Quidam's Emila and Zbyszek.

The bonus disc ends with the only unreleased Quidam track with Emila on vocals, the superb Rzeka Wspomnien, which was originally recorded for the Time Beneath The Sky album. A very nice and peaceful track that would not have been out of place on that album or the band's second album. I assume it was left of Time Beneath The Sky because it already featured a couple of tracks with the same atmosphere. A real shame since, as far as I'm concerned it's the most interesting Quidam track on this disc featuring a nice 'African' chant section. Good to have it available to a wider audience after all.

The CD also contains three AVI movies. Sanktuarium was filmed at the Dutch Day of Dreams festival that was a pivotal event in the start of the band's success outside Poland. Despite the blurred quality of the footage it's nice to see some material of this important gig. The inclusion of the Firth Of Fifth guitar solo and the presence of Ewa on flute, making it one of the few videos in which she appears, are also worth mentioning.
The video of Beznogi Maly Ptak is very much out of place on this album since the song actually appeared on the band's second album. It's also a far cry from the quality of the Warkocze video on the other disc, but for those of you who haven't seen it on the live DVD and fancy seeing the band dressed up as a bunch of hippies escaped straight from the Sixties there's probably some entertainment value here.
Perly Z Lamusa is a track the band wrote as one of their earliest compositions while the band was still called Deep River. This performance was filmed at the festival which earned the band their first professional studio session. Good to hear and see some of the very early roots of the band, although I'm not all that disappointed that unlike Szukajac Szczescia this track did not make it to the band's debut album. Especially the first half with Emila singing a melody throughout the flute intro is rather tedious.

In conclusion, if you haven't got this solo debut album of the band yet you should be ashamed of yourself. Go out and get it and while you're at it you might well buy this special re-release with all the bonus material. For those of you who already own the original version, you'll have to make up your own minds. As mentioned, there's a lot of interesting rarities on the bonus disc. Beware though that you shouldn't expect a lot of material in the same style as Quidam's debut album since most of the stuff was played by pre-Quidam bands and line-ups that were playing very different styles that often cannot be considered progressive rock.