Like most young bands, Alquin proudly wore their influences on their sleeves, but unlike most of their fellow progressive rockers, the Dutch group eschewed opulent arrangements and showboat soloing. Simplicity seems to have been the byword for their 1973 debut album, Marks, recorded while the members were still attending Delft's Technical University. This understandably led to the album being tagged as
jazz-folk, but that label does injustice to the breadth of Alquin's vision and wide range of styles, with their songs encompassing everything from a conga line to
disco, Dixieland to Gypsy violin. The unadorned arrangements counterintuitively make Marks sound far less adventurous than it actually is, but correspondingly far more accessible than it might otherwise have been. It's also a reflection of the set's lack of improvisation, but live the band soared into more
experimental territory, as "Mr. Barnum Junior's Magnificent and Fabulous City" well illustrates, an extended piece that giddily shape-shifts through numerous genres and styles. Contrast that number with the lilting in and out of pomp
rock and
jazz during "Oriental Journey," the cheery
jazz-
pop of "The Least You Could Do Is Send Me Some Flowers," or the moody
jazz fusion of "Soft Royce"; it's like night and day. Positioning themselves between the Canterbury scene, the
jazz clubs, West Coast psychedelia, and the
rock greats, Alquin took the best of all worlds and threaded it into a sound uniquely their own. They had much growing to do, but this was an impressive start..