However, Schicke Führs Fröhling’s 1976 album Symphonic Pictures, takes a decent swing at curing me of this irrational phobia. Not that it succeeds completely but I’m a little less anti-blah blah as a result.

In fact, if the truth really be told, I actually tell a lie at the beginning of this review when I say “truth be told”, as my aversion to instrumental albums isn’t strictly wholesale. For instance, I’m a sucker for Spaghetti Western soundtracks, as also the actual films, and could quite happily listen to a spot of Bacalov, Brunai, Ortolani, Morricone, et al, without fear of winding up face down in my bowl of soup.

It’s to the credit of the three German symphonic progsters gathered here, that they made this debut album sound like the soundtrack to an imaginary movie, while achieving a sound that belied their slim membership.

Now it must be said that my objection to solely instrumental albums is absolutely to do with the fact I like a story. Similarly, anything sung in a dialect other than the queen’s own English also leaves me cold. After all, what’s the point of a story if you no comprende the lingo?

Schicke Führs Fröhling differ in that, for me, they manage to keep Symphonic Pictures interesting and well above the boredom threshold for the duration of its 36 minutes.

The musicianship is faultless, with each member playing a wide variety of instruments, and in the case of Führs and Fröhling, a Mellotron each. Heinz Fröhling was also the man who overcame the band’s lack of resident bassist by splicing together a guitar and a Rickenbacker bass and playing this hybrid bastard child of all that’s musical in the studio and on the stage.

Electronic noises fuse seamlessly with symphonic extravagance throughout, ably fired along by the breathless rock drumming of Eduard Schicke. This is what gives Symphonic Pictures the edge over other instrumental prog albums. It remains diverse, painting dramatic, multi-hued soundscapes that work equally well as individual tracks as the album does an epic whole.

Pointless mentioning titles here, so instead we’ll move swiftly onto the bonus disc which comes with the 2010 Reactive reissue.

Recorded live in Papenburg, Germany 1975, the seven tracks successfully capture what would become the band’s complex, yet melodic sound. There are versions of three of the pieces from Symphonic Pictures, including an epically extended 28 minute take of that album’s closer, ‘Pictures’. The disarmingly well-mannered audience (a mainstay of a certain type of “high-brow” 1970′s prog) clap politely at the end of each song and I echo their sentiment, although the occasional unruly element getting marginally overzealous would assure us at home that they were playing to more than three old duffers in cloth caps and a whippet.

All in all, Symphonic Pictures proves to be a pleasant surprise. Whereas I’d expected tediously narrow brushstrokes of grey, I got something a little more polychromatic, painted Rolf Harris-style with a bloody great broom head. If you like your progressive rock German and instrumental, then this is one picture worth hanging on your wall… Oh dear, a creaky metaphor too far? I’ll get my coat.

Symphonic Pictures by Schicke Führs Fröhling is reissued by Reactive and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Schicke Führs Fröhling – Symphonic Pictures

That’s right; it’s a roll call of doctors. More importantly, it’s a roll call of evil doctors. Yes, doctors who deal in evil as opposed to good. Some coveted world domination, others the forced conception of a supposed master race. Some just wanted a world free of old age pensioners.

But there’s a new Doc in town. At least, in 1971 there was, although nobody seemed to notice Dr. Z’s bid for global supremacy, a failure underlined by the fact Three Parts to My Soul allegedly sold less than 100 copies.

But Dr. Z didn’t have sharks with “frickin’ laser beams” at their disposal. Nor did they have a nuclear reactor submerged in water. They didn’t even have a bottle of diamorphine and a rusty syringe. No. Dr. Z’s weapon of choice was progressive rock.

Some might say that a twenty minute drum solo or an extended freak-out on a Mini Moog would be more than enough to beat an unsuspecting world into submission, but they’re just philistines! How dare they!

In Richard Morton Jack’s essential tome, Galactic Ramble, Giles Hamilton says of Three Parts to My Soul, and I quote, “It largely consists of voice and piano, with obscure occult lyrical leanings… though there’s little here for prog or psych fans.”

A little harsh, one thinks.

Less than 100 sales may not have been enough to hold sway with the United Nations, or even secure a volcanic hideaway in the Pacific, but it ensured that Dr. Z had an album that would go on to be one of the most obscure released by the progressive Vertigo label during the seventies. It’s also evidence of a grave misjudgement by the prog audience of yesteryear and, of course, Giles Hamilton today.

Grave indeed; and the grave is often where Three Parts to My Soul seems to be emanating from. Swansea professor, Keith Keyes, wrote, produced, played keyboards and provided the menacing vocals. Such abstruse lyrics and preternatural delivery isn’t what one expects from the teaching fraternity, but hey, this was the 1970s and if you had long hair and a bong the size of a hydroelectric power station, then anything went. Despite it seemingly being all about young mister Keyes, he was aided and abetted by two other academic types. Rob Watson on a subdued bass and Bob Watkins on drum and percussion, providing the tribal beat present throughout.

It’s all pretty sinister stuff, like early Black Sabbath without the guitar riffs and overt campness. As I’ve said here before, ‘Evil Woman’s Manly Child‘ is the best track by far and the rest of the album fails to live up to it, but that don’t make it no good.

Whatever dastardly intentions Dr. Z had in mind for our children and womenfolk, it didn’t stop them from knocking out a reasonably atmospheric prog tune into the bargain. The title track, ‘Spiritus, Manes Et Umbra’, is nearly as strong as the aforementioned ‘Evil Woman…’ and running at 12 minutes even has time to slot in some extended drum and keyboard duelling, though this threatens to poke a tentative toe across the threshold of tedium before being yanked back into the body of the song for a rousing crescendo.

I could say pretty much the same about the other four tracks. All good stuff as far as I’m concerned, with titles such as ‘Burn in Anger’, ‘Summer for the Rose’ and ‘In a Tooken of Despair’. No idea what any of it means but I’m sure it’s all very deep and intellectually sound. This was a university boffin, after all.

The CD version I have offers two bonus tracks. The A and B-side of a Keith Keyes single released prior to Dr. Z’s inception. Being brief jaunts into the upper rings of psychedelic pop, they’re as different in sound to the rest of the album as it’s possible to get. Nevertheless, the sound quality of these two tracks is a marked improvement to that of Three Parts to My Soul, which is a little on the muddy side to say the least. A proper digitally remastered reissue is what’s called for methinks.

As for Dr. Z (that’s pronounced Zed, for any American readers), who needs to rule the world when there’s a rare prog album like this, just aching to be listened to?

Three Parts to My Soul by Dr. Z is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Dr. Z – Three Parts to My Soul

Allow me to present it to you in all its splendour:

The genesis of Brainticket was a collective of Belgian, German and Swiss musicians, headed by multi-instrumentalist Joel – wait for it – Vandroogenbroeck, who pedalled a strain of experimental Krautrock, for the delectation of anybody willing to listen.

There, worth the wait, wasn’t it?

Brainticket’s second album Psychonaut, released in 1972 and recorded by a completely different line-up to that of their debut Cottonwoodhill (Vandroogenbroeck aside), eschewed the overt electronic experimentation of the first album for a more grounded (something of a misnomer perhaps) psychedelic approach. So what we have is an album of psychedelic progressive rock that looks back three or so years and borrows heavily from the sound that was prevalent then. No bad thing, at all.

The nationalities of the artists enlisted to record Psychonaut are unbeknownst to me (Vandroogenbroeck aside), nor do their names give anything away. There’s Jane Free on lead vocals and assorted percussion; Rolf Hug on vocals, guitars and Sam Gopal’s very own weapon of choice, the tabla; Martin Sacher on bass and flute; the wonderfully named Barney Palm on drums, percussion and “strange sounds”; Carole Muriel on spoken bits and “ooohh….ooohhs”; and plain old Peter(!), apparently the Witch Doctor providing good vibes!!!

Then, of course, there’s the Belgian himself, Vandroogenbroeck playing basically anything that came to hand and providing all the arrangements. Such is the life of a creative dynamo and multi-instrumentalist.

But nationality matters not, for all lyrics are written and sung in English, meaning even a committed xenoglossophobic (look it up) such as myself can enjoy. And believe me, there’s plenty here to enjoy… Well, six tracks anyway. But it’s not the quantity, my friend, but the quality that matters.

Psychonaut is resplendent in late sixties vibes and seventies prog sensibilities. It’s a quite often dark collection that though lumped in the Krautrock stable, doesn’t boast the overt electronic strangeness of that particular musical genre.

‘Radagacuca’, which begins at the beginning, is a dreamily ethereal number, laced with otherworldly flutes and sitars, which explodes into a cacophony of spectral cries and Hammond organ exuberance in its final minute. Like Arthur Brown gatecrashing the recording of Pentangle’s Basket of Light.

The standout, however, has to be the progressive sixties throwback ‘Like a Place in the Sun’, the chorus of which evokes the spirit of Grace Slick heralding in a new dawn from a makeshift stage somewhere in Golden Gate Park. Contrast this with the spoken word verses, which languish on a far darker level – somewhere between the acid trip turning bad and the heroin flooding the veins of the once beautiful flower children of Haight-Ashbury – and you have the uneasy alliance of light and shade that ‘Like a Place in the Sun’ represents.

One could go on, but time permits and all that, plus I don’t think my spellchecker could handle too many more uses of the name Vandroogenbroeck. Suffice to say this review has not only broken the mould with its opening gambit: that now legendary line, which will be talked about for years to come; but it has also broken all known records for the number of times Vandroogenbroeck has appeared on a single webpage.

As for Brainticket’s Psychonaut. Well, do you really need me to reiterate what a fine album this is? Is that wonderful album cover alone not enough to convince you? … No? Well, it is indeed a fine album, fit for the collection of anybody partial to the occasional helping of psych/prog wonder mix. One that comes with a liberal dusting of continental oddness for good measure.

Psychonaut by Brainticket is reissued on Reactive and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Brainticket – Psychonaut

That environment was Notting Hill’s Ladbroke Grove. The epicentre of the British underground during the late sixties and early seventies, where the hair was long, the drugs were frequent and the music was raw. It was a spiritual homeland to such renowned barnets as Arthur Brown, the Deviants, Stray, Peter Bardens and, of course, perhaps the hairiest of them all, the Edgar Broughton Band.

Remaining true to the Ladbroke Grove ethic of too much hair and bruising jams, HighTide’s debut album, Sea Shanties, was released in 1969 and inhabits a place somewhere between the heavy rock of early Sabbath and good old-fashioned, salt of the earth, guitar-led prog.

Except it isn’t just guitar, for what’s that also leading the charge, weaving its lucid magic throughout the mix? Why it’s none other than the weapon of choice of toff and gypsy alike, the humble violin.

In Simon House – a classically trained virtuoso of the fiddle, who’d go on to join Hawkwind in a prime example of Ladbroke Grove incestry – High Tide had an extra ingredient that added a folkish dimension to their sound.

Yes, we have the crunching guitar, the grumpy bass and the powerhouse drumming, so why not throw in a man punishing a fiddle as though he’s just discovered it rogering his wife? Why not, indeed.

So what have we got here? Well there’s the six tracks from the original 1969 release and a further five bonuses augmenting the recent Esoteric CD reissue. Easily the pick of a more than generous crop is the vocally challenged (instrumental) ‘Death Warmed Up’. Riding on a psychedelic riptide of intense sound, its violin fuelled undercurrents threaten to take hold and drag you down for the full extent of its nine minutes. If you manage to keep your head above the waterline for the duration of this lysergic voyage, then there’s plenty more from this hirsute band of bluff old coves to keep the sirens at bay and rocky outcrops on the horizon.

Poorly formed seafaring metaphors aside, Sea Shanties truly is one of the heavier examples of early prog, weightier than a hulk languishing in St. Katherine’s Dock. Oh- there I go again…

Which goes to show that all this pretentious twaddle I spout on regular occasion is a load of bollocks really, when all I’m trying to say is Sea Shanties is a reet good listen. The singing may be a little flat in places; the occasional bum note may be entertained upon the quayside; but such minor insubordinations are easily forgiven when they add to the frazzled approach to music making demonstrated throughout.

Rumour has it that the creative mastermind behind High Tide, one Tony Hill, is authorised to marry couples when on the high seas, but seeing as I just made that up, there’s more than a passing chance it’s completely untrue. What is fact, and completely non-sea-related, is that this is another sterling reissue from the Esoteric team – who, incidentally, seem to be getting a mention every week now – with a cracking set of bonus tracks and, of course, the obligatory booklet.

I could go on, but even a land-lubbing, blinkered old soak such as myself knows when I’ve said too much. Loose lips sink ships, and all that.

As far as jolly Jack Tars go, this rum cluster of Scurvy Knaves is well worth climbing on board and weighing anchor with.

Now then, Squire Trelawny, let’s turn this vessel around and head for home.

Sea Shanties by High Tide is reissued by Esoteric and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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High Tide – Sea Shanties

Bone idle stereotyping aside, maybe the answer is three portly blokes banging out their very own brand of psychedelia and prog? If this be the case then we’re on the same wavelength. Welcome to the club.

Yes, Aphrodite’s Child features a pre-Chariots of Fire Vangelis, flexing his musically inventive muscles on keyboards and whatever else comes to hand, and Demis Roussos in the days before he took to wearing a glittery dress and became a global superstar. There’s also some bloke called Loukas Sideras on drums, but he must’ve drawn the short straw when it came to divvy up the post-Aphrodite success.

Their 1968 debut, End of the World, is a splendid piece of often eerie psychedelia, which hints at the progressive road down which they’d soon be travelling.

The title track immediately lets you know what they’re all about. Expect lightly accented (though completely English) vocals, delivered in a near-operatic warble by Roussos. Expect psychedelic effects to be heavily interwoven throughout, giving it an altogether eerier edge. And expect a very faint, but slightly disconcerting, feel of 1970′s Eurovision.

‘Mister Thomas’ is the Aphrodite’s Child take on the very English sub-genre of baroque Toytown-psych, and a fine one at that. If it wasn’t for the Eurovision accent it could easily pass for a lost recording from the likes of the Idle Race or Tomorrow.

‘Rain and Tears’, the band’s biggest success, becoming a hit in a host of countries across Europe, is a bit of a sappy ballad, but one that’s lifted by the Vangelis sonic arrangement, which excuses the insipid lyrics and hoists what could’ve been a painful listen out of the murky trough of mundanity.

And so it goes on. Some great, some good, and a wee bit of the not so good psychedelic rock, which taken as a whole is more than the doctor ordered. There’s a certain darkness entwined along the seam of End of the World, as demonstrated on songs such as the aforementioned title-track, ‘The Grass is no Green’ and the histrionically enhanced, near-terrifying ‘Day of the Fool’, which, incidentally, features the bizarre couplet “… she knows what’s up in my mind, she smells like a tree …”

Very much so. It’s more common than you think. But enough of that. From top to tail End of the World is good stuff. Slightly off-kilter, creepy psychedelic rock, with a hint of the continental thrown in for good measure.

The 2010 reissue of End of the World offers two bonus tracks, the single ‘Plastics Nevermore’ and its B-side ‘The Other People’.

End of the World by Aphrodite’s Child is reissued by Esoteric and available from Amazon.co.uk

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Aphrodite’s Child – End of the World

Like Samson, the hair maketh the man, bestowing its bearer with superhuman powers and the ability to extract the most vindictive of riffs from a Fender Strat, while simultaneously protecting them from the ravages of hard drugs, hard booze and even harder women.

It’s widely known that Edgar Broughton used his barnet to avert the destruction of California, when nuclear rockets were fired into the San Andreas Fault by a rogue businessman. That Mick Farren managed to stop the nefarious actions of an alien emperor, determined to obliterate the earth through a series of seemingly natural disasters. And who can forget certain members of The Pink Fairies foiling a fearsome foursome who’d dehydrated and kidnapped members of the United World Organisation’s Security Council?

Happy days. And you’ll be pleased to hear that the aforementioned left-leaning, heroes of hirsute hedonism are all represented on Cries From the Midnight Circus – Ladbroke Grove 1967-78, along with a roll call of similarly tuned hairy heathens. All of whom inhabited this enclave of the English counterculture back when it was acceptable for “the fuzz” to unleash their truncheons upon anybody merely suspected of growing their hair in public.

A glance at those assembled herein is enough to flood the sensory receptors with the pungent scent of hashish and the herbal aroma of gently smouldering sweat. Hawkwind, Quintessence, Arthur Brown, The Deviants, Stray, The Pretty Things and Peter Bardens are all present and correct, unleashing an arsenal of psychedelic and progressive rock upon those that mean to do the world harm. But there are also some fine excursions from lesser known acts.

‘Children of the Sun’ is a suitably energetic spaced out romp, courtesy of Misunderstood, as is ‘Man in the Moon’ by The Village. With the sun and the moon accommodated for what else is there?

Worthy of mention is The Action’s ‘A Saying for Today’, Skin Alley’s ‘Bad Words, Evil People’ and, former Pretty Things and Pink Fairies drummer, Twink’s ‘Ten Thousand Words in a Cardboard Box’.

Add to this the acid-infused growl from the darkness that is Sam Gopal’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and Mighty Baby’s ‘House Without Windows’, and the fact you’re onto a good thing goes without saying. High Tide’s ‘Death Warmed Up’ and Robert Calvert’s ‘Ejection’ shakes hands on the deal without even having to mention what line of excellence the Broughtons, Hawkwind or Quintessence have to offer.

With 32 tracks of the psychedelic, the progressive and the proto-punk, Cries From the Midnight Circus – Ladbroke Grove 1967-78 is a compilation well worth paying on the door for. There may be one or two duds peppered along the way (for example, Tomorrow’s ‘Revolution’ will always be ruined for me by the embarrassing intro), but one can only assume that the artists in question had had the shears taken to their barnets prior to entering the studio, thus draining them of their far-out abilities. But for the vast majority of Cries From the Midnight Circus the hair has triumphed, ensuring this world remains a safer place to live. Thank you, collective hairies*, how can we ever repay you?

*Not to be confused with the Special Branch underground infiltrators, dubbed “the hairies”

Cries From the Midnight Circus – Ladbroke Grove 1967-78 is released as a two disc box-set by Sanctuary, and is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Cries From the Midnight Circus – Ladbroke Grove 1967-78

I failed to grow up, but I was there in the early eighties. Alfie Shepherd wasn’t, but it didn’t stop him writing a concept album based on Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s novel, The Wind in the Willows. Ah, the innocent aspirations of the psychedelic age, when nobody would bat an eyelid if such a record were released.

Except it didn’t get released; not in 1969, as intended, anyway. You see, young Alfred wrote the piece for Angel Pavement, the psych-pop band with whom he played lead guitar. He recorded the whole thing in a home studio as a set of demos to play to the rest of the band. However, due to various unavoidable circumstances, what was meant to be, wasn’t to be, and the band split in 1970 leaving Alfie alone with his demos and his memories.

Until 2008 that is, when the good people at psychedelic archive and reassembly label, Wooden Hill/Tenth Planet, took it upon themselves to collect together the Wind in the Willows songs, along with a handful of others recorded around the same time, and unleash them upon those in the know (I may be being presumptuous, but I doubt the public at large have heard of the Wooden Hill label).

If fey whimsy delivered at an unusually high pitch is not your bag, look away now, but not before I advise you not to buy this album. Right. Have they gone? If there’s any stragglers still here, failing to heed my warning, then let it be known that I did try and tell thee.

So, if you can stomach such untoward daintiness, or even actively participate in it, then Alfie Shepherd’s psychedelic pop project could well be right up your woodland path.

It’s a shame that The Wind in the Willows was never fully realised, as despite its agreeability, there’s no getting past the fact that this is a just a collection of demos. A proper recording studio, some orchestral overdubs and a bloke on drums could’ve done wonders with the material on offer here. Not that it would’ve sold a bean, but who needs money when you have a little bit of peace and a little bit of love to tide you over?

It’s all inoffensively pleasant stuff that picks out events from its source material and adapts them to pretty much the same wispy template throughout, one exception being the bluesy ‘Bargin’.

The ten bonus tracks, all except ‘The Swallow’s Song’, are unconnected to The Wind in the Willows but remain in a similar vein, although a little more lyrically downbeat in places, such as on ‘Sandy’s Song’ and ‘Sad Statue’.

At the end of the day, if your thing is ultra-rare, toytown psychedelic pop that won’t frighten the horses then Alfie Shepherd’s The Wind in the Willows is well worth a listen. If you can get beyond the lo-fi demo quality (which in all honesty, isn’t that bad), and the untoward feyness then give it a go.

Wind in the Willows take me home.

Alfie Shepherd’s The Wind in the Willows is issued on Wooden Hill and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Alfie Shepherd – The Wind in the Willows

That can be the only the reason they saw fit to put out albums as though they were playing at a festival. And you could do worse than getting stoned yourself prior to listening to this. I didn’t and still enjoyed it. Imagine what it would be like having smoked half a kilo of Dutchman’s fancy, or even tripping on an acid-soaked Yellow Pages.

Heavy, man. REAL heavy.

Free to be Stoned – The Complete Decca Recordings Anthology is a two disc affair, collecting together the lion’s share of these fabulous furry freak brothers’ Decca output, recorded between 1969 and 1971. I say lion’s share as there’s no inclusion of the tracks from debut album Clark-Hutchinson, which Decca refused to release on the grounds that the track ‘Make You’ was obscene. But that’s a very different sounding album and not really missed when you tot up what we’ve got here.

1969′s A=MH² – Check. 1970′s Retribution – Check. 1971′s Gestalt – Check. It’s all here, all present and correct and in the appropriate order.

Disc 1 takes the five tracks from A=MH² and also slips in the first two tracks from Retribution at the end, presumably for purposes of space.

Extensive instrumental workouts are the order of the day in the first instance, solely delivered by the two named players, Andy Clark and Mick Hutchinson. They were multi-instrumentalists and veterans of the underground scene, having played with, among others, psychedelic tabla abuser, Sam Gopal.

The opening track, the ten minute ‘Improvisation on a Modal Scale’, features a horrendously catchy hook and lays the foundations for what’s to come, in its implementation of all manner of instrumentation and heavy misuse of a guitar. Only the Eastern-influenced ‘Improvisation on an Indian Scale’ can match it for intensity, hitting the 13 minute mark and leaving you to wonder who snuffed out the joss-sticks.

For Retribution, here spread over the two discs, they kept to the five song format but hauled in a band to help out along the way. When you’re bassist’s name is Amazing Steven Amazing, you know things are going to be good. This time around they also included lyrics, which are howled in a manner that suggests somebody was stood on vocalist Andy Clark’s foot.

But this is music designed to be belted from a stage in the general direction of an audience made up of wild hair and joints the size of a Danvers carrot. ‘Free to be Stoned’ backs this assertion up and, despite the jazzy glitch of ‘After Hours’, things continue in pretty much the same vein, finishing with the Arthur Brown-esque ‘Death, the Lover’, which pummels the listener into a lysergic submission with its vocal refrain repeated over in a manner guaranteed to leave small children disturbed for the next twenty years of their lives.

Gestalt, Clark-Hutchinson’s final album is a less in your face offering (though ‘Poison’ begs to differ), but one that remains tuned to the late sixties/early seventies festival crowd. The songs are shorter but they continue the acid rock, freak out feel with the definite scent of something a little stronger than herbal tea leaking from the speakers throughout.

As said somewhere at the start of this review, what seems like a short lifetime ago, you don’t need to be hairy, a hippy, or sat in a field smoking the contents of granny’s window box to enjoy Free to be Stoned. I did say that, didn’t I?

Of course, if you’re any of the above, it may well enhance your enjoyment.

If you’re a connoisseur of the Great British underground, a place inhabited by a sterling assortment of hairies such as Arthur Brown, the Edgar Broughton Band, Mighty Baby, Quintessence, Sam Gopal and the ubiquitous Hawkwind, then this will be right up your street. Free to be Stoned – The Complete Decca Recordings Anthology gets the seal of approval and is another strong release from the label that’s putting all others to shame with its prog and psychedelic reisssues, the mighty Esoteric Recordings.

Free to be Stoned – The Complete Decca Recordings Anthology by Clark-Hutchinson is a two disc set, available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Clark-Hutchinson – Free to be Stoned

Some might think the latter title unfair. I certainly would, as this double CD makes no claims to being the last word in progressive rock compilations, or even one for the seasoned prog aficionado. In fact, I wish I’d never typed it now, but my delete key’s playing up so I can’t ryub ti tout…

Wondrous Stories – An Exercise in Prog Rock Predictability would be completely unfair, however. Unfair and wrong. As even though the artists included on here are fairly typical, some of the song choices aren’t.

Take for instance the Yes track, ‘Wondrous Stories’. One has to wonder whether it was picked simply to give the compilation a punchy title. Granted, they’re not going to put twenty minutes of ‘Close to the Edge’ on here, but surely they could’ve found something better from the glory days of Fragile or The Yes Album, more representative of the band’s space-prog sound. Of course, licensing issues may also have played a part here, but let’s gloss over that factor, as it threatens to ruin my entire argument.

Aphrodite’s Child is another case in point. If we’re going with safe bets, surely ‘Magic Mirror’ or ‘Rain and Tears’ would’ve been the expected choice, but here we have the excellent ‘The Four Horsemen’, taken from their third album, the biblically epic 666. A brave choice and one we should salute the compiler for. As also with the inclusion of Collosseum’s ‘The Kettle’, Gong’s ‘Perfect Mystery’, and the occasional less prominent act, such as Kansas and Mountain.

What we shouldn’t be saluting the compiler for is the digging up of Rush’s godawful ‘The Spirit of Radio’ and Marillion’s ‘Kayleigh’. I have to admit I’ve not listened to any Marillion, but would the radio-friendly toss that is ‘Kayleigh’ – a song I unfortunately remember from its original release and soft-focus MOR video – really be how Fish and co. would want themselves introduced to the prog tentative/curious audience that this compilation seems to be aimed at? A word of advice, if you find yourself listening to the aforementioned ‘Kayleigh’ and feel the urge to hold your lighter aloft whilst swaying, why not empty the fluid over yourself and strike a match. It’ll be a good deal less painful in the long run.

Which brings us to business as usual, pretty much everything else on here, which ticks the predictability box for both artist and track, even if the running order seems to have been arranged by someone in a desperate hurry to be elsewhere. As this is only a review copy, the finished arrangement may be subject to change, but Marillion’s ‘Kayleigh’, followed by Procol Harum’s ‘Whiter Shade of Pale’, followed by Renaissance’s ‘Northern Lights’, followed by the The Moody Blues ‘Nights in White Satin’, is as disorientating as that last sentence.

Expect to hear Jethro Tull’s ‘Living in the Past’, Supertramp’s ‘Crime of the Century’, Hawkwind’s ‘Silver Machine’ and Rick Wakeman’s ‘Catherine of Aragorn’. Atomic Rooster’s ‘Tomorrow Night’, Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’, the Edgar Winter Group’s ‘Frankenstein’ and Peter Gabriel’s ‘Solsbury Hill’ are also here, rubbing the shoulders of inevitability with the aforementioned Moody and Harum tracks.

All good stuff, if as familiar as a drunken weekend in Blackpool. Which is exactly what Wondrous Stories aims for. It’s not meant for the weathered prog vet; those that can name, off the top of their head, every band Bill Bruford has ever been in, or listen to a Jade Warrior album without slipping into a coma. At least, I hope it’s not. Universal’s excellent Time Machine – A Vertigo Retrospective is a much better bet for that.

Instead, Wondrous Stories – 33 Artists That Shaped the Prog Rock Era is a nice and easy jump-off point for anybody whose dander has been tickled by the recent revival of 70′s prog and is looking for a base station from which to delve a little deeper. FFS it even has a specially commissioned Roger Dean cover.

Wondrous Stories – 33 Artists That Shaped the Prog Rock Era is released by a Universal Music and available from Amazon.co.uk

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Wondrous Stories – 33 Artists That Shaped the Prog Rock Era

Google “Brain Salad Surgery review” (Brain Salad Surgery being the fourth studio album by prog behemoths Emerson, Lake and Palmer) and you’ll probably find 20,000 or so more reviews of the 1973 album, better written and more entertaining than this one; such is its status as a cornerstone of prog rock.

I’ve not tried it out for myself, so I can’t absolutely be sure this is right, but I think I’m pretty safe in assuming that there are one or two others out there who’ve had the same idea as me. With an album this big, it would be rude not to.

Therefore I have laid out a blueprint of how those reviews probably read, one which can be followed by anybody else further down the line who might wish to join the Brain Salad Surgery Review Club™. Pay on the door, please.

• Mention the cover. More importantly, mention that the cover was designed by H.R. Giger. For extra show-off points say how H.R. Giger is the artist that designed the Alien for Ridley Scott’s 1979 film of the same name and its subsequent sequels.

• Inform the curious that Brain Salad Surgery is considered by many to be ELP’s crowning glory. A summit to which there was no return.

• Don’t forget that the original lyrics for Brain Salad Surgery were penned by Greg Lake and former King Crimson collaborator Peter Sinfield. We say “original lyrics”, as the first track is in fact a souped up adaptation of Hubert Parry’s ‘Jerusalem’, using the familiar words taken from William Blakes’ preface to his Milton a Poem.

• For a more thorough rundown of the album it might be worth bearing the following in mind: ‘Jerusalem’ isn’t the only track not to have stemmed from the band’s own fair hand. ‘Tocatta’ is a reinterpretation of the fourth movement of Alberto Ginastera’s 1^st Piano Concerto, arranged by keyboard wunderkind Keith Emerson and boasting some fine effects throughout.

• ‘Still… You Turn Me On’ is almost a lighter in the air moment, saved once again by Emerson’s masterly keyboard wizardry. Use as many superlatives as you like to describe Keith Emerson’s adeptness at tickling the ivories, as they’ll help to divert the attention from the otherwise sogginess of this rather bland ballad.

• If you’re based in England then you’ll probably know what we mean when we say ‘Benny the Bouncer’ sounds like a knees up at an East End battle cruiser. Suggest that the listener may wish to sport a trilby while enjoying this bawdy respite from the otherwise prog seriousness.

• Which will bring you nicely to ‘Karn Evil 9′. Now pay attention, there’s a fair bit to take in here. ‘Karn Evil 9′ is a thirty minute progressive piece separated into three movements, or “impressions” as they are referred to here. You might wish to point out that two vocal sections sandwich an instrumental section, but the three parts have no real connection to one another and could easily have been divided into different songs. ‘Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression’ is also, somewhat confusingly, divided into two parts. For a spot of light relief, you may wish to point out at this juncture that “you could never accuse Emerson, Lake and Palmer of being pretentious.” It’s completely up to you and the mood you’re trying to convey in your own review. This would also be a good time to mention that ‘ Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Pt. 2′ is possibly one of ELP’s most famous recordings, alongside ‘Fanfare for the Common Man’. It’s also worth noting that despite its length and the rambling mid-section, ‘Karn Evil 9′ maintains the interest throughout, thanks once again to the lightning fingers of Keith Emerson.

• Let the reader know that it’s with ‘Karn Evil 9′ that the original album finishes, but dependent on which CD reissue they listen to, there could well be bonus tracks. Namely ‘Brain Salad Surgery’, ‘When the Apple Blossoms Bloom in the Wind’, and ‘Excerpts From Brain Salad Surgery Flexi Disc’. The latter is possibly the most pointless bonus ever, in that it’s six minutes of snippets from the album you have just listened to.

• Feel free to pepper your review with the following facts: Keith Emerson was keyboardist with The Nice; Greg Lake was singer and bassist with King Crimson; Carl Palmer played drums with The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and Atomic Rooster. The album title was taken from a line in the Dr. John song ‘Right Time, Wrong Place’, with brain salad surgery being a slang term for oral sex, hence the gloryhole sleeve. Brain Salad Surgery was released on the band’s own label, Manticore Records. The album spent 18 weeks in the UK charts, peaking at number 2 on 5^th January 1974.

• Finish off the review by adding your opinion of the album. This could be: “I like it a lot”; “It’s okay, a bit too up its own arse for my liking”; or “Would whoever finds the 45 minutes of my life I spent listening to this, kindly hand them in at reception. I’d like them back.” Take your pick.

Brain Salad Surgery by Emerson, Lake and Palmer is reissued by Sanctuary and available from Amazon.co.uk

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The Brain Salad Surgery Review Club

Sam Gopal’s Escalator, that’s what you get.

I didn’t say it was funny. I don’t think I actually said it was a joke. And neither is this album. Sam Gopal’s Escalator is serious stuff. Serious, acid-induced psychedelic rock, chiselled from a slab of blackest granite.

Travelling on a subsonic undercurrent, 1969′s Escalator menaces and petrifies in turn, and the very presence of future Hawkwind and Motorhead bassist Lemmy, should be enough to ward off the faint of heart. Probably for the best as I fear they wouldn’t survive the trip.

Firstly though, a brief history lesson. Please pay attention there at the back; I may be asking questions at the end.

Tabla playing Sam Gopal came to Britain in 1962 to study music. In 1967 he fell in with the hairiest of hippy-types circulating around the enormously hairy Ladbroke Grove underground scene and launched the Sam Gopal Dream, featuring amidst its fold the eponymous members of Clark-Hutchinson. A year later the band had changed, Lemmy had joined and they were simply called Sam Gopal. Lesson endeth.

Lemmy, who provided vocals as well as playing lead and rhythm guitar, claims to have written all the songs on Escalator in one night, whilst spannered on speed. Anybody who cares to dispute this is welcome to take it up with the man himself, though with the reputation that precedes him, you could well crawl away sporting his bass guitar as a head ornament.

All I can say on the matter is if Methedrine be the drug of creativity, then toot on. You may have sore gums in the morning, but you might also have something as good as this. Escalator is dark, heavy psych, shot through with a mean streak and sense of forboding that’s as far from peace, love and bloody flowers as one can get without actually killing anybody.

Speaking of which, the shot emblazoned proudly across Escalator’s cover depicts a band with physical harm on their minds, and woe betide whoever it was they’d caught looking at their pints.

Is it any good though? You might as well ask if the chance of Aston Villa bringing home any silverware next season is zero. Of course it is. Keep believing.

Yes, Sam Gopal’s Escalator is a crackling, fuzzed out journey through the murkier waters of British psychedelic rock, underpinned by the menacing snarl of a perpetually throbbing bass, courtesy of one Phil Duke. I could pick out individual tracks, such as the bowel-loosening ‘Cold Embrace’ or the trippily mellow ‘Yesterlove’, but that would be pointless. It’s all good stuff! There’s even room for an unsettling cover of Donovan’s ‘Season of the Witch’, which is no bad thing.

Sam Gopal’s percussion antics, mainly on the aforementioned tabla (a type of Indian drum), add the almost required air of late sixties Eastern promise, occasionally tempering the more sinister elements throughout.

The 2010 reissue of Sam Gopal’s Escalator features two bonus tracks, the single and heroin metaphor ‘Horse’ and its B-side ‘Back Door Man’.

And so to end: how hairy was the Ladbroke Grove underground scene? Hope you were paying attention. Answers on a postcard to the usual address.

Escalator by Sam Gopal is reissued on Esoteric and available from Amazon.co.uk

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Sam Gopal – Escalator

The Emperor’s new clothes are revealed and what is the mighty Floyd’s last album (at least as far as listenability goes) is shown up for what it is. Nevertheless, would you take the word of an unproven critic, yet time and again proven eejut, on this? Of course not. To do so would be foolish. So acquire a copy of Pink Floyd’s The Wall and experience the big fuss about nothing for yourself. Draw your own conclusions. On a pomposity scale it’s up there with Yes’s Tales From Topographical Oceans, yet lacks the charm of ELP’s ‘Karn Evil 9′.

The more astute of you may have reached this far, in what will inevitably be another piss-poor excuse for a review, and realised that The Wall is not the Pink Floyd album referenced at the head of the page. In fact, thus far The Wall mentions = six; Piper at the Gates of Dawn mentions = two. That is, of course, counting those mentions when totting up the mentions. Nevertheless, 3:1 is a pretty poor ratio against.

Anybody with a modicum of internet nous will point out that none of the above makes for good web copy. Four paragraphs in and absolutely nothing on the album you’re reviewing, aside from two fleeting mentions of its title. Everyone knows that nobody reads anything anymore, only scanning web pages for the info they want. The majority will already be looking elsewhere. So take me to one side and shoot me in the face, I’ll consider it an education.

All that aside, if you listen to Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn and The Wall and none of what came in between, it’s hard to comprehend both are by what was essentially the same band, give or take a member or two. All within the timeframe of 12 years.

Which brings us to the conclusion (for want of a better word) that Piper at the Gates of Dawn is well and truly Syd Barrett’s album. The then lead guitarist and vocalist wrote the lion’s share of the songs on this 1967 debut, and as such it crackles with a psychedelic energy that is lacking from subsequent releases (A Saucerful of Secrets aside). There is also the childlike innocence of splintered genius evident throughout; on ‘Matilda Mother’, ‘Lucifer Sam’ and ‘The Scarecrow’, to name but three, tempered with the hardcore acid explosion of undeniably the album standout ‘Interstellar Overdrive’.

The world probably doesn’t need another review of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, and therefore I won’t bless it with one.

All that needs saying is if you’ve not already got it, go out and buy it. It’s bob on!

Piper at the Gates of Dawn by Pink Floyd is available from Amazon.co.uk

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Pink Floyd – Piper at the Gates of Dawn

Well, not necessarily uplifting (though there are moments), but something gentle, occasionally dark, fleetingly creepy and most importantly, worthy of a second listen. Trader Horne’s one and only album, 1970′s Morning Way, is, in fact, worthy of much more than a second listen.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Firstly, this may have been Trader Horne’s lone release, but they were in fact a duo comprising of original Fairport Convention vocalist and one time member of an embryonic King Crimson, Judy Dyble, and Irish folk rock underground ubiquity Jackie McAuley. The conjunction of these musical forces resulted in Morning Way, a pleasingly obscure example of psychedelically informed folk rock.

Trader Horne – who apparently took their moniker from the nickname John Peel had for his nanny (la-di-da) – provide a calming soundtrack, with the typical folk setup of male and female vocals exchanging leads and harmonies. Even so, this is Jackie McAuley’s show, with him writing the lion’s share of the tracks and taking the majority of leads, while Judy Dyble’s English Rose vocal drifts ethereally through the mix like the song of a Siren floating inland from a distant shore.

‘Jenny May’ kicks off proceedings, a jaunty nursery rhyme-style song that hints at darker meaning, putting us in fine fettle for the remainder of the album.

‘Children of Oare’ borrows its recorder driven riff from ”We Three Kings of Orient Are’, and is lyrically typical of the fey subject matter that dances like a pixie maiden in the court of King Arthur throughout much of the album. We’re in the realms of baroque folk, kicking the tyres of progressive music, specifically on the moving call and response of ‘Growing Man’, a true classic of the genre.

‘Down and Out Blues’ is the one exception to this blueprint, a cover of the blues standard ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out’, delivered in a full-on Billie Holiday tempo by Dyble, which, for all its sincerity, remains unremarkable and only serves to detract from the rest of the material Morning Way has to offer.

Gems such as ‘The Mutant’ (surely written under the influence of Cream’s ‘Tales of Brave Ulysses’), ‘The Mixed Up Kind’, ‘In My Loneliness’, the eerie title-track with its allusions to death, and the hauntingly memorable ‘Velvet to Atone‘.

Indeed, for all its occasional tweeness and lightness of weight in the grand scheme of things, Morning Way is one of the finest, most beautifully rendered examples of psychedelic folk music. It may lack the teeth of another great of the acid-folk movement, Comus’s First Utterance, but it’s nice to leave behind the real darkness once in a while and peer blinking, but a little more settled, into a lighter shade of despair.

Morning Way, by Trader Horne,  is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Trader Horne – Morning Way

In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s quite poor, faintly reminiscent of The Who’s Tommy, and possibly designed as a portent to what lies within.

Nevertheless, Rolling Stone would list Tony Wright’s artwork as one of their “100 Greatest Album Covers”, but what do they know? Then again, what do I know? Very little, obviously. That’s why I’m sat here writing this barely coherent nonsense for free.

But enough of that. This isn’t Record Cover Weekly. We already have a long-forgotten “Cover of the Week” section dedicated to taking the piss out of album covers. Maybe, one day, HFoS will appear on a website dedicated to taking the piss out of ropey blogs. Then we truly have arrived.

But as I said, the design is possibly a warning to the unwary of the shades of grey that reside on the fourth official studio album of, erstwhile songwriter of this parish, Steve Winwood’s Traffic. Following on from the magnificence of 1967′s Mr. Fantasy, 1968′s near-perfect Traffic, and 1970′s patchy, yet still pleasing John Barleycorn Must Die, 1971′s jaunt into the realms of prog and jazz fusion comes as something of a disappointment.

“… The music lacks in drive, excitement and just about everything good music should have…” So said the January 1972 issue of Beat Instrumental, and it’s a criticism I find hard to criticise. Those fourteen words sum up this dose of rush-hour heavy congestion somewhat perfectly.

The six original tracks (and single bonus track on the 2002 reissue) blend into one aimless amble through the tedious terrains of monotony meadow and vapidity valley. Achingly awful alliteration aside, there’s really very little I can recommend on this album.

It’s like one overlong jam session, at the start of which the engineer accidentally pressed record. Only the Jim Capaldi penned and sung ‘Light Up or Leave Me Alone’ threatens to get interesting, though the impact of this brief diversion from the otherwise indistinct is shortlived and inevitably dragged down by the company it keeps. The Low points of The Low Spark… happen to be everything else.

Even so, don’t take my word for it. If you’re into jazz then you’re probably onto a winner, as The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys follows that genre’s devilish template of abject boredom to the letter. That said, this tiresome exercise in jazz/folk-infused prog isn’t actually jazz, it just feels like it.

More constructive criticism, next time.

The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys is reissued by Island Records and available from Amazon.co.uk

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Traffic – The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

Situated in a wood near to the village of Black Dog, it’s a snapshot of pastoral bliss from a time when bands left, right and centre were decamping to record company-paid, far from the madding crowd retreats, to “get it together in the country”.

Yes, I really like this album cover. I can almost picture myself there too. Enlisted to tickle a triangle, bang a tambourine, or shake a cowbell, which is about the limit of my musical prowess. Outside a cottage. In a wood. In Devon. In 1971.

A few years before I was born, maybe, but one can imagine. Isn’t that what John Lennon said? “Imagine all the people, sharing all the world…” in the exact same year that Twice as Nice & Half the Price was recorded. Mere coincidence? Who knows? All that’s clear is Lennon’s words proved futile, as will any attempt by HFoS to travel back in time and brandish some ineffectual percussion on the sleeve of Heron’s second album.

But did I say how much I liked the sleeve? It doesn’t need my ungainly presence, nor my rhythmical dyslexia spoiling the scene. It’s perfect as it is. It promises so much. Unfortunately the record itself fails to deliver.

Heron’s eponymous 1970 debut – recorded, of all places, in a field (or two) in Berkshire – was a pleasant stroll through some pastoral-folk rock meadows and running at 13 tracks, just about the right length. Twice as Nice & Half the Price however, in being a double album of 24 songs, seems to spread the Heron marmalade (and that metaphor) a little too thinly.

In other words, the prog-folkies with a penchant for recording in the great outdoors, struggle to conserve the interest over the course of this release. Dull, is probably a better way of putting it.

Condensing what they had here into a single entity may have saved it; certainly, cutting out the lacklustre US Soul covers would’ve been a start. But one thinks that overall, the subdued, languorous nature of Twice as Nice… is beyond remedy.

That said, it does have its moments. Their extended arrangement of Bob Dylan’s anti-war song ‘John Brown’ is particularly good, as is the gentle progressive folk of the nine minute ‘Winter Harlequin’, even if, like this review, it does sail close to tedium towards the end.

Two swallows don’t make a summer, and elsewhere things range from passable to pedestrian. Shame really.

Did I mention the cover though? That’s quite lovely.

Twice as Nice & Half the Price is available as part of the Heron double CD, Upon Reflection – The Dawn Anthology, procurable from Amazon.co.uk

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Heron – Twice as Nice & Half the Price

With Jess Roden on vocals and a couple of Toytown psych excursions, in ‘Mr. Job’ and ‘Toyland’, under the belt they released Outward Bown and a self-titled album before Roden quit. The vocals for the latter were re-recorded by the late Robert Palmer, he of ‘Addicted to Love’ success, who went on to pull exactly the same stroke as Roden for the next album, quitting the band just prior to its release.

Gordon Neville was recruited to overdub Palmer’s vocals and, now simply calling themselves Alan Bown, 1970′s Listen was the result.

Listen indeed, a demand upon the record-buyer enforced by Neville’s full-blooded R&B-style vocal. Despite the restriction of having to remain in the key of Palmer’s original interpretation of the nine songs Listen has to offer, the replacement vocalist remains convincing throughout and marshals the proceedings like he arrived at the studio on day one.

That’s not to say that this album is the best thing since sliced bread, far from it, although I’ve always found sliced bread to be overrated. Is dispensing with a knife to placate the idle, really the greatest achievement man has to offer for his 200,000 or so years on this rock? No wonder intelligent alien life has thus far passed us by, probably in favour of another civilisation whose idea of “great” isn’t the discovery that somebody’s already cut their bread for them.

But I digress. Alan Bown’s Listen is an assured, if risk-free, trawl across the seabed of early progressive rock. Drawing upon his early days as a jazz man, Bown’s album is laced with jazz elements, though not, as in the case of ‘Igginbottom’s Wrench, to the point where they ruin it (hence there’ll be no anti-jazz rant this week, though that, a Phil Collins, and an Incredible String Band one are long overdue). Throw in some blues riffs, the ever-present horns, and some fine, if subdued, keyboards and what you have is Listen, an undemanding 40 minutes upon your time.

You want highlights? Oh well, the opener ‘Wanted Man’ is a nice slice of Allman Brothers-style outlaw music, and ‘Loosen Up’ continues with that Southern Rock vibe. Things get heavier with ‘Pyramid’ and the closing track ‘Get Myself Straight’ is a mellower lament to a friend of keyboardist and writer, Jeff Bannister, who was in the throes of life derailment.

The band’s 1971 follow-up, Stretching Out, features a few changes in the line-up, and ultimately takes more chances than Listen. As such it’s a better listen, but that’s for another day.

The 2010 Esoteric reissue of Alan Bown’s Listen, alas, features no bonus tracks, but there are some nice liner notes by rock scribe Sid Smith.

Listen is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Alan Bown – Listen

Possibly not one of the likeliest bits of trivia to help out in a pub quiz, but you never know. I’ll be expecting a share of the loot, beer tokens, knock off DVDs etc. if it ever does.

As for Journey itself, once again Arthur Brown confounds expectations by flying off on a musical tangent to what had gone before.

Kingdom Come made a habit of this. Each of their three albums sounds as different as the next, and with Journey the use of the drum machine brings a completely new, if synthetic sounding, dimension to the proceedings.

The excellent Richard Morton Jack edited tome, Galactic Ramble, describes Journey, in an otherwise unfairly disparaging review, as being “like Hawkwind covered by a Vienna-era Ultravox…” an analogy I can quite understand. This album is very Hawkwind in nature, which isn’t a great surprise as the two bands moved in the same circles, sailing forth through the further reaches of space rock, but never quite reaching that interplanetary outpost because of the artificial sound created by the drum machine.

Yes, it’s very Ultravox in places, but despite this Journey is still a solid nugget of Arthur Brown insanity.

Recorded in the wake of the heavy acid intake that piloted the second album, Kingdom Come, this third and final outing from the band keeps its head firmly in the alternate dimension. Kicking off with ‘Time Captives’, the weakest track on here, due partly to its unashamed, yet somewhat all-too-serious, daftness, and the fact it can’t help but remind me of The Mighty Boosh’s ‘Future Sailor’ song, rendering it comical for all the wrong reasons.

But with the inadvertent sniggering out of the way, Journey comes into its own, taking us on a flight through the warped imagination of Arthur Brown via way of the short instrumental ‘Triangles’ – so called because the notes guitarist Andy Dalby played were guided by the frame of a triangle – then into the full-on progressive epics of ‘Gypsy’ and ‘Superficial Roadblocks’, both bristling with the type of lyric that seeks to put man beyond the reach of the moon. Cracking stuff!

‘Spirit of Joy’, released as a single at the time, is the closest this album comes to a conventional song, and what a belter it is. Accompanied by an array of sounds plucked from the intergalactic ether, Arthur Brown lets rip with his trademark full fat vocal delivery, with an out of character short, sharp burst of uplifting, post-hippy exultation.

Journey quickly recovers from its false start, and despite the synthetic nature of the drum machine, which on the rare occasion can make it sound horribly 1980s, it’s as worthwhile a listen as the previous three Arthur Brown albums…

… But what’s this? The 2010 Esoteric Recordings reissue only goes and throws in a bonus disc.

Yes, a second CD throbbing with rare treats. Well, there’s the single version of ‘Spirit of Joy’, markedly different to the album one, plus its B-side ‘Slow Rock’. Then there’s a few more alternate versions before three session tracks, recorded in 1972 for the John Peel show. The fact these come complete with Peel’s own original bumblings add beautifully to the atmosphere. Bob on!

Journey by Kingdom Come is released on Esoteric and available from Amazon.co.uk

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Kingdom Come – Journey

Performing the dastardly deed are three fragrant fraulines* from somewhere in the UK, who go by the name of the Hausfrauen Experiment.

It’s safe to say I’m not a particularly big fan of electronic music pioneers Silver Apples, though ‘Oscillations’ is one of the better tracks on their self-titled 1968 debut album. Its hypnotic, trance-like quality is successfully reproduced here, setting up this four-track EP nicely.

Next up is the Hausfrauen take on ‘Spirit of the Age’, the Hawkwind song taken from their Robert Calvert-era, 1977 album Quark, Strangeness and Charm. It transplants the space rock sparseness of the original for a space synth sparseness and a cheerier version of a Throbbing Gristle-style industrial vibe.

The final two tracks, Brian Eno’s ‘Baby’s On Fire’ and Cockney Rebel’s ‘Sebastian’ – neither of which I was previously familiar with – are both heavy slices of synthesised sound and otherworldly vocals, the highlight being the ethereal and haunting feel that saturates ‘Sebastian’.

Overall this is quite a departure for the Fruits de Mer label, being as it is an exponent of the psych/prog/acid-folk sound, here entrenched in a world of electro chaos that pulsates with a late seventies/early eighties synth heartbeat.

The Hausfrauen Experiment interpretations of these four songs are effectively rendered, and despite the shift in sound, Volume 12 should give the record label yet another reason to celebrate.

Hausfrauen Experiment MySpace page

*Please excuse the painfully executed alliteration.

The Hausfrauen Experiment is coming soon and available for pre-order from the Fruits de Mer website. In the meantime, checkout their version of Hawkwind’s ‘Spirit of the Age’:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNJR7ySvq_c

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The Hausfrauen Experiment -- Fruits de Mer Volume 12

Not so well known, but possibly one of the strongest demonstrations of the merger between classical and prog, is the 1970 album Act One, by Glaswegian band, Beggar’s Opera.

Sporting a surreal cover that just smacks of late sixties and early seventies wonderland-esque mind alteration, Act One sets the Beggar’s Opera stall out right from the very off, weaving the work of various classical composers into their Hammond organ marinated sonic stew.

The first of five tracks, ‘Poet and Peasant’, lifts heavily from the overture of the same name by Franz Von Suppe, and is a bracing introduction to the album’s, then, uniquely original twist. It winds and turns, shifts tempo and generally makes for an all around exhilarating listen – an absolutely cracking start to an album.

It’s an interpretation of another Von Suppe overture that closes the album, with the twelve minute ‘Light Cavalry’ putting the lid on things in suitably dramatic style.

In between, ‘Passacaglia’ and ‘Memory’ tick along nicely in a similar vein, leading into the Act One showpiece, ‘Raymond’s Road‘. This lengthy instrumental workout throws in a whole host of classical snippets, some more recognisable than others, played as though the musicians’ lives depended on it at a speed guaranteed to give anybody hitting the pause button a nasty dose of whiplash. The Hammond organ-led renditions never once threaten to derail this locomotive of interchanging sound, and as an example of the musical invention demonstrating what was becoming possible at the beginning of the seventies, it’s up there with the best.

As is this opening salvo from the Beggar’s Opera canon. Act One has been criminally overlooked in the intervening years, rarely, if ever, featuring on any lists associated with progressive rock. The 2004 Repertoire reissue did little to remedy this but features two bonus tracks, both sides of the Act One era single, ‘Sarabande’ and ‘Think’.

The fact they never appear to take themselves too seriously, in a genre often derided for some of its more po-faced and pretentious exponents, also deserves plaudits. In fact, was I to draw up a list right now of a top 10 of prog albums, Act One would be a strong contender to feature. And there’s no better endorsement than that, even if I do say so myself.

Act One by Beggar’s Opera is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Beggar’s Opera – Act One

Aside from the occasional exception, we are in the territory of orchestral-infused flowery pop, which, don’t get me wrong, is no bad thing.

The World of Oz, released in 1969, sees the four Brummies responsible deliver a collection of melodic and instantly likeable songs that steer well clear of anything too far out, but set themselves apart, both lyrically and musically, from the standard pop fodder of the time.

‘The Muffin Man’, the album opener and a minor hit in Holland, lives up to the outlandish album cover with its nursery rhyme lyrics and toytown psych sensibilities. Its equally magical B-side, ‘Peter’s Birthday (Black and White Rainbow)’, is included here as a bonus track.

The rest of the album is given over to a more orthodox brand of flower pop, though one that’s invigorated by the lyrical content, which for the most part maintains an element of fairy tale, childhood innocence.

‘The Hum-GumTree‘ is an exception, being a catchy little number, whose idyllic scene is quickly shattered by some heavy blasts of keyboard, shifting it momentarily into the realms of psychedelic rock. An honour shared by the wonderful ‘Like a Tear’, resplendent in a dressing of Eastern mysticism and eerie guitar, making it the one through and through psychedelic track on the album.

The orchestral elements on some of the tracks also set the songs apart from the realms of ordinary pop, as was the case with The Move’s debut album, and here they’re expertly arranged by Donovan collaborator, and composer, John Cameron.

Repertoire have done a splendid job with the remastered reissue of The World of Oz. Limited to just 2000 copies, the colourful packaging and enclosed booklet are tastier than the contents of a sweetshop and only half as damaging to your teeth. All the singles are included as bonuses, and these boys released a few singles before a lack of commercial success finished them off.

Although far from what I initially anticipated, The World of Oz has enough going for it to keep this weary hack diverted. It’s harmless, very British and harks back to a bygone time when you could quite happily get away with this sort of thing.

The World of Oz is reissued by Repertoire and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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World of Oz – The World of Oz