Nirvana
To Markos III

If this band had managed to achieve greater success than they actually did, who knows what name Cobain and his bandmates would have chosen for their group. History will never provide us with a concrete answer, but you should know that before the grunge band’s rise, there was another group with the same name; little known here in Italy, the "original" Nirvana produced a good number of albums between the '60s and '70s, collecting some decent sales results but, above all, numerous accolades from the specialized press.

The core of Nirvana was predominantly formed by the Irishman Patrick Campbell-Lyons and the Greek composer Alex Spyropoulos, who, from album to album, relied on various external collaborations to create increasingly diverse albums. They started the series with one of the first concept albums in rock history, "The Story of Simon Simopath" (1967, Island), and then continued with "The Existence of Chance Is Everything and Nothing While the Greatest Achievement Is the Living of Life, and so Say All of Us" (1968, Island). Both works were essentially influenced by the orchestral sounds launched by the Moody Blues and the groups of that time, with some notable psychedelic touches evident in the second work, but with the third album, the band made a definitive quality leap. Unfortunately, it took years to witness this project.

"To Markos III", made in 1969 and dedicated to a mythical uncle of Spyropoulos who financed the band for the LP, would see the light only several years later under different names (Black Flower, Dedicated To Markos III, and, indeed, To Markos III), all due to the bankruptcy of Metromedia, the record label that was supposed to publish the album: the distributed copies were so scant that To Markos III sank into total anonymity, but time is a gentleman, and although the work remains rather obscure even to Nirvana (UK) fans (the term universally used to distinguish them from Cobain and company), now we can listen to it in all its beauty.

Although the sound appears blatantly too close to that produced by the Moody Blues, the orchestral arrangement is excellent: every instrument is in its place, and the compositions are all rather inspired and pleasant; unfortunately, the lack of cohesion is evident that emanates from "To Markos III", and the reasons for such fragmentation are certainly to be found in the difficult gestation of the LP, with various session musicians featured in different tracks. If "The Story Of Simon Simopath" could count on a well-defined plot and "All Of Us" featured various tribal and Indian contaminations, "To Markos III" shows a certainly more mature sound but mainly more naive themes, presenting mainly love stories and spicy dedications: worth noting, on this last front, "Christopher Lucifer", dedicated to Chris Blackwell, historical producer of Island who collaborated with the band for the first two albums but refused to give his contribution for "To Markos III", which he himself deemed inappropriate, comparing it disdainfully to the 1966 film "A Man And A Woman". All the potential hits are there, from "The World Is Cold Without You" to the American-styled "Illinois", from the psychedelic "Black Flower" (which was initially to be the album title) to the melancholy "I Talk To My Room", an imaginary dialogue made of memories and brief images. "To Markos III", generally inserted in the Progressive Rock genre, is actually a collection of simple songs in the style of the Moody Blues and The Beatles, but for every album worth its salt, there is the exception that proves the rule: the album's rating undergoes a sharp rise thanks to "Love Suite", one of the band's most famous songs along with "Wings Of Love" and "Pentecoste Hotel"; the track, which for the occasion also features Leslie Duncan on vocals, presents a parallel structure, where the feminine and masculine worlds confront each other to try to explain the craziness and issues of love, all supported by the usual, impeccable orchestral accompaniment. The length and structure of the track thus more closely recall the progressive compositions than the ordinary ones of the entire LP, making "Love Suite" an unachieved classic.

In conclusion, despite the evident fragmentation of the project, "To Markos III" is a catchy and carefree album, that has nothing to envy of the giants of the era: a submerged gem definitely worth rediscovering, but it has nothing to do with Cobain's Nirvana.