Supersister - Superstarshine Vol. 3 (1972)

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Supersister was a band from The Hague, (the Netherlands), playing progressive rock ranging from jazz to pop. The most predominant band members were Robert Jan Stips (keyboards, vocals), Sacha van Geest (flute), Marco Vrolijk (drums) and Ron van Eck (bass).

The band started as Sweet OK Sister in 1968 as a school band with singer and songwriter Rob Douw, who soon thereafter left. The remaining members continued as a more serious musical quartet under the name Supersister. Their style was progressive rock (in Canterbury Scene style) in which Stips' keyboard play played a dominant role.

Their debut was the 1970 album "Present from Nancy," hitting the charts with numbers like "She was naked", "A girl named you", and "Radio". After three albums (Present from Nancy - 1970, To the highest bidder - 1971, and Pudding en gisteren - 1972) van Geest and Vrolijk quit. The remaining crew, together with new members Charly Mariano (wind instruments) and Herman van Boeyen (drums) released the album "Iskander" in 1973, which is an even more jazz-rock oriented concept album based upon the life of Alexander the Great.

In 1974 Stips and van Geest release a final album "Spiral Staircase" as "Sweet Okay Supersister". This album marks the end of the band.

The band reunited in 2000 after a request by the Progfest festival for a performance in Los Angeles. The four 1970-1973 period band members decided to accept and the result was the requested performance, as well as a short tour through the Netherlands in late 2000 and early 2001. To mark the occasion a rarities album was released, called "M.A.N." featuring live and studio recordings from 1969-1973. The reunion abruptly came to an end when Sacha van Geest unexpectedly died in the summer of 2001. The reunion concert at the Paradiso in Amsterdam was recorded and later released on CD ("Supersisterious", 2001) and DVD ("Sweet OK Supersister", 2006), which also features several old and new documentaries, photographs and unreleased audio tracks.

review ~ http://www.progarchives.com
This weird and bizarre object is actually a compilation of many single only tracks, live recordings and odd bits. What is really unsettling is that the artwork seems to come out of a real cheapie series where among others, you’d find Cream second live album with similar cover. Actually this compilation presents many fine Supersister moments to make it worthy of being a full album.

The first two tracks are excellent examples of what Supersister can do best, great Canterbury-like fusion, but unfortunately right after it comes a spoof RnR number (excellent made, but ruining the feeling built up so far. With such compilation, it might have been easier to put such out of context odd bits at the end, so they can be easily skipped (vinyl-wise). After a lengthy introduction (and not-so-intelligent no matter what the group says), comes a great no-less-lengthy Wow (live) track owing as much to Zappa than to Caravan or Soft Machine. Weird vocal parts, great instrumental interplay are the main feature of this high-mark of this compilation even if there are uneven passages.

The next (also live) Groupies is again another spoof-goof track, which is impeccably played, borrowing from every kind of popular ditties, but again, this all-out bizarrerie is rather unnerving: Maybe I accept more of this stuff from Zappa than from these crazy Dutchmen, but I have problems coming to grip with this kind of silliness. The following tracks are from their respective album’s sessions and are your “typical” - as in “original” (as in “whacko”) – SS track.

Please note that the cheapie (for real this time) 2 for 1 compilation of this present album (linked with the Pudding album) only gives partially the tracks as there is a lack of space. No way to treat an album, even if a compilation.