So what festive fare have I picked randomly from the ether for you spend your Our Price vouchers on this year? Read on, my fine fellows and fellowettes:

Rick Wakeman – Journey to the Centre of the Earth

As it’s Christmas, something supremely daft is in order and they don’t come much dafter than this live recording. A man in a cape, with enough electric pianos, organs, Moogs, Mellotrons and what-have-yous to cause an energy crisis on a small Mediterranean island. The London Symphony Orchestra. The English Chamber Choir. Narration from the preposterously eyebrowed David Hemmings (following Billy Dainty’s scheduling conflict). An audience anticipating something with the subtlety of a broken bottle to the throat… What the deuce were they all thinking?

Thankfully, it’s 1974 and this type of thing was pretty much the norm in progressive rock circles. It is also quite the delightful listen, resplendent in its scope and sheer audacity, with grumpy old Rick in fine noodling form, employing the full range of his synthesised arsenal to create a weird and alien soundscape through which Jules Verne’s 19th century tale is interpreted. With Will Malone also on hand to provide the arrangements, Journey to the Centre of the Earth is a fine, if deranged, melding of the rock and classical genres, relayed via the caped wonder’s extensive modular banks.

Journey to the Centre of the Earth, by Rick Wakeman, is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

Fat Mattress

Formed by Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist, Noel Redding, Fat Mattress’s self-titled 1969 debut is a refreshing cocktail of psychedelic rock and proto-prog, with generous lashings of folk and bluesy elements for good measure. Undoubted highlights of this thoroughly invigorating mix are the darkly baleful and Traffic-esque ‘Mr Moonshine’, the gentle, trippy psych of ‘Walking Through a Garden’ and the soaring ‘How Can I live’, but with neither hide nor hair of a duffer among the original tracks (with 11 further bonuses on the anthology edition), this musical gateway to a mind-altered reality is an essential addition to any Santa’s wishlist.

Fat Mattress, by Fat Mattress, is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

The End – Introspection

Included for no other reason than I wrote a feature about The End for Record Collector magazine earlier this year, 1969′s Introspection is a mellifluous collection of psychedelic pop, produced by no other than young William Wyman of popular beat combo, The Rolling Stones fame. Drifting harmonies and a fine line in organ textures, courtesy of sometime Spider From Mars and future record producer, Nicky Graham, provide an otherworldly ambience to tracks such as ‘Dreamworld’, ‘Under the Rainbow’, ‘Shades of Orange’ and ‘Loving, Sacred Loving’. They also add their own unique touch to Larry Williams’ ‘She Said Yeah’, the earlier Stones cover of which is featured on that irritating Bleu de Chanel advert. A full review of Introspection can be found here.

Introspection, by The End, is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

The Idle Race – Time Is

Recorded and released in 1971, following Jeff Lynne’s defection to The Move, The Idle Race’s third and final album is often overlooked in the grand scheme of things, overshadowed by the previous offerings featuring their soon-to-be world famous, former frontman. True, it lacks the endearing whimsy of Lynne’s toytown-flavoured songs, but there’s still a good deal of mileage to be had from The Idle Race’s new folk/progressive rock direction. The folk flavourings are particularly strong, with the pastoral opener ‘Dancing Flower’, ‘I Will See You’, ‘She Sang Hymns Out of Tune’ and a cover of Gordon Lightfoot’s ‘Bitter Green’, all making Time Is the perfect accompaniment to slip into a drunken, late-night Christmas Day reverie.

Time Is, by the Idle Race, is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

Home – The Alchemist

And Christmas would not be Christmas without a spot of the fantastic, ably provided by Home’s epic 1973 concept album, The Alchemist. A tragic tale of schoolboys, wizards, imminent disaster and a Cornish fishing village makes this a narrative worthy of hungover Boxing Day morning TV, effectively set to some thumpingly good music. Previous albums from Home had enjoyed a guitar-based, more hard/country rock vibe, but in the case of The Alchemist, the four-piece roped in a keyboardist – Jimmy Anderson – and with a range of Mellotron, organ and synth arrangements complimenting the tracks, set forth along the prog rock route. The result is an admirably restrained and a sobering reminder that not all the progressive scene was about excess and grandiose statements. Sometimes the musicianship could be understated, allowing the story to shine through.

The Alchemist, by Home, is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

And there you have it, the 2011 Christmas selection pack. There should be a special Santa’s stocking prog mixtape on the way in the next few days, so I’ll refrain from wishing you a merry Christmas and making new year promises I won’t hold to, until then.

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Originally released in 1971, Tudor Lodge is as pleasant as an English pasture. A testament to inoffensive, folkie fun by a trio of lovely people, sporting lovely tunes.

A foul night on the beer could find a mid-morning salve from a listen to the 13 tracks that sit innocuously on this splendid reissue. Largely acoustic, this is what it sounded like in certain quarters of England during the late 60s and early 70s. Hell’s teeth! One wishes it was still the same – long hair, flutes, the occasional piano and a soft voice guiding you onto the jagged rocks, courtesy of the ethereal timbre Ann Steuart traded in.

In fact, Ann Steuart does all of the above, accompanied by the able hands of Lyndon Green and John Stannard on guitars, as well as a host of session artists (including Pentangle drummer, Terry Cox) tickling everything from the Bassoon to the occasional violin.

Pop all these seeds into a relatively fertile furrow and you’re sure to produce something as chipper as this. A joyous slice of unbridled innocence, carefully calculated to cause absolutely no offence to anybody alive, once alive, or yet to live. Whimsy, gentle harmonies and the lightness of a sea breeze drifting inland from the Devonshire coastline, are what make Tudor Lodge what it is: a bracing 45 minutes worth of folkie serenity, unburdened by cynicism.

The closest the album comes to political comment (the cornerstone upon which the majority of folk sounds have evolved) is ‘I See a Man’, regarding the poverty and plight of an old soldier, but what Tudor Lodge lacks in teeth it makes up for in melody. The undoubted highlight is the single ‘The Lady’s Changing Home’ (the B-side of which, ‘The Good Times We Had’, is included as a bonus track), with a bridge that shares more than a little in common with Bobby Bland’s ‘Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City’, recorded three years later.

Also worthy of note are the instrumental and decidedly medieval hues of ‘Madeline’ and a spirited cover of Ralph McTell’s ‘Kew Gardens’.

All in all, music suited to a summer’s meadow and the perfect soundtrack to start the HFoS summer holidays. See you in September.

Originally released on the Vertigo label, Tudor Lodge is reissued by Esoteric and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Released in 1974, Loudest Whisper’s folk opera concept album, The Children of Lir, recounts a tall tale from Celtic legend, regarding a Sea god and his four children, who’re turned into swans by a jealous step-mother. Just another day at the office in Irish folklore.

Originally envisaged as a stage show and performed parochially, The Children of Lir turned out to be such an ambitious production that a pared-down version of it was featured in a primetime slot on national TV station RTE. The band, accompanied by 50 or so performers and vocalist/slide guitarist Ron Kavanagh, succeeded in wowing their audiences and the TV exposure helped bring about a record deal with Polydor, a label offering sanctuary to many a progressive artist throughout the preceding years.

Loudest Whisper comprised of four hairy Irishmen sporting names such as Paud and Bunny, who traded in a brand of progressive, psychedelic folk-rock, scented with the lightest essence of traditional influences. A recipe for success in the spirit of early 1970’s experimental acceptance, one might think, but as with other prog-folkies such as Mellow Candle, Mr. Fox and Comus, Loudest Whisper’s debut album “enjoyed” a limited pressing and sank with little trace. The Children of Lir has since gone on to be one of Ireland’s most sought after folk-rock rarities, with the original vinyl fetching hefty prices on the collector market due to its scarcity and the band’s subsequent success upon home soil.

Thankfully, for those of us whose purse strings are unable to stretch to the ludicrous amounts that some folk are prepared to pay for 2oz of plastic with a hole in the middle – or simply lack a Dansette upon which to whack the bastard – the good people at Sunbeam Records reissued it on CD a few years back, complete with bonus tracks and the audio track of the aforementioned RTE appearance.

Beginning with a dramatic overture before slipping into the achingly gentle ‘Lir’s Lament’, sung here by Ron Kavanagh prior to his departure for a lucrative solo career, HFoS is happy to report that, lyrically, The Children of Lir is as fey as they come. Imagine Donovan sat cross-legged in a woodland glade, writing songs for the pixies dancing gaily at his feet. This is the world that Lir’s offspring inhabit.

The band, led by songwriter and arranger, Brian O’Reilly, plough a musical furrow that prevents The Children of Lir from drifting into the realms of overt mawkishness, with powerful playing, some handy electric guitar that’s ably demonstrated on ‘Good Day, My Friend’, and string arrangements that add a richly seductive quality to the music. They also provide the vocals, along with the ethereal Geraldine Dorgan, who comes into her own on ‘Wedding Song’; her style familiar to, and equally as sublime as, Judy Dyble’s.

Downsides are few and far between, though the fact that The Children of Lir originally stems from a stage production does often put one in mind of creaky am-dram performed in a drafty village hall, such is the occasionally stilted nature of the narration-through-song. Nevertheless, it’s a meditative slice of prog-folk that packs power and emotion, recorded at a time when hirsute hippies of all nationalities could happily get away with this sort of thing.

The bonus tracks, aside from the RTE broadcast, comprise of a couple of demos, plus the beautifully lilting single ‘William B’, dedicated to the poet Yeats, and its jarring B-side, ‘False Prophets’, which sounds as though a dose of Leprechaun magic has transformed Loudest Whisper into Black Sabbath.

The Children of Lir, by Loudest Whisper is reissued on Sunbeam Records and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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The rules, as ever, remain the same. This is no top five and shouldn’t be treated as such. Just another pointless list that captures a few of Head Full of Snow’s favourite acid folk/folk rock albums from the moisty mists of time.

Comus – First Utterance

As unfestive an album as it’s possible to get. Comus’s songs of bloody Pagan sacrifice, murder, rape and insanity are certainly not recommended listening for the Christmas dinner table when granny comes around. Liable to cause an untoward reaction in those of a delicate persuasion, First Utterance is the Witchfinder General of progressive acid-folk. Released in 1971, this godless nightmare of an album features an astounding vocal performance by lead singer Roger Wootton, whose words form like the gnarled, twisted roots of a hanging tree against the icy, death-sodden melodies that seethe ominously away, somewhere beneath. A full review of First Utterance can be found here.

First Utterance by Comus is available as part of 2-disc anthology Song to Comus, to buy from Amazon.co.uk

Mr Fox – The Gipsy

The second and final album under the Mr Fox name by husband and wife team Bob and Carole Pegg, finds them in a far more progressive mood, with a wider arsenal of instrumentation at their disposal. The Gipsy emerged in 1971 and though not as downright sinister as the Comus debut, it does have its moments, particularly on the doom-laden, organ heavy, acid-folk tale of witchcraft that is ‘Mendle’. Elsewhere, the 13 minute title track is an unsung classic of storytelling through song and the poignant ‘Elvira Madigan’ and an excellent rendition of the traditional folk ballad ‘The House Carpenter’, all add up to a scintillating mix that picks up where the cracking debut left off.

The Gipsy by Mr Fox is available as part of the Join Us in Our Game anthology, to buy from Amazon.co.uk

Mark Fry – Dreaming With Alice

More acid-folk and more talk of witches in this, the ethereal and haunting Dreaming With Alice from 1972. With its title track split into nine verses that gently weave in and out of the other songs, it’s an album that has passed into legend due to its obscurity. ‘The Witch’ is a particularly unsettling offering, with its flutes and sitars underpinning the eerie lyrics regarding a terrifying witch at the window. A full review of Mark Fry’s Dreaming With Alice lurks here.

Dreaming With Alice by Mark Fry is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

Steeleye Span – Below the Salt

Along with Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span was one of the foremost practitioners of the folk rock movement. Released in 1972, Below the Salt was their fourth album and possibly their finest. With all nine tracks being adaptations of traditional folk songs it’s very much a bucolic feel that presides throughout. Maddy Prior and Tim Hart’s interwoven vocal couplings bring life to such gems as the spectral ‘King Henry’, the old favourite ‘John Barleycorn’ and the jaunty opener ‘Spotted Cow’. A spleen-rupturing electric bass is employed throughout, often renting the hey-nonny feyness completely asunder. Below the Salt is also home to perennial festive favourite ‘Gaudete’, as much a standard of the Christmas compilation CD as Gary Glitter once was.

Below the Salt by Steeleye Span is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

Heron

As pastoral an album as you’re likely to find – it was recorded in a field, for Jeff’s sake – Heron’s self-titled debut captures a little piece of English summer, courtesy of the Berkshire countryside in 1970. While the sound of birds singing in the trees can be heard between songs and the smell of warm grass drifts out through the speakers, Heron play a gentle mix of progressive folk, incorporating various styles along the way. ‘Yellow Roses’, the reminiscence of ‘Upon Reflection’ and the organ swirls of ‘Harlequin 2′ provide some of the best moments on what is, considering the arctic conditions we’re currently enjoying, a mellow breeze of balmy air in the coldest depths of winter.

Heron is available as part of the Upon Reflection anthology, to buy from Amazon.co.uk

And there we have it for another year. The start of 2011 will see the second anniversary of HFoS and reviews for albums by the likes of Peter Bardens, Locomotive, Machiavel, Meic Stevens and Mountain. That’s a lot of “M”s.

Until then, HFoS can do no more than wish both of you a very merry Christmas. May your sobriety hold off until April.

See also:

HFoS Psychedelic Rock Christmas Selection Pack 2010

HFoS Progressive Rock Christmas Selection Pack 2010

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Appearing on 1971′s From the Witchwood, ‘The Hangman and the Papist is a rich swirl of Rick Wakeman’s church organ noodling and Dave Cousins’ atmospheric vocals. A parable on religious divide, ‘The Hangman and the Papist’ is powerful stuff indeed.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDDy6qXIWC8

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That said, this distasteful example of anti-trade union sentiment was written by the band’s rhythm section, who would depart soon after, and despite any animosity I might hold towards the song and its writers, if the truth be known, before this affront to the working classes was vomited onto an unsuspecting world, clad in an ill-fitting overcoat of jauntiness, the Strawbs were a cracking good band. Even after this unsightly smear of a song had been foisted upon the Great British public, the Strawbs could still knock out a half-decent album, leaving the pro-Tory vaudevillian act in the gutter where it belonged.

Political rant over, the epiphany that allowed this previously despised group into HFoS towers came in two forms. Sid Smith’s Postcards From the Yellow Room podcast and Rob Young’s essential and essentially weighty tome on British folk music, Electric Eden. Rock writer Sid gave us a Strawbs special, admitting he too had held similar reservations about the band because of the abysmal ‘Part of the Union’, while the Electric Eden book dedicated a substantial proportion of a chapter to them. Whisperings of folk and prog stylings piqued the interest and voila! Here we are with a look at 1971′s From the Witchwood.

The band’s third studio album (if you discount All Our Own Work, recorded with Sandy Denny) finds them at the transitional point where the folk sound was beginning to take on a more progressive rock edge. For From the Witchwood the founding line-up of Dave Cousins and Tony Hooper were joined by bassist John Ford and drummer Richard Hudson (the two responsible for ‘Part of the Union’), expanding the sound into the rock arena. They were also augmented by a young man who played everything from the electric piano and celeste, right through to the Mellotron; a previously little known session player named Rick Wakeman.

The fluid fingers of the hirsute keyboard wizard are all over From the Witchwood, threading lush melodies and skeletal refrains into the musical tapestries weaved by Dave Cousins’ guitar.

“You’ve written 400 odd words of inconsequential fluff,” The voices in my head scream. “Just tell us, is it any ruddy good or not?”

Well, if you managed to get this far without heading for the hills, in the slender hope you might eventually collide with a very rough approximation of what a review might read like, the answer is yes. It is rather good.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that From the Witchwood is a near-perfect album. Fighting words, indeed.

From the church organ and choral opening of ‘A Glimpse of Heaven’, through to the closing ‘I’ll Carry On Beside You’ and bonus track ‘Keep the Devil Outside’, it barely puts a foot wrong.

‘A Glimpse of Heaven’ is an enchanting start, quickly followed by the haunting twang of the dulcimer on the spinetingling ‘Witchwood’; and from then on it’s a halcyon mix of psychedelic sitars and prog keyboards, as well as a fine array of baroque instrumentation, combining to form an appetising brew of progressive, acid folk rock.

‘In Amongst the Roses’ is a sure-fire contender for one of the best songs ever, such is the gently eerie atmosphere it conveys in less than four minutes. It needs to be heard to fully appreciate it beauty.

And so does From the Witchwood. Initial misgivings are well and truly swept aside, and though one can neither forgive nor forget the callously cheap shot that is ‘Part of the Union’ (incidentally, appearing on 1973′s Bursting at the Seams album), we can, at least, banish it to the corner of the room, sporting the dunce’s hat, and ignore it like the ginger-haired stepchild it is.

From the Witchwood is reissued on A&M Records and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Needless to say, it was enough to tarnish the public image of Lindesfarne for a generation who’d never before heard of them, myself included.

But exactly twenty years earlier, the original ‘Fog on the Tyne’ had yet to be released, Gazza was yet to stagger home pissed, and Lindesfarne were dipping their collective toe into the album market with this, their 1970 debut Nicely Out of Tune. Released on the Charisma label, it introduced the folk rock stylings of five hairy-arsed Geordies to a public beyond the borders of Tyne and Wear.

Heralding in their particularly earthy and humour-laden brand of electric-folk minstrelling is the quasi-psychedelic classic ‘Lady Eleanor’. With potential single stamped clearly across its bows it’s a nice introduction to the band, featuring a shimmering mandolin, some close harmony chorus, and the occasional strained note.

Sounding as though they’re trying to out-Geordie Leonard Osborne and Dennis Patterson, the five proudly display their working class credentials throughout. There’s no faux mid-Atlantic accents or non-descript vocal deliveries here, nor the corrupted Gaelic nasal whine adopted by some elements of the folk community during the sixties. Lindesfarne sound as though they’ve just stepped off of the terraces at St. James’ Park and don’t give a fig who knows it.

‘Winter Song’ is one of the rarer moments of meditative songwriting amidst the oft-sing-along nature demonstrated elsewhere, and as such is a humbling take on the world’s ills in moments of comfort. ‘Things I Should’ve Said’ is another example of this gentler, yet regret-fuelled, approach, and as such these two songs, along with ‘Lady Eleanor’, are the cream of an altogether generous crop.

Nicely Out of Tune is by no means a perfect album. There are the occasional potholes that threaten to upset the applecart, but forty years on it remains a hugely listenable, and, more importantly, enjoyable experience. Unlike ‘Fog on the Tyne (revisited)’.

If your own opinions of Lindisfarne have been tainted by the reprehensible 1990 idiot remix of that song, give Nicely Out of Tune a listen and in the time it takes to say “Moaty, it’s me, Gazza”, those painful memories will have gone the same way as a Tyneside shipyard under a Tory government.

Haway, ya bugger man.

Nicely Out of Tune by Lindisfarne is available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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Released in 1970, this fascinating strain of electric folk is as bucolic as a winter’s afternoon stroll along the Yorkshire Dales. Such is its rustic charm that it very nearly slips into the pewter tankard and horse brass territory of traditional acoustic folk, which, if you’re partial to the occasional spot of “hey-nonny-nonny” (ahem) is no bad thing.

Husband and wife team, Bob and Carole Pegg take the helm, crafting an album that’s occasionally jolly, occasionally dark, sometimes sombre and in the case of the title-track, downright sinister.

This beguiling brew is bookended by the pastoral tones of a tin whistle, setting the scene from the off, as Mr Fox begins with the furiously jaunty ‘Join Us In Our Game’, a number that draws us in with a promise of merriment and possibly the quaffing of real ale from Toby Jugs kept hung above the bar. But it’s a short-lived one, as the much darker ‘The Hanged Man’ sets out the stall for some of the eerier offerings to be found here on.

Halfway in, ‘Mr. Trills Song’ reignites the high-spirits of the opener, with perhaps one of the most jovial songs ever to have tickled the eardrums of yours truly. Decked out in the chunkiest of Arran sweaters, Mr. Trill and his song would be laughed out of court in these modern, some might say shittier, times. But hey, in 1970 – and even today in certain, “tighter”, communities – you could easily get away with this sort of thing without so much as raising an eyebrow. ‘The Ballad of Neddy Dick’ follows, musically in a similar vein, although with the revelry in short supply; it being based on the life of a real Dalesman farmer who died in the late 1920s.

But it’s the final brace of songs on Mr Fox that really bring the storytelling element, which this band accomplishes so vividly, to the fore.

‘Leaving the Dales’ is as bleak as it is evocative, being a mournful lament to the breakdown of communities, as those at its heart are forced to leave in search of work. A sentiment that still resonates today, particularly in the wake of the vindictive acts of wanton state-sponsored vandalism, committed in the name of efficiency during the 1980s.

The final song, ‘Mr. Fox’, is an altogether different beast. Impelled by a spectral fusion of melodeon and fiddle, and later the grinding bass of Barry Lyons, it’s the sinister tale of a philandering and psychotic ne’er-do-well living in a dark house in the middle of a wood. The gruesome subject matter puts it firmly in the realms of Comus, and is an excellent scoop of acid folk; the Jimmy Jewel in a glittering crown.

The vocal styles of the Pegg team fit the subject matter perfectly and the incorporation of a wide variety of instruments provides a rich tapestry against which their stories unfold.

If folk music in any of its forms is your bag, you can’t go far wrong with Mr Fox.

Mr Fox, by Mr Fox, is reissued by Sanctuary Records as part of a two album anthology (also including follow-up The Gipsy) entitled Join Us In Our Game. As always, it’s available from Amazon.co.uk

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It’s enough to turn a man to drink but fear not, for although there are occasions when Cockerham’s voice does sail dangerously close to the tuneless whine often heard emanating from the vicinity of the ISB’s Robin Williamson, he manages to keep it together, ensuring a listening experience that isn’t likely to leave you reaching for the bleach as a pre-bedtime nightcap.

Spirogyra also featured Barbara Gaskin on vocals, Steve Borrill on bass guitar and providing a particular lynchpin to the band’s progressive/acid folk rock sound, Julian Cusack on violin and keyboards. Whereas The Incredible String Band sounded like a particularly inept bunch of world musicians falling down a particularly steep flight of stairs, Spirogyra can play their instruments as well as hold the note they’ve just committed themselves to singing. Particularly effective is the aforementioned Cusack’s omnipresent violin, which is menacing, sinister and eerily evocative in turns.

Barbara Gaskin’s voice hits the musical spot throughout, following in the fine tradition of such ethereally toned sirens as Judy Dyble and Jacqui McShee, while acting as the perfect foil to the urgency of Cockerham’s vocal style.

St. Radigunds is lyrical storytelling at its best, seeded in the opening track, ‘The Future Won’t Be Long’, with its tale of death at home and abroad during World War II, and culminating in the epic closer ‘The Duke of Beaufoot’.

Throughout the album there are moments of whimsy, strangeness, the fantastical and Olde English romanticism, tempered by an undercurrent of left-wing political protest. A tick against each box of the “good list”, so far as HFoS is concerned. There’s even room for what sounds like Michael Palin doing a Pythonesque northerner on ‘The Future Won’t Be Long’ – though it evidently isn’t. The Repertoire reissue also offers the jaunty anti-war rant and single ‘Dangerous Dave’ as a bonus.

As with the best folk music – prog, acid, or otherwise – a listen to St. Radigunds renders a swirling mist of lilting melodies and haunting vocal arrangements, bringing to life a world that exists slightly parallel to our own, but grounded in the same harsh realities.

Don’t let any comparisons with the sonic ear-buggery of The Incredible String Band sway your judgement. Spirogyra’s strain of aromatic folk music will neither frighten the Hamster nor strip the paint from the walls.

St. Radigunds by Spirogyra is reissued by Repertoire and available to buy from Amazon.co.uk

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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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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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How wrong could they be? Dreaming With Alice, released only in Italy in 1972, possesses a certain magic that more than exonerates the cult that has built up around it over the years. As far as obscure acid folk rarities go, this is a stone-cold classic.

In fact, the only fault that can be found in it is the fact it was released in 1972, whereas it sounds as though it were recorded at the tail-end of the 1960s. The fact that music had moved on so much in the intervening years possibly accounts for the fact it could only secure an Italian release. Of course, nearly forty years on, when it was recorded is an irrelevance.

The title track ‘Dreaming With Alice’, a gently haunting lilt, is split into nine verses that punctuate the album. This too may have been a mistake, as the recently re-recorded version by Mark Fry himself and released on Fruits de Mer Records is superior as a single piece, allowing its dreamlike quality to flow over the listener uninterrupted.

‘The Witch’ continues the fascination amongst the psychedelic/acid folk set with all things witchy – other purveyors of witch-influenced lyricism include Donovan, Fairport Convention, and the Incredible String Band – with a spookily ethereal tale of a witch at the window saturated with chiming sitars, giving it that perfect otherworldly feel.

It’s the highlight of an album that’s as melodic as it is mesmeric, darkness and light in equal measures, and one made all the more remarkable by the fact that Mark Fry was still a teenager when it was written and recorded. Maybe it’s this infusion of childlike, fairy-tale innocence, untainted by cynicism, that makes Dreaming with Alice so special.

Dreaming With Alice is reissued by Sunbeam Records with extra tracks and available from Amazon.co.uk

Mark Fry’s website

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It was also the album that signposted the path down which Jethro Tull (or the mighty Tull, dependant on personal opinion) were headed, largely doing away with the blues influence of the previous release and drifting, via the road of progressive rock, into more folkish pastures.

The change came about following the departure of Mick Abrahams, who’d left following creative differences between him and Tull’s main man Ian Anderson, over musical direction. When replacement and future Black Sabbath axeman Toni Iommi failed to work out it was left to Martin Barre to take up the mantle, which he did, remaining to this day.

Stand Up retains the blues edge for opening track ‘A New Day Yesterday’, almost as though it’s a peace offering for the fans of This Was, left outside the door to gently ease them into the Tull’s new sound. Not that there’s anything gentle about its electric-blues heavy rhythm.

From then on in Stand Up weaves various elements into the mix as it stands on the harbour wall and bids the blues farewell. Ian Anderson brings the songs down to a more personal level than before (although the previous album was weighed down with instrumentals) and the album is all the better for that. ‘Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square’, ‘Back to the Family’ and ‘Look into the Sun’ are all classic Tull and it’s also here that we first sample what has become a Tull standard over the years, the instrumental, jazzified flute arrangement of J.S. Bach’s ‘Bourée’.

But it’s track 8 that provides the highlight of Stand Up; the gradually intensifying lament of ‘We Used to Know’. It’s said that this song inspired the Eagles’ infinitely better known ‘Hotel California’ and it’s true, the chord progression at the start of both songs is as good as identical (I’ve no idea what that means either. They just sound the bloody same and that’s that). Second to ‘Heavy Horses’, ‘They Used to Know’ is possibly the best song Jethro Tull ever did. With so many to choose from that’s a bold statement to make.

‘We Used to Know’ is followed by ‘Reasons for Waiting’, another princely track from the Tull’s enviable oeuvre and the pacy, uptempo ‘For a Thousand Mothers’ – sounding like the rhythm section chasing each other around a percussion factory – leads us out nicely.

With 4 bonus tracks on the 2001 reissue, including the chart bothering ‘Living in the Past’, Stand Up is in strong contention for the title of best Tull album. It’s certainly the moment in history when Jethro Tull suggest they’d one day be worthy of the moniker, the mighty Tull.

Stand Up is reissued by Chrysalis and available from Amazon.co.uk

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Jefferson Airplane weren’t afraid to play with politics. They were the self-appointed spokespersons of a generation, riding the revolutionary wave of the time and profiting handsomely from it. 1969′s Volunteers is the result of all this fragmented rhetoric, packaged neatly onto a slab of vinyl and sold back to “the kids” for a nice little earner.

Not that there’s anything wrong with musicians voicing their political views – just that it’s hard to stomach a call for an uprising from people living in communal mansions paid for by the record company and travelling to gigs in private helicopters. Nor is there anything wrong with this album, it’s a corker in fact, but it might be even better if the artistes’ convictions were truly sincere. The title track ‘Volunteers’, for instance, paints the band as “… the volunteers of America”, the frontline of the impending revolution who are prepared to take their country back from “The Man” by any means necessary. Yet they didn’t. After all, why fund a revolution when you can take the money and run? It hadn’t done the people they were criticising any harm, and the system they sang about smashing was keeping them in their comfortable mansions and magnificent motors.

But I won’t let the plundering of radical ideals and revolutionary posturing for financial gain prejudice (ahem) what is, after all, an album review. Like I said, it’s a corker, and I find myself agreeing with drummer Spencer Dryden, when he said “Volunteers, I think, is our best album.” It’s certainly the most rounded of the four albums previously mentioned.

Its political manifesto kicks off in fine style with ‘We Can Be Together’, which uses a less urgent variation of the chord progression on ‘Volunteers’ to deliver a similar message of unifying to smash the ruling order. However, lines such as “All your private property is target for your enemy, And your enemy is we…” ring hollow when you realise its actually a pampered rockstar delivering them… There I go again.

The dual vocal partnership of Marty Balin and Grace Slick is at its crackling best throughout, being particularly strong on the title track and the aforementioned ‘We Can Be Together’, but lead guitarist Jorma Kaukonen also comes up trumps with his sterling rendition of the traditional folk/gospel ballad, ‘Good Shepherd’. The phoenix of peace and love rises from the flames of the impending apocalypse on the gentle ‘Wooden Ships’ (also recorded by Crosby, Stills and Nash), imagining distant shores away from all the war and hatred in which to start afresh. A concept that the band’s resident firebrand songwriter would turn into an entire album with 1970′s Blows Against the Empire by Paul Kantner and Jefferson Starship.

Also worthy of note is the light-hearted, country-rock biography of the group ‘A Song for all Seasons’, written in a splendidly self-deprecating style by drummer, Dryden. Paul Kantner’s decision to include the instrumental ‘Meadowlands’, a Red Army song, as a “snub to the establishment”, brings us back to the point of radicalising for the sake of credibility, but leads nicely into the album’s closer ‘Volunteers‘. Claimed by Balin not to originally have been a political song, but inspired by getting woken one morning by a “Volunteers of America” truck, in the hands of Paul Kantner ‘Volunteers’ becomes an exhilarating car-bomb blast of agit-rock and  a worthy closing salvo from the classic Jefferson Airplane line-up.

Following the release of Volunteers, Jefferson Airplane played the Altamont free concert, (dis)organised by the Rolling Stones and documented in the excellent film, Gimme Shelter. The resulting chaos, violence and murder dragged the 60s kicking and screaming into the new decade and as an indirect result of the newfound disillusionment Altamont spawned, they never recorded in this celebrated incarnation again. Following a further two mediocre albums, neither of which could capture the essence of what had come before (however sincere or insincere it happened to be), the remainder of the band drifted apart and retired the name, some going on to form the even more out-there Jefferson Starship.

This release is the 2004 BMG remaster, featuring five live bonus tracks recorded at the Fillmore East in 1969. The sound is a little muddy throughout despite it claiming the original master tapes have been used. I must add there is a 2007 RCA remaster also available, featuring different bonus tracks and, one hopes, a clearer sound. That, and the rich-kid revolutionary posturing aside, Volunteers is a fizzling fusewire of an album, and a fitting showcase for a band at the top of their game, just prior to it all going wrong.

Volunteers is released on the RCA Victor label and available from Amazon.co.uk

Related Post:

5 Songs to Spark a Revolution

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Fairfield Parlour had already released two albums as psychedelic-folk rockers, Kaleidoscope (not to be confused with the American psychedelic folk-rock ?!?!? band of the same name), and it was under this new name, in 1970, that they put out From Home to Home.

Eschewing the overt fairy-tale whimsy that had earmarked Kaleidoscope’s two albums, Tangerine Dream and Faintly Blowing, From Home to Home is an altogether more mature offering that favours the folkiness, with psychedelic elements, that was always at the root of their music.

There is also a sad, mournful feel to much of this album, rendered perfectly by Peter Daltrey’s airily haunting vocals. The opener ‘Aries‘, with its bittersweet memories and sense of regret, sets the tone for what follows, reaching its zenith with the majestic ‘Emily’. With a sentiment reminiscent of The Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’, ‘Emily’ manages to evoke sadness in a way that the more famous song falls short.

It’s not all downbeat though, with ‘The Glorious House of Arthur’ making a return to the fairy-tale atmosphere of previous Kaleidoscope ventures and treading the same ground of Arthurian legend as Donovan’s ‘Guinevere’ from his 1966 album, Sunshine Superman. This playfulness continues with the whimsical ‘Monkey’, featuring the somewhat random line “… And there is also a monkey,” at the end of each verse.

The Repertoire Records digipack reissue is another triumph, with great packaging (including the eerily, low-key cover) and a host of bonus tracks, though the inclusion of a 1976 re-release of the single ‘Bordeaux Rose’ in its alternate, horribly over-produced version, is for the completist only.

Kaleidoscope were never afraid to explore darker territories, as evident on ‘(Further Reflections) In the Room of Percussion’, and the Fairfield Parlour transformation and From Home to Home seem to be a natural progression of this. This one comes heartily recommended.

From Home to Home is reissued by Repertoire Records and available from Amazon.co.uk

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Revolution was, after all, big business.

So in honour of some of these Che charlatons who turned tail and fled as soon as the going got tough, Head Full of Snow brings you 5 songs with which to spark a revolution (or not).

The Rolling Stones – Street Fighting Man

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRqtKLskPQs

An absolute stormer of a track and one that was written at a time when the anti-Vietnam war protests had spread as far afield as London, sparking riots and encouraging Mick Jagger himself to take to the streets and… stand on the sidelines taking photos of the ensuing chaos. Jagger was perhaps the biggest pretender to the revolutionary throne, toying with the imagery during the era of Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed, but soon getting bored and leaving it all behind to concentrate on becoming the mucky little devil we all know today. ‘Street Fighting Man’ appears on 1968′s Beggars Banquet.

The Pink Fairies – Right On, Fight On

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TU517Qb1Ok

In contrast to Jagger and his cronies, The Pink Fairies (nee The Deviants) at least made some attempt at revolutionary zeal. As part of the Ladbroke Grove underground scene, along with with the likes of The Edgar Broughton Band and Hawkwind, they would play free concerts and benefits for various good causes, sometimes even turning up uninvited and playing, just to further their anarchist agenda of ‘free music for the people’. ‘Right On, Fight On’ comes from their 1972 album What a Bunch of Sweeties and sounds like the precursor to social upheaval, the morning prior to the revolution, so to speak.

Jefferson Airplane – Volunteers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SboRijhWFDU

Jefferson Airplane were quick to place themselves behind every single right-on movement going during the lates 60s – Grace Slick famously blacking up for a performance of ‘Lather’ on the Smothers Brothers show, in support of the Black Panther Party. However, when it came to leading from the front they were a little less forthcoming, content to encourage uprising from the stage before buggering off in their chauffeur-driven Cadillacs. Their commitment was spelt out as little more than youthful rebellion when, once revolutionary fervour had died down, songwriter and rhythm guitarist Paul Kantner said, “We were all punks in high school and we were always rebelling against authority.” The culmination of all this political bravado and revolutionary-chic comes with ‘Volunteers’ from the album of the same name, a sonic call to arms for revolutionaries the world over.

Thunderclap Newman – Something in the Air

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9oxyqLWoEI

It’s pretty safe to say that Thunderclap Newman were never going to be the band that kickstarted the revolution. Not unless sedition and social equality were to be brought about by a man who looked like a chartered accountant and a schoolboy. Nevertheless, Pete Townshend’s proteges had a crack of the whip in 1969 with this post-psychedelia standard that’s been used to advertise everything from British Airways to mobile phones… Hand out the arms and ammo, indeed.

Joan Baez – Joe Hill

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5po2p8V-SRs

Quiet revolutions are often the most effective, shunning the drawn-out battles in favour of change that happens overnight. The Russian revolution has gone down in history as a spectacular event culminating in the storming of the Winter Palace, whereas in reality there was little, if at all any, bloodshed. The real Joe Hill was a Swedish immigrant trade union activist, executed by firing squad on trumped up charges in the United States. His name has since gone on to reach almost mythological proportions within the labour movement, largely thanks to a number of folk songs highlighting his plight. This particular one was written in 1936 and is here performed by Joan Baez – who was at least prepared to go to jail for her beliefs, as she did for her anti-war activism. It doesn’t need the cannons firing and guns blazing to invoke passion. ‘Joe Hill’ settles for the quieter revolution.

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From the 1970 album From Home to Home, which will be reviewed later this week, take a little time out on the weekend to appreciate this somewhat mournful, wee beauty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qDhoJkRGxA

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