Harlequin - Trees / What's Your Pleasure. 1974 USA-New York

Harlequin is that rare breed - a progressive rock band that released only a 45 single. As I stated on the Christian Friday (Indiana) review: "Progressive rock and the 45 single are somewhat mutually exclusive anyway." Prog rock is the ultimate long form rock music and 45s are... not. Long form that is.

In any case, this Long Island based Harlequin is often confused with another New York based Harlequin that once featured Eric Adams on vocals (yea, the Manowar guy). 

The two tracks here are excellent. 'Trees' recalls early King Crimson and Genesis, whereas 'What's Your Pleasure' brings to mind - yet another Long Island band - Cathedral. Bucket loads of mellotron on both songs here for fans of the instrument.

9/8/19 

These two tracks are not on any comps that I'm aware of. It would be great to have an all-American non-LP, non-reissued comp of progressive rock 45s or unreleased tracks released on CD (or LP is you insist). I can think of a few off the top: Xebec, Christian Friday, PBX, Graced Lightning (it's only half an album so why not?), Vesuvius, Traum, Apocalypse, Quorum, Guardian, and now Harlequin. Shoot, maybe even throw in the proggy tracks from otherwise not-very-good obscure albums like Luna Sea and Skyeros. OK, I had my fun.