Review of Curved Air's Air Conditioning

Released 1970

"I know that you're afraid of what might happen, uncertain what to give and what to take. Already you've forgotten why you came here I can see exactly why you came."

I need to be upfront here and state that, despite all pretence to the contrary, I am indeed a shallow fellow. I was attracted to this album based on nothing more than two things; the band name and the fact that I had stumbled across a picture disc edition. I learned later that this was allegedly the first ever picture disc release in the UK and thereby it gained a great deal of publicity and notoriety.

With my attention gained and the record in my grasp, it wasn't difficult to determine that this might well be a prog related release. As well as the excellent band name, the listing of an electric violin and a track called 'Vivaldi with Cannons', the names of the band members of themselves gave it away: with names like Francis Monkman, Florian Pilkington-Miksa and singer Sonja Kristina, obviously they weren't going to be accountants or purveyors of purid pop.

Flicking through my trusty Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll at home later, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Miss Kristina was a remarkably attractive young lady. Again - as I've already indicated - terribly shallow. This was my first experience of a prog rock band fronted by a female, so I was a tad uncertain as to how it might compare to the testostrone bias of my existing collection.

I had little or no sense of what to expect on that first listen. With my most recent purchases being Focus and Tangerine Dream, I realised that I was likely to be venturing further into odds-ville with an album by a band called 'Curved Air'.

My immediate reaction on that first play was that this not a record that could be easily categorised as prog. It seemed relatively 'safe'. It may have featured the fairly unusual inclusion of an electric violin, but the guitar stylings were not overtly adventurous, the drumming was fringed with pop-type motifs and the vocal, on the first listen at least, served to distract above all else, as it was had a grating quality.

By the end of the second track - Stretch - I was struggling to see any merit whatsoever. The third song restored some confidence that my £2 hadn't been a complete write off as there was a lovely counterbalance between the violin and an expected mellotron / electric harpsichord. I began to hear folkier strains in the vocal, perhaps less severe than the dominate styling.

There was an awful lot going on which made for an uneasy assessment. Folk, Jazz, Classical, hints of psychedelia, pop all struggled to get to the fore, often in the one song. I didn't like the production at all; it sounded as though the band were recorded underground beneath a blanket on a cold January evening.

I think that this was the first album to give me a headache. Maybe I hoped for too much, but I invested the airing of each new purchase with such ceremonial importance, looking, as teenagers are want to do, for meaning, hoping for the life changing moment when a masterpiece would unfold. As such, concentrating to the degree that I was the first time I heard 'Air Conditioning', a dark and depressing headache which largely echoed the mood of the album descended.

Half way through Propositions, with the repetitive squealing guitar and Sonja's interminable descent through the scales, I heard a vague similarity to Grace Slick. Although not yet familiar with Jefferson Airplane, the parallel made me refer to the album's year of release: 1970. I stopped and thought about that. I may not have been sufficiently immersed in the music of the period to be called an expert, but I knew enough to realise that the level of invention I was hearing was quite significantly ahead of it's time.

The awkwardness I was experiencing in trying to assimilate the vast array of influences and ambition could largely be explained by the scope of the experimentation.

By the time I got to Situations, I began to lose my prejudice and become more appreciative than critical. Listening to the guitar sound once more as I write this, I am struck by how wonderfully underrated Francis Monkman is as a multi-instrumentalist. I say 'wonderfully', as occasionally it's better to be party to an almost secretive appreciation of a cult musician who is largely unknown to a wider audience, than it is to be one of many devotees to a massively successful well-known band.

Not an easy listen. I still struggle with the vocal style, but there is enough going on with Francis Monkman to justify a considered reappraisal from time to time.

I'm only frustrated now that I long ago sold my picture disc version of this release. I'm sure it'd be worth a bob or two now.

Review of Tangerine Dream's Phaedra

Released 1974

To the budding prog rock fan, eager to be submerged further into the myriad mysteries of the genre, discovering that there was a band with the splendid name of Tangerine Dream was only going to excite, entice and encourage said fan to seek out their work. To then learn that comparisons had been drawn with Pink Floyd's sound during their 'middle period', specifically the use of similar synthesiser technology, only served to point me towards one of the the more widely stocked second hand record shops Cornwall had to offer.

It took several visits before I came across a particularly battered second hand copy of Phaedra. That the cover image was ultimately beyond description only further enhanced the sense of anticipation.

The relationship between cover art and the music it accompanies is a curious one. In the best instances, the cover art becomes so synonymous with the music and the group, that is becomes part of the their 'brand'. Hipnosis's work with Pink Floyd for example, or Roger Dean's work with Yes have become ingrained as iconic pieces of twentieth century popular culture and hugely influence how we feel about those respective bands. When Yes shifted gear, changing musical direction between Drama and 90125, it was no accident that there was a paradigm shift in the artwork as well as the quality of the music. It's also worth noting that there must be hundreds of very worthwhile albums whose awful artwork has prevented a potential new fan from parting with their cash.

Anyway, I digress. What did the cover of Phaedrus depict? I still have no idea. Personally, I've always seen it as a vaguely aquatic, cold Scandinavian sea scape. Goodness only knows why. It's interesting to note that I made this judgement before hearing the record. Learning that the musicians were, in fact German was intriguing. My foray into European prog was still evolving. I could guess that eclecticism and invention - two cornerstones of prog - would prevail and that there wouldn't be too many laughs.

Whenever I saw a release from the pre-CD age clocking in at less that forty minutes I felt somewhat cheated, as in this case. However, there were just four tracks, so I could perhaps forgive on this occasion.

I was a mite nervous when laying the stylus on the vinyl for the first time. Was I being overtly ambitious in pursuing this largely instrumental vein so early in my prog quest? ?My recent purchases of Tubular Bells and Moving Waves were certainly more challenging than many non-instrumentally biased records; they appeared to require a more intense and mature consideration. Ever the self-doubter, I was unsure I was 'qualified' to appreciate these works as they were intended. I wasn't consciously placing prog on a pedestal; the reality was that until I heard The Dark Side of The Moon, my musical predilection was largely of the loud and heavy heroic posturing and pouting metallic variety. Prog may have opened my eyes, but could also furrow my brow. Not that that's a bad thing, you understand.

A distant ethereal, cold and mechanical sweep of sound perfectly attuned to the choice of cover art washed through the headphones, being indeed extremely reminiscent of the mellow trippiness of Pink Floyd. Listening to this as an eighteen year old in 1984, in the midst of the synthesised pap pop that was the New Romantic era, it would have been easy for me to groan in naivety at the prospect of music purely created by synthesisers. But the seemingly infinite depth of emotional evocation and atmospheric ghostliness achieved on the title track was a world away from the unimaginative contemporary shallowness that was 80's pop.

Layer upon layer of textural marvel unfolded with no apparent direction or logic. It may have been odd to immerse oneself in a tapestry of sound which didn't get a toe tapping, summon a whistle or have a lyric, no matter how obscure, to attach to. At the risk of sounding outrageously pretentious, this was Zen music; non participatory music where all you had to do was be.

I didn't expect to enjoy such a dense bizarre offering so immediately. I strongly believe that were I in a different frame of mind durinmg that first airing, I perhaps would have been less receptive and more likely to have consigned it to one of the infrequently visited areas of my record collection.

It may not be the most often played album in my collection but, when the mood is right, and the moon is full, it is a very fulfilling experience.

Review of Focus' Moving Waves

Released 1971

"Moving waves, the wind has left you and you're still in commotion.
Moving waves, the wind has left you and you're still in commotion"

The Old Grey Whistle Test introduced me to several bands, including Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Wishbone Ash. With each of these I had heard of the band and was probably aware of an album or song title, such as Freebird. When Focus appeared, it was the first time I had come across them in any way shape or form. If you've never seen that particular performance, I've added the joyously bonkers rendition of Sylvia / Hocus Pocus below.


Surely it is impossible to watch this without smiling; ridiculous alto soprano yodelling, manic gurning, whirlwind mellotron and blisteringly fluid guitar, all delivered at a breakneck pace. Undeniably infectious, it is no surprise that their record sales rocketed in the days following its initial airing, several years before the late night repeat which sparked my interest.

I didn't purposefully set out to buy a Focus album, but when I stumbled across a second hand copy a week or two later, and I spotted that Hocus Pocus was the first track, it was an easy decision to part with my £3, even though it bore a terrible cover, had no lyric sheet and had minimal detail about the band. I hadn't yet encountered too many side long epics, so seeing that there was a twenty three minute opus made up for the dreadful packaging. A twenty three minute elongation of mad bug-eyed hammond abuse; I was enthralled.

The reason behind the lack of lyric sheet quickly became apparent. I had been unaware that this was a Dutch band producing predominantly instrumental work. Yes, I could have been more astute based on the TV appearance.

I maintain to this day that the recorded version of Hocus Pocus doesn't quite have the impact of the live spectacle. Perhaps it needs the sight of the flailing armed Thijs van Leer to bolster it's appeal? Still, it was a wonderfully explosive beginning to the album.

For the remainder of the first side, I was very confused. The pace slowed beyond measure, the lyrics, when present at all, were all but redundant and the inventive hammond was, more often than not, replaced with a very sedate piano. There were tinges of Jazz and pedestrian instrumental arrangements that would occasionally morph into horribly bland pieces, which I swore I recognised as the accompaniment to a US sitcom. At one point, I actually stopped the vinyl to check that I wasn't playing a compilation album on which the first track alone was by the band who had thrilled me on television.

I put the stylus back to the beginning and tried again.

Occasionally I began to see glimpses of potential. The flute and guitar work in Focus II, for example, was extremely pretty. The production was faultless also, and there was sufficient range of musical styles employed for me to comfortably label it as a prog rock album. The disparity between the frenetic Hocus Pocus and rest of the side still bothered me.

The second side - Eruption - was also a challenging first listen. The sixteen parts of the track felt as though they were stitched together, shifting between faster and slower sections all written by different members of the band, coming together in an ineffective compromise to keep all parties happy.

I know now, with twenty five years of hindsight, that it can take a while to appreciate the complexity of many of prog's finer moments. Now - with the possible exception of the drum solo - I see the genius of the collaboration and I appreciate the brilliant shifts in style and mood. Jan Akkerman's guitar sections, six and nine minutes in, never fail to raise goose-bumps on my neck.

There are several moments where my attention wanders on Moving Waves, and - call me a heathen - there are parts which I consider to be resolutely MOR. However, listening to it now as I type, there are flashes of brilliance which, even without the crazy yodelling which I had hoped for, still makes me smile. And, like any good album, I am still hearing new themes and nodding appreciatively at the cohesiveness of the playing, having heard it hundred of times. After all, any album with a mellotron is worth it's weight in gold in my book.

Review of The Doors' The Doors

Released 1967

"There's danger on the edge of town.
Ride the King's highway, baby.
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west, baby."

Confronted with several thousand options and equipped with hard earned cash from my summer job, entering HMV on Oxford Street in London set my head spinning. I was probably driven in the direction of The Doors due to their credibility amongst my wider circle of friends at college. Their logo was frequently doodled in the margins of many pieces of psychology course work.

Of course I was familiar with Light My Fire and Riders On The Storm, but I viewed them, by all accounts, as a very primarily popular pop orientated American band with a charismatic, now long dead, lead singer. I was though unconsciously assimilating a broader understanding of The Doors place in late sixties culture, simply by being around like minded college students. So by the time I purchased their eponymous first album, I was quietly respectful of it's status and more than intrigued as to what the fuss was all about.

I bought the album during a trip to London, travelling up from High Wycombe, where my girlfriend and I were staying in a caravan belonging to friends of hers. I spent an unhealthy amount of time that week looking at the front cover with no means to play it's contents. The disembodied head idea wasn't new; at least two albums by The Beatles had a very similar design. The menacing, serious, and no doubt stoned gazes of the four members of The Doors was a world away from the universal commercialism of The Beatles posturings. Jim Morrison's pose was more 'artistic' I suppose: demonstrating both defiance and sensuality, which (not that I've tried it) is no mean feat. I thought that it was a simple cover concept, which owed as much to the photographer's skill as it did to the magnetism of Mr Mojo.

Safely back home a week or so later, I was off to a bad start, as I hated my other purchase; Led Zeppelin's In Through The Out Door. Thinking about it now, being in a negative frame of mind when listening to your first album by The Doors was no bad thing. Despite the explosive pace of the opening track - Break On Through - it was evident from the off that the listener was being beckoned into a dark and mysterious, and subsequently not very comfortable netherworld. It wasn't difficult to understand how teenagers plummeted head long into the counter culture when hearing this in 1967. The 'other side' represented all of the unsavoury, and therefore appealing aspects of 'dropping out': drugs and free love, free thinking spirits and revolutionary stances were all wrapped up in a three minute invitation to dare to confront the norm.

Jim Morrison's personality oozed from the speakers. His strident yelping in harmony with Robby Krieger's fuzzy lead guitar must have terrified teenager's parents in the sixties who were merrily enjoying Peter, Paul and Mary. If the Rolling Stones had parents putting their daughters on the pill, then Jim Morrison must have caused many a parent to dispose of their medicine cabinets and flush away long overdue prescription drugs.

I adored Ray Manzerak's keyboard sound immediately. Soul Kitchen for example, is lent a sense of serenity and grandeur as his contribution sets the scene for the doomed poet. This was another album which was difficult not to love from the outset. Even the poppier moments, of which I had initially though there would be more, on songs like Twentieth Century Fox (very clever title and lyric) rise above the standard sixties fodder due to the unique interplay between the band. Even Alabama Song, Brechtian in origin, which comes at you from left field, doesn't appear incongruous; it's all about the passion of the delivery.

The album version of Light My Fire was a revelation. Previously I had seen it as a classic pop song, immediately identifiable and synonymous with the era, but the unexpected extended keyboard and guitar sections triggered the thought that maybe this could be reasonably thought of as a prog album. I was unsure how many of the necessary boxes it ticked though? Excellent levels of musicianship? check; eccentric invention? check; extended instrumental passages? check; eclectic influences? check. However, there was no doubting that, in the main, the album consisted a lot of three minute distinctly pop-like tracks, with - dare I say it - a trace of filler here and there, especially on the second side. But then, I was unprepared for the denouement.

Having seen Apocalypse Now already, and knowing The End, at least in part from it's use twice in the film, I wasn't expecting to be that impressed. For what ever reason, it was as this final track started that I put on my headphones.

I'm sure that there are a multitude of teenage boys who can identify with the shock, delight, horror and absolute joy at being exposed to The End for the first time. I use 'exposed' deliberately, as this track, above all else on the album (and probably their entire output), strikes at the core of The Doors success: the feeling that the listener is being welcomed into a sordid inner circle, driven by primal desires, the need to push boundaries and test authority and which parents and 'straights' could never possibly understand. As Jim Morrison rants his oedipal obscenity and the instrumentation mirrors the breakdown of order, the listener feels as though a rite of passage has been undertaken, where seeking meaningful artistic expression becomes a vital part of your life. As the song slowed, and Morrison panted in simulated post-coital slumber, I was eternally grateful that I was wearing my headphones.

Many prog purists might still baulk at the thought that The Doors is a prog album. In terms of invention and the desire to push boundaries, I would say that it qualifies in spades.

Review of Rainbow's Rising

Released 1976

"Hot wind, moving fast across the desert.
We feel that our time has arrived.
The world spins while we put his dream together. A tower of stone to take him straight to the sky. Oh I see his face!"

Categorising Rainbow Rising as a prog album will surprise some and perhaps anger others. Most would agree that the three MKI Deep Purple albums could reasonably be classified as prog or 'proto' prog. It is generally thought that the MKII albums moved into the realm of more mainstream classic rock; live many tracks were extended to twenty minute or more of extended instrumental workouts. However, such jams were seen as indulgent rather than improvisational, with little regard given to applauding the virtuosity of the musicianship employed. Whilst I would largely agree with this common view, I have long felt that Ritchie Blackmore's creativity could, in the right band, have resulted in more typically prog like output.

Occasionally, as the prog section of my record collection grew, I would reappraise other albums already residing on my shelves through my new 'prog filter'. Looking again at Rainbow Rising, I believed there was a reasonable argument to view this as Mr Blackmore's closest dalliance with the prog rock genre.

One aspect of this incarnation of Rainbow which is often overlooked is Tony Carey's keyboards. While I wouldn't place him anywhere need the premier division of established keyboard players, the opening strains of 'Tarot Woman' heard in isolation would more readily label the album as resolutely progressive as opposed to mainstream. True, the lyrics which follow don't count as Ronnie James Dio's most imaginative, but the sum of the constituent parts raise it above the norm.

'Run with the Wolf' and 'Starstruck' in the hands of lesser musicians would come over as good solid, but not much better than average rock songs. The three key players; Ritchie Blackmore, Ronnie James Dio and drummer Cozy Powell, all are arguably at the peak of their careers, each appearing to push and stretch the rest of the group, raising the bar significantly.

It isn't until Stargazer that the full potential of the band is realised. Blackmore has admitted that he borrowed very heavily from Led Zeppelin's 'Kashmir' for this track, to create a huge eastern tinged behemoth of a riff. In my opinion he takes it to a much greater place infinitely superior to it's ancestor. The chemistry between each of the instruments and RJD's vocal is extraordinary, stretching themselves impossibly far until the climax of the song under-scored by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, producing, for my money, one of the most successful marriages between a rock group and an an orchestra. The energy of the group is inspiring, in particular that of Cozy Powell. To think that he used to play Stargazer and A Light In The Black, both heavily driven by a furiously intense rhythm back to back in concert without a pause is remarkable.

Technically, Rainbow's Rising is as accomplished as many premier league prog bands. To label it as 'just' a rock album is unfair and elitist and ignores some very real talents.

Review of Pink Floyd's The Final Cut

Released 1983

"Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes I can barely define the shape of this moment in time And far from flying high in clear blue skies I'm spiraling down to the hole in the ground where I hide."

Before I finally out grew Kerrang! magazine - our respective musical tastes were diverging rapidly - Geoff Barton's review of Pink Floyd's The Final Cut was one its last articles to influence my musical thinking. I was too young to appreciate Pink Floyd's best years as they happened, but because I was attuned and interested as their swansong (with Roger Waters at least) was released, I felt privileged.

It was only ten years since The Dark Side Of The Moon, but it was a different era; one which I revered and which was lent credence and a mystique by it's distant relative inaccessibility. I was at once delighted that I would have the opportunity to sample a new Pink Floyd album, and apprehensive that it's contemporary status might instantly negate it's qualification as a classic prog album.

Geoff Barton's review wasn't particularly complimentary, describing the album as 'obsessive', 'overbearing', 'depressing' and 'unnecessarily dark'. There were many references to the continuation of themes first present in The Wall, which unfortunately meant little to me at the time. I had a cassette copy of The Wall a few years earlier, but when the tape snapped after only a couple of listens, I found myself exchanging it for another album. It seemed angst ridden, lengthy and meandering, less 'muscial' and ultimately too complex for my young sensibilities. Now, with TDSOTM and Wish You Were Here under my belt, I felt more capable of appropriately appraising The Final Cut.

I noted the album was subtitled, ' A Requiem For The Post War Dream', and was credited in it's entirety to Roger Waters, and was dedicated to the memory of his father. Nick Mason was supplemented with another drummer, Andy Newmark; Rick Wright was omitted and a handful of other further musicians were credited. The black sleeve was in mourning, with poppies and war medals setting the scene for what appeared to be a memorial piece.

From the outset, the radio tuning effects and the vehicle sounds put in mind of the other two Pink Floyd albums in my collection, caused me to relax and temporarily put Geoff Barton's criticisms to one side. Instead of David Gilmour's (underrated) vocal, the awkward unlovely voice of Roger Waters took the lead, and was pitched somewhere between speaking and singing. Whilst the tone of TDSOTM and WYWH is, for the most part, an evolution from the laid back 'space rock' of their earlier years, here the feel was angular, angry, accusatory and confrontational, with lyrics being almost spat out in disgust at the post war mess Roger is attributing in no small measure to Margaret Thatcher's regime.

Where the subject matters of earlier albums focused on universal themes of greed, mortality and madness, The Final Cut is an inversion of these stances, being a one-man party political broadcast with very specific targets. These subject matters required a very different musical accompaniment: northern brass-bands funereal themes, sparse acoustic guitar and simple piano are all subservient to the main instrument, the vocal. Through headphones, every nuance of every word is startlingly clear. There are many layers of background vocals, more often than not being screamed versions of the lead. Sound effects are integrated to the point where they may perhaps be seen as a further instrument.

By the time I reached 'The Gunner's Dream', in which Roger recalls his mother's tears at his father's funeral, I was aghast at his willingness to expose himself so completely. The saxophone solo is designed to tear your heart apart, begging you to identify with the utter misery inflicted upon him by the misfortunes of war. It is easy to picture Roger alone in a darkened studio, eyes closed in agony, recording the vocal tortured with pain operating on the outer edges of his register, pleading for a time when 'no-one kills the children anymore'. I found myself looking towards the door of my bedroom, making sure no-one else could hear this. How could I explain the indulgence and angst I was listening to?

The signature guitar of David Gilmour is relegated to those few choice moments where, that Roger would 'allow' a contribution. Although used sparingly, the guitar solos mirror the agony of the lyric, bleeding forth.

The title track is the emotional peak, or, depending on how you choose to look at it, the trough of the album. I couldn't imagine how Roger 'sold' this to the rest of the band. When on a quest with such maniacal focus so intrinsically tied to your own identity, there could have been no room for compromise. This could never have been a collective creation and as such there would be causalities. The recording sessions must have been a horrible experience.

Despite the fact that the single-orientated pace of 'Not Now John' interrupts the tone of the album, to this day, no album has ever had such a profound effect on me upon the first listen. It may not be my favourite album, or indeed even my favourite Pink Floyd album, but it holds a unique place in my affections as the most compelling initial airing of any album to date. When Roger Waters entered the studios, I get the impression that he knew exactly what he wanted to achieve. Where most visions become compromised during the process of realisation, I felt that, on this occasion, the end product was exactly as Roger first envisioned it. This in itself is an incredible achievment.

Review of Genesis' Nursery Cryme

Released 1971

"Still they're invincible,
Still they're immune to all our herbicidal battering."

The downside of occasionally ordering albums from the Britannia Music Club, was that if no-one at home to take delivery, there was the risk that the postman would leave the cardboard package in a puddle. Thus, my first copy of Nursery Cryme was decidedly damp upon arrival. The vinyl itself was unaffected, and as the cover was horribly glossy, I reasoned that it would add 'character', and effectively age it to sit more comfortably with the more prestigious faded and worn second hand albums with whom it would predominantly share the shelves.

A few years later, I compared earlier matt finished and more robustly produced editions to the glossy cheap and cheerful poor version I had acquired. Mine was certainly a poor relation. The more muted colours and matt finish were much more in keeping with Paul Whitehead's menacing Victorian frontispiece. Scanning the lyrics there were also references to this period, while other songs spoke of fantastical creatures, bizarre plants or reproduced large parts of a nursery rhyme.

First impressions suggested that the odd otherworldly presence of Trepass was being continued here. A new guitarist and drummer were present, but it looked as though I might be in for more of the same.

The Musical Box was such a complex track, with more invention and ambition than many bands pack into an entire career, that it is would be simple to focus on little else. There was a sense of maturity which manifests itself in a measured and disciplined approach to the songs ornate structure.

The opening ancient strings and the space afforded to the vocal with the occasional echo effect slowly built to create real tension. The medieval feel of Trepass was evoked with deft touches of harpsichord and a vocal harmony remarkably similar to CSN, trailing over acoustic guitar, thereby producing a very English pastoral mood, further enhanced by Gabriel's occasional flute. Three and a half minutes in, there is a pause before Tony Banks mellotron wades in, building the tempo with the drums driving a sense of awaiting drama. Steve Hackett switches from acoustic to electric, violently, rapidly but only briefly, before slowing down to the 'Old King Cole' refrain once more. There is then a guitar and keyboard battle with huge distortion on the former in a style indistinguishable (to these ears only) to Anthony Phillips, especially on The Knife.

The mellotron was much more in evidence on Nursery Cryme, and was dominating the artistry of the whole album and - to my mind - was starting to define the Genesis sound, with the guitar being used sparingly to provide textures rather than lead the way. The Fountain of Salamacis demonstrated this especially well, with a wall of mellotron sound; a sound scape used to complement vocal harmonies and the guitar is barely evident.

I shook my head in bemusement at The Return of the Giant Hogweed. A narrative about the trials and tribulations about the aforementioned plant couldn't have been further removed from the standard rock song structure prevalent in my record collection. I was at a loss to rationalise why anyone would wish to construct a song around this subject matter, but I was intrigued which I guess was the point. Their musical prowess was undoubted, with much more confidence and drama than their earlier album. There were moments where my interest sustained. The folkier passages held less ambition than the out and out epic prog moments

I saw this a much bolder album daring to be different and adventurous, knowing that the virtuosity was such that no subject matter was out of bounds.

Not a perfect album, but worth the price tag for The Musical Box. Having bought the first two Genesis albums in the order in which they had been released and having seen real progression being made, I was very keen to move on to their next release.
.

Review of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells

Released 1973

"Two slightly distorted guitars."

My original copy of Tubular Bells was purchased unknowingly along with a small job lot of second hand vinyl, via a student from the art block adjacent to our sixth form college. I was attracted by the very low price being offered for a 'mixed bag of seventies gold'. Hmmm. In reality, other than The Eagles 'The Long Run', Tubular Bells was the only item of note; not least of all as it was a pristine picture disc edition. That it had cost me in the region of 50p was a further bonus.

Like any music fan, I was aware of Tubular Bells in advance, but other than knowing that it was an instrumental work which had effectively launched Virgin Records (and in turn the Virgin Empire) and that a short extract was included in The Exorcist (which I always thought was horribly incongruous), I really didn't know what to expect. Amongst my peers at college, adding Tubular Bells to my record collection was greeted with nods as appreciative as those I received when The Dark Side of The Moon preceded it. It is one of those albums, like 'Bat Out of Hell' or 'Rumours' that might as well be handed out on prescription to any self respecting person interested in music in their teens. Because it lived in such a public space, I had trouble reconciling it as a 'prog' album. TDSOMT may have sold more copies and still be resolutely considered to be 'prog', probably due to the anonymity of the band, but Mike Oldfield was known to anyone (of a certain age) that had watched Blue Peter. That said, there were only two tracks of twenty five and twenty three minutes respectively.

Although I was pleased to add Tubular Bells to my shelves, I didn't rush at it; I was concerned that I might not enjoy a completely instrumental record. The prog section of my collection was still in its infancy and I still had a sustained interest in more mainstream rock music: Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix and Cream et al could all be described as musically adventurous, but only bordered on the fringes of prog. While all of the above had instrumental tracks on their albums, these were the exception and not the rule. All were therefore arguably more accessible. I was worried that my musical tastes, although they were broadening all the time, were not yet sophisticated enough to assimilate nearly forty nine minutes of music without lyrics.

On paper, the concept for Tubular Bells shouldn't work; a brief uncomplicated musical pattern repeatedly played by a wide variety of different instruments, either in isolation or multi-tracked in unison with others, sometimes at different tempos, all played by Mike Oldfield.

I loved side one immediately, being hypnotised by the seamless morphing from one instrument to the next, effortlessly imprinting itself from the outset. I was delighted that I was so instantly engaged. A sense of anticipation formed as I wondered how the motif would be next formed, by which instrument/s and how the piece would conclude. Although this was a simple concept, I marvelled at the epic task of transforming the finished complex whole from an idea to a fully constructed suite in the studio, by one man.

After side one, side two was (and remains) a poor relation. Whilst of itself it follows similar themes to it's predecessor and is pleasant and well formed , I felt that it suffered beyond measure by falling within it's shadow.

The album was placed back on my shelf with a degree of smugness, both that I wasn't let down and that my level of musical appreciation was perhaps more refined than I gave myself credit for.

Years later, Tubular Bells is responsible for opening several other musical doors for me: from Tangerine Dream to (mostly instrumental) Italian prog. For that, I will be eternally grateful for that 'mixed bag of seventies gold'.

Review of Yes' Close To The Edge

Released 1972

"The time between the notes relates the color to the scenes. A constant vogue of triumphs dislocate man, it seems. And space between the focus shape ascend knowledge of love. As song and chance develop time, lost social temperance rules above".

When referring to any new book or magazine around the subject of prog rock, sooner or later, within the first paragraph or so, usually in close conjunction with King Crimson, Genesis and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, I found that Yes were almost universally acknowledged as masters of the genre. Close To The Edge was typically held up as their flagship work. As such, a dozen or so albums into my prog journey, and with The Yes Album already on my shelf and well respected, it was inevitable that I would turn to this, their fifth album, next.

As I touched on in my review of The Yes Album, I was aware of Roger Dean's logo from a young age. I actually remember sketching it on the cover of my Geography exercise book when I was thirteen or fourteen, alongside the logo' s of Black Sabbath, Status Quo and ELO. Whilst I was familiar with all of these bands, (Yes; even ELO) I couldn't have named a single Yes song or album. Now, a few years later, I was delighted that I had made the decision to purchase the first album to contain the iconic Yes logo proper. Terribly shallow, I know.

My 'Nice Price' edition of the album purchased in 1984, was single sleeve with a plain white inner sleeve. As such, it wasn't until I saw a friends older edition later at University - along with the majority of the rest of the 'classic era' albums - that I realised I was missing out on the the full spectacle of Roger Dean's fantastical landscape work.

I had been disappointed when I purchased The Yes Album to learn that Rick Wakeman wasn't yet in the group. Stories of his caped antics reached beyond the inner sanctum of the prog fan base to the mainstream. Noting that he was present and correct on Close To The Edge heightened my sense of anticipation. The fact that there were only three tracks and that the first was divided into four 'parts', with names like 'Total Mass Retain' were obvious give aways that this was a piece of prog.

I settled down in the early hours of the following morning, switched out the main overhead light, turned on the lamp with a red light bulb muted by an occasionally smouldering tea-towel, put on the headphones, placed the stylus on the vinyl and waited.

Like The Dark Side Of The Moon, Close To The Edge seemed to take an age before anything was picked up in the headphones. How to describe those first twittering sounds? I've always bizarrely pictured them as organic, pastoral or birdlike. These then quickly dissolved into a cacophony of odd time signatures, circling between keyboards, bass and guitar, round and round, repeating a complex motif, which was incredibly dense and difficult to penetrate. Like The Yes Album, the bass again appeared to dominate, weaving unorthodox patterns, further complicated by the stop /start drumming pattern underpinning it and a jazzy angular rapid guitar motif. A pattern would emerge before being replaced with another, and another. Then all would stop and Jon Anderson would utter a quick 'aaahhh' before it all commenced again become more and more complex.

After a few minutes, a form of calmness descends and an extraordinarily surreal lyric commences; utterly impenetrable and, to this day unfathomable to anyone I have ever met. Although the lyrics were nonsensical, the harmony, the 'fit' between the actual sound of the words as opposed to the meaning of the words and the nature of the music it accompanied was undeniably wonderfully effective.

As the title track moved through it's various parts, I could see why the term 'symphonic prog' had been applied to this album. Whilst much of this eighteen minute plus title track was too dense to take in that night, the centre piece - the passage preceding( I Get Up I Get Down) and including the cathedral of sound of the specular keyboard solo - grabbed my attention absolutely. I turned the volume up as loud as was comfortably possible while the reverbation of the church organ made me glow with excitment. Not since The Dark Side of The Moon had a an album pulled me in so deep and made me feel so protective of it completely.

While the utter unintelligibility of the lyrics of the epic title track and the odd but masterful muscianship made me smile, I found that I had tears in my eyes when confronted with And You
I. Although I couldn't fathom any logic behind Jon Anderson's lyrics, his delivery was impeccable and unmatched. Siberian Khatru passed in a bit of a daze; I was exhausted.

When the album finished, I immediately turned it over and played it again, recording it on the second side of my C90 cassette which already had The Yes Album on the other side. Wonderful times.

Review of Van Der Graaf Generator's Godbluff

Released 1975

"Here at the glass - all the usual problems,
all the habitual farce.
You ask, in uncertain voice, what you should do
as if there were a choice".

I doubt that anyone's first encounter with Van Der Graaf Generator is a pleasant or even a comfortable one.

One of the challenges of writing this blog is to divorce my later knowledge and experience of an album and the rest of the band's output from how I felt on that very first listen. Everyone will be able to cite numerous examples of albums which simply didn't work for them the first time around and in some cases, there are examples which don't become enjoyable until years later. My own view is that some artists are so far away from the Zeitgeist (what is the opposite to Zeitgeist?) that a only a minimal frame of reference can be applied to the work at the time; whereas it is possible to 'tune in' to most pieces of music, others are just too odd or 'out there' to be fully appreciated immediately.

I mention this of course because I believe VDGG fall into this category. In this instance I feel that the contrast between it's first airing and my view now is so pronounced, that I will reluctantly pass comment at the end of this review. Otherwise I run the risk of alienating any VDGG virgins!

As a keen and impressionable seventeen year old, I was voraciously consuming anything and everything I could lay my hands on regarding my new found interest in prog rock. Having purchased the first two Marillion albums, and being familiar with the obvious comparisons being drawn between the vocal styles of Fish and Peter Gabriel, I found it interesting that Fish himself saw Peter Hammill as a more direct influence. Therefore, when I stumbled across a copy of Godbluff at my local market, I decided I'd make my own judgement.

Although the prog rock section of my record collection was still in its infancy, I had already given up the on the theory that you could spot a progressive rock album from its cover. The band's logo was borrowed from the stylings of M.C. Escher, renowned for his warped otherworldly perspectives, but the feel of the cover overall, was one of starkness and minimalism, being both literally and figuratively dark.

Laurie Anderson's uber-weird 'O Superman' flashed into my mind when hearing those first few seconds of brief breaths made by what, a flute? a saxophone? This thought was swiftly followed by "Oh God, what have done?". A voice, initially whispering conspiratorially joins in. Words are delivered in a manner somewhere between speaking and singing, dense and dark, absolutely mirroring the feel of the cover art. An ethereal and yet angular keyboard sound combined with the voice and the wind instrument and floated around in the ether. The strangeness of the voice, a million miles away from that of the traditional 'rock' vocalist was very difficult to assimilate. The menace and sustain employed in the 'man' of 'undercover man' was very powerful and impressive allowing a crescendo of sorts to build throughout the duration of the word. But then the voice seems to take on a life of it's own, leaping with wild abandon and little logic into explosions of grandiose poetic mania.

On that first listen, it all seemed so uncontrolled, with no pattern or direction that I found it hard to be drawn along. There was just so much going on. I had considered The Nice to be eclectic, and Yes to be complex, but they both seemed like purveyors of nursery rhymes compared to the apparent tunelessness of this. Occasionally there would be something approximating a saxophone solo, but then the drums would be beating out something in a different time signature entirely and confusing any feeling that this was going somewhere.

I sat back and let the general effect wash over me, hoping for a light bulb moment. It didn't happen. Where was the guitar? What is he going on about? I was nothing short of bewildered as each of the four tracks, which all sounded very similar, wailed on and on. Safe to say, that first listen wasn't a success.

As I intimated at the beginning, I now see the album very differently. It is still a mad and very peculiar album, but I can now see why it ranks so highly amongst not just VDGG devotees but the wider prog audience.

The easiest way to describe why I see it differently now is as follows. Occasionally you will turn on the radio and hear a song that is familiar to you, but for several seconds, although you know you know it and know it very well, it may as well be the very first time you'd ever heard it. Then, out of nowhere, in an instance, and for no obvious reason, you recognise it completely and are mystified as to why it seemed so alien. With Godbluff, one day, for no reason it just seemed to work; I could see the genius of the vocal delivery, I was bowled over by David Jackson's singularly brilliant saxophone playing and I realised that the keyboard sound was at least on a par with the Tony Banks, Tony Kaye and Rick Wakeman's of the world. I could see what Fish was aspiring to achieve but only mimicking.

This may have been uneasy listening, and hardly one to get the dance floor full, but it's eccentricity and Nietzchian-like madness did, in time get it's hooks well and truly into me.

Review of Marillion's Fugazi

Released 1984

"The thief of baghdad hides in islingtown now, praying
deportation for his sacred cow. A legacy of romance from a twilight world. The dowry of a relative mystery girl."

Having spent many hours rooting around in second hand record shops for albums released when I was but a child, it was something of a novelty to look forwards to Marillion's second album hitting the shops. Marillion were despised and ridiculed by the mainstream music press, famously derided as unoriginal Genesis wannabees with little talent beyond mimicry. However Script For a Jester's Tear sold very well, leading to their lengthy residency at the Marquee Club and a strong reputation as a formidable (if not overtly pretentious) live band on the wider circuit. Opening the Reading Festival in 1983 with a circa twenty minute version of the (at the time) unreleased Grendel, a vast sprawling epic with a huge nod to Supper's Ready, displayed levels of indulgence not seen for many years on stage.

It was highly enjoyable to follow current exponents of prog rock sensibilities in the face of bemusement from the majority of my contemporaries.

The review of Fugazi in Kerrang! wasn't as emphatic as their first album. In fact it wasn't particularly kind at all, quoting 'difficult second album syndrome' and questioning their subsequent appeal and staying power. I saw this as puff and bluster: a band couldn't fall so awfully from grace in the course of a couple of years and a couple of albums, surely.

I was impressed that the same artist had been employed for the cover of this second album providing a strong sense of continuity; there was a theme of isolation common to both albums - the 'bed-sit' land referred to in Chelsea Monday on the first album was present once more. A bedraggled figure with more than a passing resemblance to Fish lay sprawled on a bed amidst much chaotic detritus. The jesters outfit was in evidence, as were other familiar motifs: the rainbow and the crow. LP's by Pink Floyd and Peter Hammill lay scattered on the floor as unambiguous acknowledgements of the tortured soul's heritage. This wasn't going to be a fun record clearly.

Having recently seen Apocalypse Now, I was impressed by the (almost) direct lifting of part of the lyric of Assassing from the film. I was less impressed by the drum sound; it was very much rooted in the general trend of more popular music in the mid-eighties; the drums were bought much further forward in the mix and much less subtle than I would have expected. Hmmm, a rocky start.

I wasn't taken too much by the next two tracks either. Both were very light, had pop inflections being quite insubstantial and very much at odds with much of the first album. The primary instrument in evidence was Fish's voice. His cynical invective was taking on the role of the doomed adolescent poet, very much the tragic jester.

Having spent most of this first listen wearing an unfortunate frown, I realised with Emerald Lies and She Chameleon that something was creeping up on me, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. There was a 'coldness' and a clarity to the production that was in perfect harmony to the anguish of Fish's words. Whereas the first album was often quite lush and ornate, there was pain and pity echoed by a more sparse but symphonic guitar sound; providing a terrible tapestry of aching and pleading, which slowly drew me in.

This was an album which you would switch off if your parents walked in; so personal and indulgent and self pitying and yet so tangibly desperate and brilliant in it's execution, you couldn't possibly justify or identify with it's pomposity and misery. And yet, to hide beneath the headphones, safe from the world, wallowing in it utterly, was, what we now call a guilty pleasure.

Review of Queen's A Night At The Opera

Released 1975

"I watched as fear took the old men's gaze
Hopes of the young in troubled graves.
I see no day, I heard him say
So grey is the face of every mortal".

A Night At The Opera was actually the first album I ever bought, four or five years before I began my prog odyssey. Like many others, the ubiquity of Queen's most famous song around Christmas 1975, and the intense media interest that propelled then from a fairly successful entity into the stratosphere and the then history books, made me curious enough to part with a few weeks pocket money.

I was sufficiently taken with the album that it initiated a long and lasting love affair with their entire canon. Up to about 1980 anyway. I never thought of A Night At The Opera (and the rest of their seventies output) as anything other than pop/classic rock. It wasn't until my interest in prog rock was well established. that I noticed this particular album cropping up from time to time in the upper echelons of 'Greatest Prog Albums of All Time' polls. I decided to reappraise it in light of my growing prog knowledge.

The packaging, whilst grandly ornate and suitably regal, didn't really distinguish it as a prog artifact. In fact, it was proudly proclaimed that 'no synthesisers!" were used in the making of the album. No synths; surely this couldn't be a prog album? Also, Queen has been a huge singles band and wore spandex. So what was 'progressive' about this album? I put the headphones on and tried to listen with a fresh perspective.

Okay, so there may not have been synthesisers, but Freddie Mercury's fluid piano was obviously very much in evidence. Death On Two Legs... was not a standard pop song; bitter angry lyrics directed at former management were spat out with some aplomb. Whilst it wasn't pop, it couldn't see it as prog either. Lazing On A Sunday Afternoon, running in at under a minute, was certainly eclectic, but not much more than a whimsical ditty. No, I was still struggling to see why it was so highly rated amongst prog fans. The remainder of the first side of the album was a mixture of successful singles (You're My Best Friend) and well accomplished, but very mainstream pop and rock songs nonetheless.

But then, with side two it all became clear. The Prophet Song, with swirling wind sound effects, shifting time signatures, vocal only passages and a bombastic centre piece was truly magnificent; bonkers top drawer stuff, superbly enhanced at its peak by bouncing backwards and forwards between each ear, and fabulous when tuned up dangerously high under the headphones.

I hadn't fully appreciated the majesty (pun intended) of the song's segue into Love of My Life. Of itself, Love of My Life is a beautiful anthem, but when considered, if you like as 'part two' of The Prophet Song, it really is very cleverly conceived piece on a par with any pure prog experiences I had had up until that point.

Bohemian Rhapsody is so ingrained into the public consciousness that it is almost beyond comment and reproach. Its sheer eccentricity and audacity are legendary and, at the very least, nods with wry smile and tremendous good humour towards the often more serious prog bands.

Very few classic prog bands, which, in the end Queen were not, had enjoyed the same success and indeed public adoration with works of such diversity, scope and ambition.

Was it a worthwhile exercise, or an act of unnecessary pretension to reconsider the album from the prog angle? Actually yes; one way or another, I think I appreciated it's genius and it's madness all the more.

Review of The Nice's The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack

Released 1967

"I'm going back, going back to be young again, to find the time to develop my mind and be kind".

This was very much an impulse purchase. I say that not by way of apology, or to intimate that I'm embarrassed to own an album adorned by four young men wearing nothing but cellophane. No, indeed I only mention it as this impulse was further evidence to show that often, the best record buying decisions are those made on on the spur of the moment.

The market which visited our local town on a Tuesday and Saturday over the course of perhaps two years fuelled my record collection with some of the very best (and very cheapest) albums I have ever purchased. If I knew then what I know now, I'm sure I would have swept up many many other similar gems, if only I'd recognised them at the time.

The Nice were completely unknown to me. I was attracted by two things: a) that this clearly originated from the period of music in which I was interested and b) the thickness of the record sleeve. Some original editions of late sixties and early seventies albums were presented in incredibly thick, almost industrial strength cardboard. Forty years on, most people, I think, consider these to be aesthetically unappealing and cumbersome. For me they have a glorious charm and are infinitely more appealing than a CD jewell case.

Turning the record over I noted the band members names, and consequently the logic behind the albums title. I was familiar with the name Keith Emerson and I thought I knew one of the other names: was it from Roxy Music?

Seeing that this was from as early as 1967, I paused, suddenly unsure that this would appeal to me. As this was the first time I had encountered the band, and although I knew Keith Emerson's name and was aware of ELP's stature in the prog rock genre, at that point I had only heard Fanfare For A Common Man and was sure that this wasn't entirely representative of their 'oeuvre'. Could it be that this was a more pop orientated group which Mr Emerson had been glad to leave behind?

Then again, this was another £2.50 proposition. If I hated it, I could always pass it on to one of my younger brothers.

I groaned as soon as I heard the opening of the first track. This was very firmly rooted in the sixties, both in terms of production and it's nonsensical "pa,pa,pa,pa, pa, pa..." refrain. But then the pace and the time signature changed and (as I later learned) the very distinctive keyboard sound takes the lead and dominates everything from there on in. I could identify this as a prog record within the first minute of the first song, simply due to the keyboards. There were classical leanings and manic, furiously fast runs interspersed with more delicate but still decidedly odd signatures.

The other three band members struggled to keep up. The guitarist was equally manic and, in my opinion, very underrated, but was constantly in the shadow of the flamboyant keyboards. For the first time with any album I had owned up until that point, I found myself preferring the instrumental tracks: the vocals jarred badly with me, suiting neither the instrumental ambitions nor the genre itself.

Whilst I was mildly intrigued with the album as a whole, considering it not to be the embarrassing intrusion in my collection which I had expected, I was overawed when I heard Rondo. There were very strong similarities with the Jon Lord and Ritchie Blackmore dual at the climax of Deep Purple's Child In Time, except the pace of this was yet more frenetic and unhinged.

In 1967, from what I knew about The Nice's contemporaries, this must have received an explosive reaction, such was their energy and willingness to explore uncharted territory. This must surely have been one of the very first prog offerings. But what was the first? I had to go back to my books and find out.

Review of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here

Released 1975

"We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
running over the same old ground. What have you found?
The same old fears. Wish you were here."

Most of my prog rock encounters to date had been happy accidents rather than planned ventures. I was usually attracted in these early days by either recognising the name of the band, the album or the sleeve as being 'prog-like'. That wasn't the case with my next purchase.

The Dark Side of The Moon had triggered my interest in the genre and I was still utterly under it's (softly spoken magic) spell. I had read anything and everything I could about Pink Floyd and was not far short of obsessive about my desire to learn more. I wanted to be sure that I wasn't setting myself up for a fall. It would have been easy; I held TDSOMT in such high esteem that it was almost inevitable that anything else would be a let down. I wasn't sufficiently intrigued by the earlier albums at that point and I didn't have the £20+ that a new copy of The Wall would have demanded. It seemed to make sense therefore to go for the next chronological release after TDSOTM. This was even though I knew that before the ultimate concept for Wish You Were Here was agreed, the band spent six months experimenting with music made bashing and strumming kitchen utensils.

It was with some trepidation that I entered the record store. I was lucky enough to find an original black cellophane wrapped copy with hardly a crease and with the robot hand-shake sticker in perfect condition. As with my previous Pink Floyd purchase, I was immediately impressed by the sense of drama created by the unstated mystery inherent in this 12" package. On the way home, I held the bag containing the album in the same way I now hold my baby son. I invested an inappropriate amount of significance in simply buying the record, looking furtively over my shoulder lest I needed to explain my shortness of breath.

Peeling away the layers at home, I noted that more care and consideration has gone into the concept of the packaging than would often be applied to the music by other bands. All of the images implied absence and duplicity: the clear record and blank face of the top-hatted gentleman showed an absence of sincerity, there was the diver entering the lake without raising a ripple and the incongruity of the transparent red scarf blowing through a copse. The main image - of one man aflame shaking hands with another - is both pregnant with symbolism and yet devoid of any tangible meaning. In its entirety it combined to a evoke a compellingly impersonal distancing aura.

From the very first notes this was an album characterised by a unique keyboard sound which was both crystal clear and mechanical in its execution, perfectly complementing a sound which felt as though it belonged to a distant future time, cold, inhuman and industrial.

There is a huge feeling of space, of incredible emptiness across the whole record. The deliriously slow stoned pace of Shine On You Crazy Diamond is so precisely and cautiously executed that there the anticipation between each note of the lengthy guitar introduction is almost too much to bear.

Carefully and sparingly used sound effects pulled me in on the very first listen. This instantly became one of my favourite headphone albums, especially with the lead into the title track, where a radio is tuned through several stations before an acoustic guitar takes over, first in mono before exploding with clarity in stereo. The best moment for me on the album is during this intro, where the 'squeaking' sound of David Gilmour's left hand moving between chords on the fretboard is the most tangibly non-mechanical element of the piece, and is so perfectly clear in the headphones, contextualising the desperate pleading sentiment of the lyrics that follow.

I hurriedly reached for one of my many Pink Floyd books during this first listen, remembering from somewhere that Stephane Grapelli had contributed violin to the beginning of the second section of Shine On You Crazy Diamond. To this day, I have only detected the vaguest grasp of his work on that day. Ever since it has been forever lost in the rolling winds and rising keyboards. I have searched for it time and time again, always glad that I can't quite find it.

Review of Barclay James Harvest's Everyone is Everybody Else

Released 1974

"I didn't ask to be born and I don't ask to die
I'm an endless dream, a gene machine
That cannot reason why".

I didn't actually purchase a copy of this album until a couple of years ago, but I have known every nuance of it for over twenty five years, as this was a favourite album of my Fathers. Why my Father, whose music collection was restricted to a handful of cassettes which were kept in the car, would have been attracted to a Barclay James Harvest album remains a mystery to me.

I had probably heard the album dozens of times before it clicked that it was by BJH. A constant musical reference point for me in the early eighties was a long lost copy of the Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock and Roll; an excellent compendium of band histories and discographies covering the period from the 1950's to the time at which it was published in 1983. I would often mentally refer back to entries in this book when thumbing through the bins in second hand record shops.

One day, whilst waiting for my Father to fill up the car, I absentmindedly dug into the passenger door recess to look at the cassette boxes contained therein. Seeing that one of the cassettes was by a band listed in the aforementioned book was a genuine surprise. I had seen the box many times, but couldn't get past the fact that it had (and has) one of the worst covers of all time, firmly rooted to its year of release: bum-fluff moustaches, stripey jumpers and orange bomber jackets rendering the band logo all but invisible in the cassette format.

When the engine was started the cassette started once more and I listened to it properly for the first time. Why had I not heard the clear and obvious similarity to Pink Floyd before? The plaintive keyboard sound and guitar in particular were very similar, as was the overall stoned melancholy that pervaded the whole album. I was stunned that this had passed me by me many, many time before.

However, I knew that my Father was a Moody Blues fan, and I had read that BJH were often referred to as a poor man's Moody Blues; indeed they embraced the label and released a song of that name. I still thought that they more closely resembled Pink Floyd.

That night I sneaked the tape into my bedroom and listened to it through my headphones.

While John Lees and Les Holroyd's lyrics were trying to be a 'deep' and 'significant' as Roger Waters, they weren't quite succeeding. However, in terms of the melancholy I mentioned earlier, they certainly gave him a run for his money. This was hardly uplifting music.

The lyrics may not have been particularly inspiring, but the musicianship was a joy to behold: the last third of the opening track, Child of The Universe has a wonderfully lush mellotron and Floydian slow dreamy doom laden guitar, equal to anything I heard up to that point.

With the benefit of the twenty something intervening years, I can now see that the production on this album is superlative, having been rarely equalled: the bridge of Paper Wings which starts 56 seconds in, is still revealing layers to me now after countless listens, and the piano at the beginning of The Great 1974 Mining Disaster is just gorgeously executed.

Huddled in a dark corner of my bedroom, with a red light bulb and the volume as loud as I could bear, I was delighted to have found another exquisite example of prog rock from the most unexpected source. Swathes of fluid guitar, throbbing keyboards, precise poised drumming and cleverly orchestrated harmonies washed though me, pulling deeper into the genre.

I listened to the final track, For No One, over and over that evening. The huge mellotron resounded around the headphones, beautifully interplayed with the joint lead vocals over the chorus, perfectly concluding with one of my favourite ever guitar solos. BJH; a guilty pleasure to this day.