Surely many will think that "Unfolded like staircase" was the first work of the North American group Discipline, but four years earlier the group had already published a CD titled "Push & profit" that contained pieces composed between 1987 and 1992. This album is worth commenting, as it was published before Jan Erik Liljeström (Anekdoten) introduced Matthew Parmenter (leader of Discipline) in the music of Peter Hammill, which happened in 1994 in a tour that both formations carried out in USA. "Push & profit" should give us hints on which were the original musical ideas of this band of Michigan. On the other hand, we comment this work because it was difficult to get, and it will now be distributed in Europe by Periferic Records.
The formation that recorded this first work was the following one: Matthew Parmenter (vocals, backing guitar, violin, tambourine, programming, recorder, synthesizers), Jon Preston Bouda (lead guitar, chorus), David Krofchok (piano, organ, synthesizers, chorus), Matthew Kennedy (bass) and Paul Dzendzel (drums, percussion). And, as it was logical to imagine, the music of this album doesn't follow the patterns of Van der Graaf Generator’s sound. It is truly dark and neblinous, but in the sense of the most dramatic Genesis or Ange, and it even presents influences of Pink Floyd and the best neoprog from Marillion or IQ. However, the record contains a remarkable variety of atmospheres, which we can attribute to the different years in which the different tracks were composed. "Diminished" (7:36) is a beautiful and quite dramatic piece, with Genesian airs and some good instrumental interplay."The reasoning wall" (7:22) is a cheerful piece very far from the first one, with chorus influenced by Yes and a very dynamic guitar. With "Carmilla" (9:39) we return again to the fog in a long piece quite well structured. "The nursery year" (5:18) is an intimate track with mainstream style, but that would take references of the calmest Genesis of "Nursery crime" (its title is already a hint). "Faces of the petty" (4:47) is a quite original quick tempo that seems to come from the heaviest Van Der Graaf Generator (Vital), even in Parmenter had not listened to them by then. "Systems" (7:26) is a calm piece, more pop-rock than the usual, but with good melodies. Finally, "America" (7:42) closes the album with clear influences from neoprog and a great work to the Emersonian keyboards and the Floydian guitars.
"Push & profit" is a good work of progressive rock. The best thing is that it allows us to know the qualitative starting point of Discipline and to compare it with that excellent work that was their second CD "Unfolded like staircase". Everything has improved: the compositions, the instrumental developments, the work of the guitar and the keyboards, the lyrics. It is very satisfactory to see that bands evolve with time, and Discipline is one of them.

Jaume Pujol