Caravan Debut Album
Originally released in 1968, the debut album from Caravan, for my money the finest prog band to be sired by the avant garde Canterbury scene, is a decidedly different affair to their many coloured and lengthier, subsequent offerings.
The self-titled Caravan, although unmistakeably Hastings, Couglan and the Sinclairs in sound, is much more of a psychedelic album, in tune with the times, than their later traditionally progressive meanderings.
Stirring psych and prog into one progressive melting pot, Caravan benefits from a duffer-free track list of eight songs, none of which you’d be ashamed to take home to meet your mom. Notably free of the double entendre titles that would become a Caravan fixture, the likes of ‘Policeman’, ‘Cecil Rons’ and ‘Grandma’s Lawn’, still manage to keep their lyrical tongues propped comfortably within the cheek.
David Sinclair’s atmospheric organ trickery blends perfectly with Pye Hastings’ often ethereal (some might say wispy) vocals, a marriage consummated on easily the finest that Caravan’s debut has to offer, the hypnotic psychedelic folk majesty of ‘Ride‘, featured here t’other week.
For the most part, Caravan keeps things short, with the majority of the eight tracks just tipping over the four minute mark. The exception to this is the epic ‘Where but for Caravan Would I?’, co-written by ex-Wilde Flowers bandmate and brother to Soft Machine bassist Hugh, Brian Hopper.
‘Where but for Caravan Would I?’ clocks in at a full-fat nine minutes, laying the foundations for the more prolonged Caravan excursions that would feature on their 1970 follow-up If I Could Do it All Over Again, I’d Do it All Over You and beyond. It’s a rousing trip into the arena of complex, organ-led progressive soundmaking, providing an ideal closer to Caravan’s debut with its suggestion of what was to come.
Overall, Caravan provides an excellent listen and a more than welcome jump-off point from which to delve deeper into the band’s backcatalog, albeit one that only hints at the future Caravan sound.
Caravan is reissued by Decca Records and is available from Amazon.co.uk
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