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ARCHIVE 2

PETER GABRIEL

1. (1977)
2. (1978)
3. (1980)
4. (1982)
Plays Live (1983)
Birdy O.S.T.(1985)
So (1986)
Passion (1989)
Shaking The Tree (1990)
Us (1992)


The quite unacademic upper-middle class Woking-born Gabriel of Spanish descent (who began as a drummer) has had one of the most tortured and fruitful careers of any 1970s artist. And it all pours out on his eventful back-catalogue all served up by Virgin in mini-vinyl editions. The first four albums were called Peter Gabriel (car, nails, melting face, mask) but are now designated by numbers. 1. begins with 'Moribund the Burgermeister' with its weedy synth and African rhythm and big fanfare of massed instruments. In a skeletal way its a blueprint for the future. The clipped acoustic guitars of 'Solsbury Hill' (a West country favourite retreat) still stand up and though, at the time, I hated Genesis this was really great stuff. There's clunky rockers,music hall barber-shop harmony, slick guitar rock, blues and two more classic tracks in 'Humdrum' and 'Here Comes The Flood'.

Robert Fripp took over from producer Bob Ezrin on 2. and while the first was a Canadian job the second was a US/Dutch effort. Gabriel's scatter-gun unpredictability was what made him a star but 2. is all over the place. 'Mother Of Violence' (written with wife Jill) and 'Exposure' (Fripp on Frippertronics) are the only decent things here. Steve Lillywhite and Hugh Padgham came in on the next album , recorded in Britain, which featured gated dry drum sounds. Recorded in the country and London it's certainly innovative sound-wise (featuring marimbas a la Steve Reich, Kate Bush and The Fairlight [in fact Gariel helped the initial distribution]) with two genuine classics in 'Games Without Frontiers' and 'Biko'. Going to 24-Tracks with Daniel Lanois, Gabriel did the Ambient Birdy film music and was off. Passion & So have passed into legend and now the world has UP.

ACID DROPS, SPACEDUST & FLYING SAUCERS - Pschedelic Confectionary From The UK Underground 1965-1969 (MOJO)

A wonderful 4CD box courtesy MOJO, Phil Smee and Jon Savage (who loves writing psych chronicles) which centres on " beer monsters getting in touch with the inner child - like The Accent, good Yorkshire lads, bursting out of their tight loons and smothered in beads. " As Savage so presciently notes its the " drone drenched guitar solos ", flanging, tape loops, SFX and tape echo which put the psych into psychedelic music. After years of dodgy bootlegs here's this treasure-trove of stuff on 4 remastered CDs. The best of it is :

The Nice - Flower King Of Flies (1968)
Tintern Abbey - Vacuum Cleaner (1967)
The Misunderstood - I Can Take You To The Sun (1966)
The Who - Armenia City In The Sky (1967)
Warm Sounds - Nite Is A-Comin (1968)
July - The Way (1968)
Incredible String Band - Witches Hat (1968)
The End - Shades Of Orange (1968)
Billy Nicholls - Girl From New York (1968)
The Accent - Red Sky At Night (1967)
Amazing Friendly Apple - Magician (1969)
The Moles - We Are The Moles Part 1 (1968)
The Purple Gang - Granny Takes A Trip (1967)
The Pretty Things - Talking About The Good Times (1968)
Donovan - Hurdy Gurdy Man (1968)
The Yardbirds - Happenings Ten Years Time Ago (1966)
Traffic - Paper Sun (1967)
The Orange Machine - Dr Crippen's Waiting Room (1969)
Mandrake Paddle Steamer - Strange Walking Man (1969)
Sands - Listen To The Sky (1967)
Tomorrow - Revolution (1967)
The Koobas - Royston Rose (1969)
Sam Gopal - Escalator (1969)

BREWER & SHIPLEY - ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE :The Best Of.. (Buddha)

Highlights from early 1970s albums by Mike Brewer and Tom Shipley includes the frankly embarrassing 'One Toke Over The Line' but the creditable 'Tarkio Road', 'Have A Good Life', 'Witchi-Tai-To', 'The Light' and the 1970 classic 'Rise Up (Easy Rider)' which still sounds awesome. Jerry Garcia, Mike Bloomfield and Nicky Hopkins also appear. See www.brewerandshipley.com

PRINCE - One Man Jam (Snapper Music)

Scintillating 1970s recordings of Prince with Pepe Willie (a friend of Prince's through cousin Shauntal) made in Minneapolis's Cookhouse studio. Funky as hell with amazing production and that lush sound that would make Prince famous.

THE PRETTY THINGS - The Psychedelic Years (Snapper Music)

A double CD I picked up in Brighton during the Summer. Though I've got just about everything on it it's curious mix will thrill fans. As well as the core psychedelic albums S.F. Sorrow and Parachute it features early 1965/1966 material from Get The Picture,

TRAFFIC

Welcome To The Canteen (Island 1971)
The Low Spark Of The High-Heeled Boys (Island 1971)

In 1971 Dave Mason re-joined Traffic (expanded to include Jim Gordon, Rick Grech and Reebop Kwaku Baah) on stage in Croydon and London for a blistering series of gigs known as Welcome To The Canteen. The exceptional 'Sad And Deep As You' and an incredible 'Dear Mr. Fantasy' stand out. On Low Spark the new line-up really gelled. Its blend of rock, folk, jazz and R & B plus African strains were unveiled on 'Hidden Treasure', the brooding 11 minute title track, the electric 'Light Up Or Leave Me Alone' and the bucolic haze of 'Rainmaker'. Wonderful.

GILES , GILES, FRIPP - The Brondesbury Tapes (1968) (Voiceprint)

Recorded on a second-hand Revox F36 tape recorder these high-quality tapes (mostly recorded in Queens Park) provide the missing link between Giles, Giles & Fripp and King Crimson including the alternative version of 'I Talk To The Wind' with Judy Dyble. Ian MacDonald and Pete Sinfield are all involved .It says here that MacDonald's wealthy step-uncle Angus Hunking financed King Crimson to the sum of £6000, a fortune in 1968/1969. Anyway these excellent recordings contain fine seeds and captivating Frippertechnics or in the words of Peter Giles " a transmutation into the seed-vision of King Crimson during the spliff-end of the 1960s."

KRIS KRISTOFFERSON - Kristofferson (Columbia)

People talk of Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda as being great legends of the late 1960s but Kris Kristofferson was up there with them. Like Bill Clinton, an Oxford Rhodes, scholar who then joined the army but then ditched it for a job in a Nashville recording studio as a janitor so he could get close to people like Bobby Dylan. Yes Kristofferson was there for the recording of Blonde On Blonde and then he hustled his own gig eventually getting a recording contract and debuting with this superb collection of songs. You see, Kristofferson really wanted to be Neil Young and Bob Dylan but was snatched from his music career by Sam Peckinpah and starred in Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid. The rest is history, for Kristofferson is still a riveting screen presence. A combination of great American patriot and hippie questioner, literary scholar and man/ladies man, Kristofferson's career stands up much clearer than dozens of other wrecks from that era. Songs such as 'To Beat The Devil', 'Me & Bobby McGee', 'Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down', 'The Junkie & The Juicehead, Minus Me' conjure up old Americana, the West and upright decency. Long may he run.

ALMOST FAMOUS - OST (Dreamworks)

Cameron Crowe's version of Led Zeppelin history has Kate Hudson (uncannily like Robert Plant) traipsing around America after Stillwater , a fictional band who come over all U2 with long hair. Crowe (who used to work for Rolling Stone and whose teenage story is told here) picks a great selection of tracks by Simon & Garfunkel, The Who, Todd Rundgren, Yes, The Beach Boys, Rod Stewart, The Seeds, The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Elton John, Cat Stevens and Thunderclap Newman. Standouts are Zeppelin's gorgeous 'That's The Way' and Bowie's wonderful 1972 version of 'I'm Waiting For The Man'. Class stuff.



VARIOUS PUNK

Pop Art - Underground Sounds From The Warhol Era (Channel Four)
Punk (Sony)

Pop Art was compiled to coincide with a Channel Four's series on Warhol and is a great package which catches the idea that Warhol dawned Punk. So we begin with The Velvet Underground, coast through Iggy Pop, Nico, The 13th Floor Elevators, The MC5, David Bowie (doing 'Andy Warhol' from Hunky Dory), The New York Dolls, Jonathan Richman, Blondie, The Ramones until you get to Television and hear again the absolute genius of 'Marquee Moon' in its full 10- minute sharding glory. It was 1977 and I remember at College there were two types of people - those who liked Television and those who liked Fleetwood Mac 's Rumours. Today 'Marquee Moon' sounds like a million stars exploding. Punk takes its roots from the same sources but no Television. Instead great stuff by Kilburn & The High Roads, Richard Hell, The Damned, The Buzzcocks, The Clash and of course The Sex Pistols. All hands up for 'God Save The Queen' being the greatest rock 'n' roll song of all time above bloody Elvis and all that 1950s American nonsense. Yes UK punk was rock 'n' roll played by working class people who were bloody angry and 'God Save The Queen' says everything about it especially that 'no future' chorus. And then we shift to the marvellous Pere Ubu, The Stranglers, The Jam, Suicide (strangely electronic), Throbbing Gristle (industrial), The Only Ones (classic), Siouxie, The Undertones, PIL, Stiff Little Fingers, Joy Division and for those who might forget a clutch of tracks by Steel Pulse, The Slits and James White which reveal the reggae influence on UK Punk. Well covered.

THE WATERBOYS - Too Close To Heaven (RCA)

The unreleased Fisherman's Blues' sessions, yes the stuff that Mike Scott, Steve Wickham and Anto Thistlethwaite recorded between 1986 and 1987 in Windmill Lane sounds absolutely inspirational. This was Scott immersed in Ireland, a country on the cusp of remarkable change, and he was blasting it through his music. I saw The Waterboys during this period and they were phenomenal especially fiddler Wickham. 'Higher In Time', 'Too Close To Heaven' and 'Blues For Your Baby' are all up there with 'Old England'. A must.

Syd Barrett - Wouldn't You Miss Me (The Best Of...)(Emi Harvest)

Sterlingly compiled with lovely sleevenotes by Mark Paytress, Wouldn't It Be Nice is the first ever official Syd Barrett compilation. The tracks from 1968/1969 recording sessions for The Madcap Laughs still sound wonderfully original in a pastoral psychedelic laid-back sort of way. 'Late Night', 'Terrapin', 'Golden Hair' (after James Joyce) and 'Long Gone' are still stunning Barrett songs. For his second 1970 album, Barrett, David Gilmour and Rick Wright were on hand to provide a more Floydian sound which really works on 'Gigolo Aunt' and 'Waving My Arms In The Air' but overall the more conventional instrumental sound loses the magic of The Madcap Laughs. The disc ends with a Peel session, an instrumental vversion of 'Golden Hair' and the earliest Barrett song ever 'Bob Dylan's Blues' from 1963. Definitely worth your time and money.

WISHBONE ASH - ARGUS (MCA)

The 30th anniversary remastered edition of Wishbone Ash's Argus from 1972 is a bona-fide must buy rock classic. From the perfect twin guitar solos of Andy Powell and Ted Turner to those lovely mystical harmonies right down to the Hipgnosis sleeve of a watching medieval sentry (the Argus of the title) spotting a flying saucer scooting over a French valley. 'Time Was' boots off the album with an acoustic flourish before we get into the guitar wonder of 'Sometime World' and its stinging lyrics " life had kept him waiting, regretting his pain inside ". 'The King Will Come' is about the second coming and sounds like a military fanfare full of deft guitar interplay, the light and shade of Page lore. And thinking of Page ,'Leaf & Stream' is the album's highlight with its beautiful strummed electric chordings, Martin Turner's mythical folk-tinged lyric and Andy Powell's pure crystalline Gibson guitar solo. Comes with a three track promotional EP 'Live From Memphis' which includes the atmospheric 'Pilgrim'. Buy on sight.

YES - KEYSTUDIO : 1996 to 1997 (Castle)
Rick Wakeman - THE PIANO ALBUM (Castle)

Recorded in California during Keys To The Studio tour this album has plenty of instrumentals like ‘Sign Language’ . ‘That, That Is’ recalls their Close To The Edge heyday and orchestrations on 'Give Love Each Day' are excellent. Rick Wakeman’s Piano Album was recorded at Calvary Chapel at Costa Mesa , California and the ballroom in The Founders Inn between 1994 and 1995. There’s much Wakeman stuff plus Bowie’s 'Space oddity' and 'Life On Mars' all on piano. His moving finale 'Gone But Not Forgotten' is definitely the best track here.


MARVIN GAYE - LOVE SONGS (Motown)

A hotch-potch compilation featuring 1967 sessions released on Vulnerable (1997), one track from Let’s Get It On (1973), three from I Want You (1976) , one from In Our Lifetime 1981 and one from the still unavailable Here, My Dear (1978) titled 'I Won't Cry Anymore'. OK but for fans only.

ALL ABOUT EVE - FAIRY LIGHT NIGHTS TWO (Voiceprint)

If ever a band was underrated, if ever a band qualified as Robert & Jimmy's heirs well here they are. Julianne Regan , Andy Cousins and Marty Wilson-Piper give it their all acoustically on this exceptional release. From the opening of 'Scarlet' you know that this band should never have gone away. Where were the U2 support slots?

JIMI HENDRIX - LIVE IN OTTAWA / LIVE AT OAKLAND COLISEUM (Dagger Records)

Fascinating Hendrix live bootlegs with extended instrumental passages. Ottawa was recorded at the Capital Theatre in March 1968 in glorious mono. The Oakland Coliseum is a 2-Track console recording made in April 1969. Spirited renditions of
‘Fire’, ‘Tax Free’, ‘Hey Joe’, ‘Red House’, ‘Sunshine Of Your Love’, ‘Spanish Castle Magic’, ‘Hear My Train’ and ‘Foxey Lady’.

GIL EVANS - THE GIL EVANS ORCHESTRA PLAYS JIMI HENDRIX (BMG/RCA)

Wild re-issue NY 1974/1975 sessions with Billy Harper, John Abercrombie, David Sanborn playing a fusion of rock and jazz - ‘Angel’, ‘1983’ and ‘Voodoo Chile’ are all tastefully done.


MILES DAVIS - LIVE AT THE FILLMORE EAST (3rd/7th/1970) (Columbia)

Not so hot 2-CD live Miles recording to add to the piles of Miles recordings out there from the 1970s. Includes ‘Directions’,’Spanish Key’,’Masqualero’, ‘It’s About That Time’,’The Theme’, ‘Miles Runs The Voodoo Down’, ‘Bitches Brew’ and ‘Willie Nelson’. Really for hardcore fans only with Wayne Shorter, Chick Corea, Dave Holland , Jack De Johnette and Airto Moreira.

THE DURUTTI COLUMN

Rebellion (Artful)
Return Of The Sporadic Recordings (Kooky )

Vini Reilly widens his sonic palette to big drums, percussion, violins and additional singers, rappers and vocalists on Rebellion - not all that successfully as tracks like '4 Sophia' and 'Falling' return to guitar genius of old. 'Mello Part 2' has some nice electronic brush work and Bruce Mitchell's drums on 'Meschugana' are stand-out. 'Sporadic Recordings' is a re-issue of an old disc with a new one 'tached on. These are basically ideas in progress which show Reilly at work. You get lots of nice photos of Vin with equipment and in concert plus a great one of Tony Wilson in LA with blue reflector shades. New standout tracks are 'U Didn't Need Me' and 'Catos Con Guantes'.



GIL SCOTT-HERON

A New Black Poet (BMG 1970)
Pieces Of A Man (BMG 1971)
Free Will (BMG 1972)

Nicely re-packaged set of discs from "one of the founding forces of Rap - the black fist raised in song ". Like Richard Pryor, Scott-Heron (b. Chicago 1949) found his subject matter in the streets. The first disc, to its relentless conga drum, paints a mean picture of drugs, music,homosexuality, poverty and most of all the Black Power movement. It's stand-out tracks 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' and 'Whitey On The Moon' would become classics. A gifted novelist, poet, pianist, composer and singer his career would flourish. 'Pieces Of A Man' gives us ensemble playing and Heron's mellifluous voice where his Otis Redding, Billie Holiday, Richie Havens, Jimmy Reed, Coltrane and Jose Feliciano influences come to the fore. Hubert Laws' flute is particularly impressive and the disc includes the irrepressible 'Lady Day & John Coltrane'. Free Will ups the production values , Heron producing another gorgeous classic in 'Did You Hear What They Said'. The disc is split between a studio side and a live/poetry session.

LONNIE LISTON SMITH - EXPANSIONS (BMG)

Recorded in 1974, Liston Smith's album is a wonderful blend of cosmic jazz-funk and great rhythmic ensemble playing. Keyboardist Smith had done stints with Art Blakey, Pharaoh Sanders, Gato Barbieri and of course Miles Davis and it all came together on this dazzling stew with its African overtones and Latin undertones.



Terry Oldfield - In The Presence Of Light / Angel (To Music)

Two re-issues of classic New Age music featuring Terry Oldfield on synthesizers, flutes, didgeridoo and percussion. You will remember Terry from Mike Oldfield's great Ommadawn album from the mid-1970s. 'Journey' was recorded in 1986 and is music for meditation. His National Geographic work comes out on the album as sounds from Africa, Tibet, India and Australia can be heard. Angel is just two long tracks from 1990 and is more Ambient in quality. Flute predominates . See site ,Music Of Earth , at www.terryoldfield.com


XTC - ORANGES & LEMONS (Virgin Japan)

These were the guys who made videos in Portmeirion of Prisoner fame. These were the guys who invented The Dukes Of Stratosphear in 1987 and went all psych. Two years later they appeared with 'Oranges & Lemons' which was their riposte to The Beatles Yellow Submarine. With it's pop psychedelic artwork and catchy Partridge songs like 'King For A Day' and 'One Of The Millions' it's a strange hybrid. But whatever the intention it doesn't match Submarine's pop genius or The Small Faces pure English eccentricism. Packaging is superb though - inner CD sleeves, photos, full fold-out lyric sheet and hard cardboard outer sleeve. C'est deluxe.


DAVID AXELROD - SONGS OF EXPERIENCE / EARTHROT (EMI) / DAVID AXELROD (Mo Wax) / ANTHOLOGY 2 (Stateside)

From the man who put the oomph into DJ Shadow comes a selection of his back-catalogue and a new album. The opening shot from his 1970 ecology album Earthrot, 'The Warning' is fronted by hi-hat and drums with flutes and orchestration sailing over the backdrop. It is typical Axelrod where beat comes before everything and unlike the rest of the album, there are no vocals. 'Songs Of Experience' (1969) is the second part of his William Blake eulogy. It also contains the killer melody 'The Human Abstract' which formed the basis of D J Shadow's 'Midnight In A Perfect World' closer on the brilliant Endtroducing...'(1996). Unfortunately the sleevenotes on this re-issue remain uncredited. Going back to his old Capitol records studio he creates an album from yesteryear today (David Axelrod) with singer Lou Rawls, guitarist Howard Roberts and a huge phalange of horn and string players. The Anthology samples a diverse crossection of stuff from Cannonball Adderley and Lou Rawls to David McCallum of Man From Uncle fame.


TIM BUCKLEY

Morning Glory - An Anthology (Elektra/Rhino)
The Dream Belongs To Me - Rare & Unreleased (1968-1973) (Manifesto)

Most anthologies don't get you there. They leave out all the good stuff or the songs that you love for a mis-mash which has you going out and buying up all the original albums. Elektra/Rhino have done Buckley proud with this compilation which traces his evolution from Baroque statesman to R 'n' B boulavardier. His first 1966 album reveals the delicate 'Song Slowly Song' and then it's into Goodbye/Hello whose best tracks, including the heart-stopping 'Morning Glory', are all here. Of course you should go out and buy 1969's Happy/Sad. Do you know he signed with Frank Zappa for the exceptional Blue Afternoon (1969). The set misses out on 'Driftin' from Lorca (1970) but includes an amazing version of 'Song To The Siren' from a Monkees TV show from 1967 with Micky Dolenz on 12-String guitar.

The Dream Belongs To Me features astonishing studio sessions from 1968 and 1973. The 1968 sessions from New York and L.A. would frame the albums Happy/Sad, Blue Afternoon and Starsailor and include a track 'Ashbury Park' which would later be heard as part of 'Love From Room 109' on Happy/Sad. The 1973 sessions are for the commercial Sefronia album but 'The Dream Belongs To Me' and 'Falling Timber' were unreleased. Held in Hollywood's TTG studios they are supposed to be better than the finished album.

EMERSON LAKE & PALMER - FANFARE FOR THE COMMON MAN (Sanctuary)

THE NICE - HERE COME THE NICE , THE IMMEDIATE ANTHOLOGY (Castle)

Of these two multi-disc sets The Nice years on Immediate wins the day because the players were tailoring their substantial skills towards the necessary Pop/Rock fusion of the times. With Davy O'List on guitar their debut album The Tales Of Emerlist Davjack was a unique meld of psychedelic guitar rock and Classical gas. Once O'List departed the albums became lop-sided. The arrival of Emerson Lake & Palmer in 1970 may have been manna for fans of Emerson and King Crimson (of which Lake was an erstwhile vocalist) but the ridiculous conceit of Progrssive Rock would always hang around them like a black cloud. Yes, 'Lucky Man' from the first 1971 album is a bona-fide diamond but efforts like Tarkus (1971) are self-indulgent drivel of the worst order. The continued to adapt the Classics - Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Aaron Copland with pzazzz and there were great moments , Greg Lake's 'Trilogy' (1972), Emerson's incredible arrangement of Copland's 'Fanfare For The Common Man'(1977) (a perfect racing-car driver's track) and bits and pieces from everything else. Having recently seen Keith Emerson & The Nice in London the lasting impression is of an incredible keyboard talent which needed a band like The Nice to reign in the excesses.

JOHN PHILLIPS - PAY PACK & FOLLOW (Eagle)

Recorded between 1973 and 1979 this is a Stones album in all but name. Thrill to Keef's slide riffs, the interplay of the band and John Phillips (usually associated with cuddly Mamas & The Papas) comes up trumps. It's a pity it was stuck on a Cunard liner and in storage for all this time. See www.papajohnphillips.com

CABARET VOLTAIRE - CONFORM TO DEFORM '82 to '90 ARCHIVE / THE ORIGINAL SOUND OF SHEFFIELD '83 / '87 (Virgin)

Huge labour of love from Richard Kirk covering the cabs most Electro phase. The box set contains three CDs of unreleased material from The Crackdown / Micro-Phonies / The Covenant The Sword & The Arm Of The Lord period on Virgin and Code / Groovy, Laidback & Nasty period on EMI. Also included is material from Gasoline In Your Eye, The Drain Train and A Guy Called Gerald, Francois Kervorkian and Rob Gordon Mixes. CD3 is a completely live outing from 1990 in Edinburgh. The single disc is 12" mixes including the brilliant 'Sensoria' and 'Kino' with its famous Brion Gysin eulogy. All in all a feast for collectors and there's some wonderful Ambient music on the box set like 'Automotivation 2'. See www.cabaretvoltaire.org and www.richardkirk.com

DEAD CAN DANCE - 1981 TO 1998 (4AD Boxed Set)

Gaelic, Middle-Eastern, Asian, North African, Renaissance, Baroque, Medieval, Gregorian Chant and South American musics all linked together with percussion, samplers, keyboards and the phonetic vocals of Lisa Gerrard and the emotional baritone of Brendan Perry has produced a body of work that stands alone in the music canon. All nine albums are represented here : Dead Can Dance (1984), Spleen & Ideal (1985), Within The Realm Of The Dying Sun (1987), The Serpeant's Egg (1988), Aion (1990), Into The Labyrinth (1993), Toward The Within (1994) and Spiritchaser (1996). Both Anglo-Irish the couple met in Melbourne in 1980. They worked in a Lebanese restaurant to save money for a trip to London. Perry played in punk bands, Gerrard played the Yang Ch'in, a Chinese dulcimer. This exceptionally beautiful boxed set, done on white paper which feels like vellum charts their rise from starving artists to 4AD wunderkinds. It includes demos, John Peel sessions, EP and compilation tracks, solo album tracks, out-takes and live performances. A bonus DVD of the Toward The Within U.S. concert in 1993 with five bonus videos is also included. Comprehensive sleevenotes by Dimitri Ehrlich make this an artefact to treasure for life. For as Ivo Watts-Russell says : " More than anybody that I've worked with, Dead Can Dance have been put on this planet to make music." See www.deadcandance.com


JAN GARBAREK - :rarum Selected Recordings (ECM)

Garbarek, the great ECM Norwegian saxophonist here divides his collection into two distinct phases: one as leader and one as ensemble player. The leader stuff begins in fine form with Ralph Towner on Dis (1976) and hits highlights on All Those Born With Wings (1986), Legend Of The Seven Dreams (1988), Ragas & Sagas with Ustad Fateh Ali Khan (1990) and Visible World (1995). He notes his hearing Keith Jarrett in Stockholm in 1966 as being pivotal to his career. And disc 2 is filled with Jarrett stuff from Luminessence (1974), Belonging (1974), My Song (1977) and Nude Ants (1979). There's also wonderful stuff with Egberto Gismonti, Shankar, Miroslav Vitous and of course The Hilliard Ensemble.

KEITH JARRETT - : rarum Selected Recordings (ECM)

Of course ECM's best-selling artist is the first to have a :rarum release. He says he didn't like the idea of a compilation at first but heard his clavichord recordings and 'vividly' got into the idea. " These choices are based on either memories of my response to the recording after playing or memories of the playing itself. He limits himself to stuff which has been heard less or escaped recent awareness. He kicks off with clavichord improvisations from Book Of Ways (1986) followed by an encore from a Bregenz concert (1981), five wonderful selections from Spirits (1985) where he plays sax,flute, recorders, tabla and percussion. There is a pipe organ improvisation and then four tracks from the Belonging quartet with Garbarek culminating in the jaw-dropping duet between saxophone and piano on 'The Journey Home' (1977) which still sounds breathtaking. On Disc 2 we hear selections from Dark Intervals (1987), Invocations / The Moth And The Flame (1980), an unreleased Munich concert ending (1981) (which in my mind should have been left in the can), Personal Mountains, culminating with trio recordings The Cure (1990) and The Blue Note (1994). Something here for everybody and an undoubted bestseller.


The WICKER MAN - OST (Silva Screen)

Christopher Lee's favourite film featuring Edward Woodward as a hapless uptight virginal Christian policeman who travels to a remote Scottish island to find a missing girl only to be caught up with Britt Ekland and Ingrid Pitt in pre-Christian ritual and all types of demonic goings on. A 1972 British Lion film which was released as the same time as Don't Look Back it briefly surfaced on TV in the early 90s in a cut version which had all the quality of a cheap tourist travelogue. Since then author Simon Wells has tracked down the missing soundtrack and the original 102-minute print for a full restoration job.

Scored by the late Paul Giovanni , The Wicker Man soundtrack is a peculiar mix of traditional idiomatic writing, strange timbres - bassoon, jew's harp, ocarina, nordic lyre, electric guitar, piccolo trumpet, tenor recorder and so forth. There are ritual drum beats and pipe sequences. It's first eleven tracks are of this nature with vocals and such. On 'The Tinker Of Rye' Christopher Lee actually sings a song! Gary Carpenter (the associate music director) confesses that much of the background music was Irish and not Scottish. The album is lavishly appointed with in-depth notes, posters and a track sequencing which is as baffling as the film itself. The first 8 tracks were intended for the original (unreleased) soundtrack. The next three were played back on set while the film was being shot and the remaining five pieces of incidental music beginning with seagulls/airplane and comprising humming, harps, electric instruments and Christopher Lee's final shocking denouement make up the remainder. A worthy testament to one of Britain's weirdest ever films.


VARIOUS - THE SCORE (Mojo)

Let's face it, usually these compos on the cover of Music Magazines are promotional puffs or a bunch of idiosyncratic tracks which don't really gel together. But sometimes they work incredibly well. This is from Mojo's Summer Soundtrack issue and from its brassy opening 'Brother On The Run' by Pate & Wade you know your in quality territory. There's an atmospheric Quincy Jones cut from The Italian Job, Roy Budd's jarring theme from Get Carter, 'Frankie Machine' by Elmer Bernstein from the Sinatra's heroin flick The Man With The Golden Arm, John Barry's timeless theme for Midnight Cowboy, Henry Mancini's typical 1960s turn for Arabesque and Morricone's whistling Fistful Of Dollars theme. There's modern stuff as well like DJ Shadow's 'Dark Days' and Moby's 'God Moving Over The Face Of The Water'. With all that you also get nuggets like The Slickers original version of 'Johnny Too Bad' and to cap it all a version of 'Let It Be' by none other than Nick Cave!

ALSO OUT

Spirit Of Life - A Windham Hill Sampler (BMG)
Peace Of mind - A Windham Hill Sampler (BMG)
Nektar - Man in The Moon (Voiceprint)

COPYRIGHT ON ALL OF THE ABOVE RESIDES WITH MARK PRENDERGAST. ANY EDITOR’S OR PUBLISHERS WISHING TO QUOTE FROM THE ABOVE WRITINGS CAN DO SO AS LONG AS THEY ENQUIRE BY EMAIL markp@cdboxset.co.uk

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