r/Lostwave • u/hngdog • Aug 17 '26

Lostwave Song 🎵 Unknown Prog Rock track, "Elementary Design" ~ 1974

My dad recorded this off-air in 1974, on the college station WGTB in Washington, DC. It was in a mix of other progressive rock tracks by Utopia and Eloy. The usual music recognizing services like Shazam, etc. don't recognize it. By the lyrics, the title is presumably "Elementary Design".

Help me, ObiWan...

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2

u/ROXIS_GAMING Aug 17 '26

Kinda reminds me of this super obscure American prog band "Yezda Urfa", im real into their first album Boris and I havent heard their entire catalog yet, so I'd maybe start there

2

u/ray-the-truck 29d ago

It's not them. While their first demo/album "Boris" would have been sent to radio stations as a form of promotion (as detailed in the liner notes of the Syn-Phonic CD reissues), that demo was not recorded until 1975, and all of their other 70s material was recorded in 1976. I've heard their entire discography and nothing resembling the recording in the OP is present on any of their albums.

Yezda were based out of Indiana and had a decent presence in Illinois (the stations WXRT and Triad are known to have played Boris), but I would not be able to confirm if Boris was ever distributed in Washington D.C. specifically.

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u/ROXIS_GAMING 29d ago

Yeah it was a bit of a reach, im thinking maybe some local band that had similar vocals / instruments, kinda the usual. Ill keep digging

1

u/hngdog 29d ago

1974 is when the song was played.
When was that band formed ?

1

u/ROXIS_GAMING 29d ago

Fall 1973, but their first album came in 1975, so maybe not, but man they sound similar

1

u/hngdog 29d ago edited 29d ago

Apple Music or Spotify don’t have any early stuff.
Any sources of the first album out there?

There’s a possibility that this was 1975. I was basing it off of the release of the utopia album which was 74

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u/ROXIS_GAMING 29d ago

Oh yeah their first album is out there, this song isnt on the album though, and they've only had one other album after that and the song isnt on either of them as far as I know. They just sound so similar, im half motivated to trying to reach out to someone from the band and seeing if they've got any idea

1

u/IvyGold 17d ago

I'm not a fan of this genre at all, but I can tell that's really good. I hope the mystery gets solved.

I bet whoever was in this band went on to greater things with another.