John Lennon & Yoko Ono - 1969 - The Wedding Album

John Lennon & Yoko Ono
1969 
The Wedding Album

01. John & Yoko 22:23
02. Amsterdam 24:52

CD Bonus Tracks:
03. Who Has Seen The Wind 2:03
04. Listen, The Snow Is Falling 3:22
05. Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow) 2:14


Bass, Electric Bass – Klaus Voormann (tracks: 3 to 5)
Guitar – John Lennon
Keyboards – John Lennon
Noises [Heartbeat Sounds] – John Lennon, Yoko Ono
Noises [Rare Sounds] – Yoko Ono
Piano, Chimes – Hugh McCracken (tracks: 3 to 5), Nicky Hopkins (tracks: 3 to 5)
Vocals – John Lennon, Yoko Ono


Released in a heavy box.
Box spine and record labels are credited to "John And Yoko".
The record is housed in a flipback gatefold cover, opening from the inside.

Complete copies include the following inserts:

- Wedding certificate (glued onto inside box lid)
- Press booklet
- Poster of the wedding
- Poster of ''Bed Peace''
- Bagism bag (white plastic)
- Passport photographs
- Postcard
- Picture of wedding cake

Some copies came with a fold-over 'These fine albums are available...' promotional Apple Records color leaflet.

The third long player of experimental recordings by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Wedding Album was released by Apple in 1969.

It was like our sharing our wedding with whoever wanted to share it with us. We didn't expect a hit record out of it. It was more of a... that's why we called it Wedding Album. You know, people make a wedding album, show it to the relatives when they come round. Well, our relatives are the... what you call fans, or people that follow us outside. So that was our way of letting them join in on the wedding.

John Lennon, 1980

BBC

The couple's first collaboration, Two Virgins, marked the beginning of their relationship and artistic partnership. The follow-up, Life With The Lions, mostly documented their 1968 stay in London's Queen Charlotte Hospital, where Ono suffered a miscarriage.

Wedding Album commemorated their wedding in Gibraltar on 20 March 1969. Although it was the final instalment in their trilogy of avant garde and experimental recordings, the couple continued to document their lives on tape until Lennon's death in 1980.

Wedding Album was credited simply to "John & Yoko"; their surnames did not appear anywhere on the sleeve or record labels.

The two sides of the vinyl disc each contained a single track. John And Yoko was a 22-minute recording of Lennon and Ono crying, whispering, speaking and screaming each others' names, at varying volumes and tempos, over the sound of their heartbeats.

They had previously released the sound of their unborn child's heartbeat on the Life With The Lions track Baby's Heartbeat, but this was the first time they had used their own non-vocal bodily sounds in their recordings.

The couple first recorded John And Yoko at EMI Studios, Abbey Road, on 22 April 1969, in a session beginning at 11pm and finishing at 4.30am the following morning. Five days later they returned to remake the track, with recording and mixing completed between 3pm and 8pm.

The released version was a combination of the 22 and 27 April recordings. Lennon edited the two together on 1 May 1969.

The album's second side was titled Amsterdam, and featured recordings made during their first bed-in for peace. The 25-minute track began with Ono singing John John (Let's Hope For Peace), which was later performed at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival and released on Live Peace In Toronto 1969.

Much of Amsterdam consisted of interviews given by Lennon and Ono, explaining their campaigns for peace, and discussions with each other. The speech was also interspersed with the sounds of seagulls, industrial noises, traffic, children playing and sitars.

"Peace is only got by peaceful methods. The establishment knows how to play the game of violence. They can't handle peaceful humour.

John Lennon

Amsterdam

As the bed-in was discussed in the past tense during the recording, it is likely that parts of the recording were made in London or elsewhere after the event.

Four other musical interludes were also included: Lennon performing a brief blues-style composition on an acoustic guitar, featuring the words "Goodbye Amsterdam Goodbye"; Ono singing Grow Your Hair, a song about peace and staying in bed, with Lennon on guitar; an a capella rendition of The Beatles' song Good Night; and Bed Peace, a brief recitation of the words "Bed peace" and "Hair peace".

Unusually for the time, Apple released Wedding Album as a lavish box set. It included a reproduction of the marriage certificate, a 16-page booklet of press cuttings labelled 'The Press', a picture of a slice of wedding cake, a poster of black-and-white photos taken on their wedding day, a 'Hair Peace/Bed Peace' postcard, a PVC bag labelled 'Bagism', and a strip of four passport photographs of the happy couple.

The vinyl disc was housed in a plain white inner sleeve, inside a laminated gatefold picture sleeve. The package was designed by John Kosh, with photography by Mlle Daniau, Richard DiLello, John Kelly, Nico Koster, David Nutter and John and Yoko.

Wedding Album was available on vinyl, cassette tape and 8-track tape. The elaborate packaging led to a delay in the album being issued. It eventually appeared in the United States on 20 October 1969, and in the United Kingdom on 14 November.

The album was digitally remastered and reissued on compact disc by the Rykodisc label in 1997. It included three bonus tracks: Who Has Seen The Wind? was written by Yoko Ono and originally appeared as the b-side to Instant Karma; Listen, The Snow Is Falling was the b-side to Happy Xmas (War Is Over); and Don't Worry Kyoko (Mummy's Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow) was a previously unreleased acoustic recording made at Queen Charlotte Hospital, London.

The album did not chart in the UK, but peaked at number 178 in the United States. Because of it poor sales and the various elements to the release, mint condition copies are highly sought after by collectors.

The UK weekly music newspaper Melody Maker ran a notorious review written by Richard Williams, who had been given a promotional copy containing two discs, each of which contained a test signal on one side. Williams duly reviewed what he thought was a double album, noting that "constant listening reveals a curious point: the pitch of the tones alters frequency, but only by microtones or, at most, a semitone. This oscillation produces an almost subliminal, uneven 'beat' which maintains interest. On a more basic level, you could have a ball by improvising your very own raga, plainsong, or even Gaelic mouth music against the drone."

Lennon and Ono were greatly amused by Williams' review, and sent a telegram of thanks.

"DEAR RICHARD THANK YOU FOR YOUR FANTASTIC REVIEW ON OUR WEDDING ALBUM INCLUDING C-AND-D SIDES STOP WE ARE CONSIDERING IT FOR OUR NEXT RELEASE STOP MAYBE YOU ARE RIGHT IN SAYING THAT THEY ARE THE BEST SIDES STOP WE BOTH FEEL THAT THIS IS THE FIRST TIME A CRITIC TOPPED THE ARTIST STOP WE ARE NOT JOKING STOP LOVE AND PEACE STOP JOHN AND YOKO LENNON"

I have owned the vinyl edition for some years Yesterday I recived the cd reissue and since this album almost tops my list of 60's release really thrills me to hear what the CD sounds like. The vinyl has a softer side to but the cd has a different, cleaner sound. I think this release is so wnorthwihile I got it for a compilation CD project for my niece and have included Amsterdam om this 3rd volume out of 5. The wedding album is a thrill, there are few releases like it, the track John and to Yoko shifts in moods all the way from the beginning to the end and it seems that the percussion track is made up out of heart beats correct me if am wrong.

The album is a little off-beat but wonderful and it was published through through Apple publications which makes it a real treat. My favorite track is Amsterdam it starts with a free form peace hymn and develops into an interview focusing on peaceful methods, the bed peace event in Amsterdam and events during the second world war. this to a pack drop of guitar/sitar sounds and phone ringing sounds from the road outside and things l like saying "Do you want so tea" questions and so on. This is the best track and it is also a perfect time piece, as this is the genuine article the first time it listened to the vinyl I was thrilled about from day one. The LP has a more lavish package because it includes a copy of the wedding certificate photos and more. But the CD on the other has a different sound, a very good complement to the original release. The two tracks speak for themselves with a sparse selves and I think the bonus track ae not really necessary as the original album speaks for itself and is enhanced with all these sounds like seagulls quacking and other things. John and Yoko were both educated artists, and this album is a sincere really good release displaying this. Because they are showing that you can create art and make lasting contributions through simple means. and Wedding Album is a great piece of art.and it is legendary.

One of my favorite bands Swedish The Kook relaters to old music role mothers such as the Byrds have split, the Jam has quir" and also Mr Lennon said peace is in my bed so won't you please come on down".those final words refer to this event, (source The Kooks- Bruce Emms from Too Much is not Enough 1999. Now for a comment on bonus tracks by Yoko Ono single one of which is really dependent on the baroque pop sound for instance Good but too different from the actual album, which is avant garde, for the original sound collage/spoken word and more free form and much more intriguing. I Like John and Yoko's Wedding album and I now own it in two versions, it is even better than Life with Lions and it is good to see John Lennon giving everything some sincerity in the making of an album like this. It probabllu could not have been done without the inspiration provided by Yoko Ono. I am happy to see artist who try to break away from the predictable pop business and try something new for a change. This is unlike any Beatles record I have heard and think both John and Yoko was plea ¤ed with this result - with nothing left to prove this was their third LP, the only things i could compare it to is the sound collages on The Monkees Head album from 1968, or Revolution #9 from the Beatles double album also from 1968- Truly fascinating

Recommended

John Lennon & Yoko Ono - 1968 - Unfinished Music No.2 Life With The Lions

John Lennon & Yoko Ono
1968
Unfinished Music No.2  Life With The Lions

01. Cambridge 1969
02. No Bed For Beatle John
03. Baby's Heartbeat
04. Two Minutes Silence
05. Radio Play

CD Bonus Tracks
06. Song For John 1:29
07. Mulberry 8:57


Notes: The front cover photo of John and Yoko was taken in Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital in Hammersmith, London, where Yoko had a miscarriage.

The back cover photo was taken outside the Marylebone court by the Daily Mirror as J&Y were leaving the court on 28 Nov 1968.

The track "Cambridge 1969" was recorded live at Lady Mitchell Hall (Cambridge, England) before a crowd of 500  on March 2nd, 1969, with thanks to Anthony Barnett the producer of "A Natural Music Nothing Doing In London Concert".

Tracks 2-7:
Recorded on a cassette at Queen Charlotte Hospital Second West Ward,
Room 1, London, England, 4th/25th November 1968.


Yoko Ono: Vocal
John Lennon: Vocal, Guitar
On track 1:
Mal Evans: Watch
John Tchikai: Saxophone
John Stevens: Percussion


 HomeBeatle peopleJohn LennonJohn Lennon albumsUnfinished Music No 2: Life With The Lions
Unfinished Music No 2: Life With The Lions
Unfinished Music No 2: Life With The Lions album artwork – John Lennon and Yoko OnoRecorded: November 1968; 2 March 1969
Producers: John Lennon, Yoko Ono


Released: 9 May 1969 (UK), 26 May 1969 (US)

John Lennon: vocals, guitar, feedback
Yoko Ono: vocals, radio effects
John Ono Lennon II: heartbeat
John Tchicai: saxophone
John Stevens: percussion
Mal Evans: watch

The second long player of experimental sounds by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Unfinished Music No 2: Life With The Lions was released on the Zapple label in May 1969.

The follow-up to Unfinished Music No 1: Two Virgins continued the couple's attempt to present their lives together as artistic statements. The first half was an avant-garde jazz performance recorded live at Cambridge University, while the second documented their stay in London's Queen Charlotte Hospital in 1968.

The album was the first to be released on The Beatles' label Zapple, intended as an experimental counterpart to Apple. It was issued on the same day as George Harrison's Electronic Sound.

Cambridge 1969 was a 26-minute piece featuring Ono on wailing vocals and Lennon coaxing numerous shades of feedback from his guitar amplifier, recorded on 2 March 1969. For the final six minutes they were joined by saxophonist John Tchicai and percussionist John Stevens, who continued playing for a time after Lennon and Ono left the stage.

The album's second half was recorded after Ono was admitted to hospital on 4 November 1968. During her stay Lennon remained at her side, sleeping in a spare hospital bed until it was needed for another patient; he subsequently slept on the floor.

Over the next fortnight they made a series of recordings. No Bed For Beatle consisted mostly of Ono singing snippets of press articles about the couple, with Lennon doing the same in the background. The track is followed by Baby's Heartbeat, a five-minute audio recording of the couple's unborn child.

On 21 November 1968 Ono suffered a miscarriage, which was attributed to stress caused by the couple's recent arrest for drugs possession and the backlash they received from the media. The child was named John Ono Lennon II, and was later buried in a secret location.

Two Minutes Silence follows; its contents are self-explanatory. Interestingly, in 1973 the couple released another silent track, Nutopian International Anthem on the Mind Games album, which followed their announcement of Nutopia, a conceptual country.

The final track on Life With The Lions is Radio Play, more than 12 minutes of a radio being turned on and off by Ono. Lennon can be heard in the background speaking on the telephone, and at one point The Beatles' Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da can be heard.

A 1997 compact disc reissue included to additional recordings made at Queen Charlotte Hospital. Song For John is a relatively conventional song featuring Ono singing over Lennon's acoustic guitar backing, while Mulberry has Lennon on slide guitar while Ono repeats the title word for nine minutes.

Lennon and Ono appeared on The David Frost Show in London on 14 June 1969, in which they talked about Unfinished Music No 2: Life With The Lions, as well as their peace campaigns.

If John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band is considered to be one of the most honest recordings ever released by a popular music superstar, then what is Life with the Lions?  The disdain of this album, particular among hardcore Beatle fans, is easy to understand.  Performers of some of the most wonderful pop/rock songs of all-time, Life with the Lions possesses no signs of harmony, rhythm or traditional song-structure whatsoever.  Since the greatest strengths of Lennon or McCartney are nary present here, it's easy to comprehend the adverse reaction many listeners have to this album.

But for those remaining listeners who really want some insight into the machinations of a global celebrity who has fallen in love and married a woman the world despises (possibly because she's a strong woman with feminist ideals, a Dada-ist artistic ethos, and Japanese [not the white, blond, blue-eyed trophy expected to drape the arm of a Beatle]), who has just suffered with her through the pain of miscarriage, and who is given no peace from the media, the music industry or people who just want a piece of their idol during this entire ordeal, then Life of the Lions is a necessary listening experience.

The centerpiece is "Cambridge 1969," John Lennon's first serious leap into the musical avant-garde as a guitar player.  Spewing feedback, at times pitchperfect with Yoko Ono's shrieking howl, this anti-music is more cathartic than any of the Sonic Youth guitar freakouts that would follow fifteen to twenty years later.  John Tchichai strengthens the avant-garde connection by contributing some free sax in the last minutes of the track.  Superior to similar output on Live Peace in Toronto 1969, an album mired by the superstar gala surrounding it (and the incompetent support of Eric Clapton and Alan White, who were clearly out of their element), "Cambridge 1969" is much more successful as an experimental piece of music than much of the "psychedelic" stuff passed off for innovative at that time.

The flip-side, though somewhat lacking in originality, is raw, and often too painful to listen to.  "No Bed for Beatle John" features Yoko Ono reading from newspaper articles about her husband in a lullaby voice ill-fitting of the content she is reading.  This is followed by the tragic "Baby's Heartbeat," a loop of the heartbeat of John & Yoko's miscarried child, creating immediate discomfort in the listener for prying into the private lives of these people.  The soothing, hypnotic sounds of the heart are rendered violent and cacophonous by the lo-fi recording on this track.  The final two tracks steal ideas from John Cage.  But where Cage's music is often brutally intellectual, "Two Minutes Silence" and "Radio Play" are completely visceral.  On the latter track, a beat-up transistor radio is manipulated to produce static beats, while in the background, we hear Lennon and Ono discussing business and taking phone calls.  This is performance art: for these Warhol-era superstars, the line between art and quotidian reality is so blurry that notions of self become immediately outdated.

This is a harsh, difficult recording to listen to.  Its challenge lies in its separation of art (and pop-cultural myth) from lived experience, of music from noise, of silence from sound.  How many albums can you think that do this?

Yet another Lennon/Ono masterpiece. This time the album includes actual music. But listen to the sonic soundscapes as well, like Radioplay and Baby's Heartbeat. Awesome stuff!

Yes, it is an acquired taste. But if you taste it long enough, you will want more!

Play it on headphones. Simply awesome.

Their second masterpiece.

John Lennon & Yoko Ono - 1968 - Unfinished Music No. 1 Two Virgins

John Lennon & Yoko Ono
1968
Unfinished Music No. 1 Two Virgins

01. Two Virgins No. 1
02. Together
03. Two Virgins No. 2
04. Two Virgins No. 3
05. Two Virgins No. 4
06. Two Virgins No. 5
07. Two Virgins No. 6
08. Hushabye Hushabye
09. Two Virgins No. 7
10. Two Virgins No. 8
11. Two Virgins No. 9
12. Two Virgins No. 10

CD Bonus:
13. Remember Love

John Lennon: vocals, piano, organ, percussion, effects, tape loops
Yoko Ono: vocals, tape loops
Pete Shotton: tape loops

The tracks are listed on the labels but its impossible to discern where one ends and another starts.
Both sides contain continuous tracks.

Fully laminated cover.

Apple Records. Recorded in John Lennon's home studio in Weybridge, Surrey, England, May 1968.

Track 13: (B-side to Give Peace A Chance) Produced by John and Yoko.
Recorded in Room 1742 Hotel La Reine, Elizabeth, Montreal by Les Studios
Andre Perry, 7585 Malo, Ville De Brossard, P.Q. Canada, June 1, 1969.

"Pop fanatics, please step off. This is musique concrete, if you don't know what that is don't listen to it. Leave your 'Love me Do' at the door"

unknown reviewer on Amazon

If you claim to like Anima, Nurse With Wound, Amon Düül, Throbbing Gristle, etc. etc. etc. yet you bag on this, you're full of shit. This is pretty much a lo-fi version of the above mentioned acts, full of tape loops and improvisation and shameless goofing off. Sure, it's not perfect by any means, but how can the sound of two people in love indulging in artistic experimentation inspire such hate from listeners? Just give it a chance. 

Don't come into this expecting an expanded take on "Revolution #9". This is a much more primitive and in-the-moment experience than that revolutionary piece.

Side One is absolutely spectacular the birds chirping plus Ono's shrieks coming in through a genuinely engaging build up always prevented from become too ethereal by warm piano chords. Engaging throughout. 9.5/10

Side Two sounds frustratingly far less inspired for the first six minutes with Yoko seeming completely misplaced being simultaneously boring and irritating. But then, by some miracle of composition and Lennon coming in vocally, Yoko snaps into place and for the second half of Side Two sounds even more stunning for a short time than Side One. 

John Lennon's first of three experimental albums made with Yoko Ono, Unfinished Music No 1: Two Virgins featured a controversial nude photograph on its front cover.

"I don't think I actually heard all of Two Virgins; just bits of it. I wasn't particularly into that kind of thing. That was his and her affair; their trip. They got involved with each other and were obviously into each other to such a degree that they thought everything they said or did was of world importance, and so they made it into records and films."

George Harrison

Anthology

The album was recorded in an all-night session at Kenwood, Lennon's home in Weybridge, Surrey. Lennon invited Ono over on 19 May 1968, the date which marked the beginning of their relationship.

Although married to Cynthia Lennon, he had become intrigued by the Japanese artist whom he had first met on 7 November 1966. The pair were in regular contact between those dates, and Lennon's invitation to Ono came while Cynthia was on a two-week holiday in Greece.

Two Virgins, as it later became known, was a spontaneous recording made in Lennon's music room, which was situated in the attic of Kenwood. The recordings included vocal improvisations, birdsong, amplifier feedback, distorted instruments and other sound effects.

The tapes also contained renditions of nursery rhymes, music hall songs and novelty piano tunes. An outtake from the recordings, unofficially known as Holding A Note, has also been issued on bootleg releases.

"When we got back from India, we were talking to each other on the phone. I called her over, it was the middle of the night and Cyn was away, and I thought, 'Well, now's the time if I'm going to get to know her any more.' She came to the house and I didn't know what to do; so we went upstairs to my studio and I played her all the tapes that I'd made, all this far-out stuff, some comedy stuff, and some electronic music. There were very few people I could play those tapes to. She was suitably impressed, and then she said, 'Well, let's make one ourselves,' so we made Two Virgins. It was midnight when we finished, and then we made love at dawn. It was very beautiful."

John Lennon, 1970

Lennon Remembers, Jann S Wenner

Two 78rpm discs were also incorporated into the recordings. The first was Together, written by George Buddy DeSylva, Lew Brown and Ray Henderson, was released in 1928 by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra, and featured Bix Beiderbecke on coronet.

The second was I'd Love To Fall Asleep And Wake Up In My Mammy's Arms, the b-side of Fred Douglas's 1921 single Margie. The music was written by Fred E Ahlert, and the words by Sam M Lewis and Joe Young. The snippet used on Two Virgins was retitled Hushabye Hushabye, a phrase from the song.

Lennon's childhood friend Pete Shotton, who had been at Kenwood when Ono arrived, later claimed that he had made several of the tape loops with Lennon. The recordings were made on two-track tape using a Brennel machine.

"Even before we made this record, I envisioned producing an album of hers and I could see this album cover of her being naked because her work was so pure. I couldn't think of any other way of presenting her. It wasn't a sensational idea or anything.
After Yoko and I met, I didn't realise I was in love with her. I was still thinking it was an artistic collaboration, as it were – producer and artist, right? We'd known each other for a couple of years. My ex-wife was away in Italy, and Yoko came to visit me and we took some acid. I was always shy with her, and she was shy, so instead of making love, we went upstairs and made tapes. I had this room full of different tapes where I would write and make strange loops and things like that for the Beatles' stuff. So we make a tape all night. She was doing her funny voices and I was pushing all different buttons on my tape recorder and getting sound effects. And then as the sun rose we made love and that was Two Virgins. That was the first time."

John Lennon, 1980

All We Are Saying, David Sheff

Although the avant-garde recordings of Two Virgins would prove unpalatable to most Beatles fans, more outrageous was the front cover photograph, which featured a nude photograph of John Lennon and Yoko Ono. The rear sleeve, fittingly, had a similarly naked shot of the couple with their backs to the camera.

"The cover was the mind-blower – I remember to this day the moment when they came in and showed me. I don't really remember the music, I'd have to play it now. But he showed me the cover and I pointed to the Times: 'Oh, you've even got the Times in it...' as if he didn't have his dick hanging out.
I said, 'Ah, come on, John. You're doing all this stuff and it may be cool for you, but you know we all have to answer. It doesn't matter; whichever one of us does something, we all have to answer for it.' He said, 'Oh, Ringo, you only have to answer the phone.' I said, 'OK, fine,' because it was true. The press would be calling up, and just at that point I didn't want to be bothered – but in the end that's all I had to do: answer the phone. It was fine. Two or three people phoned and I said: 'See, he's got the Times on the cover."

Ringo Starr

Anthology

The photograph was taken some months after the recording was made, in early October 1968. The shoot took place at the basement flat on London's Montagu Square, owned by Ringo Starr, where Lennon and Ono were temporarily living.

"We were both a bit embarrassed when we peeled off for the picture, so I took it myself with a delayed-action shutter. The picture was to prove that we are not a couple of demented freaks, that we are not deformed in any way and that our minds are healthy. If we can make society accept these kind of things without offence, without sniggering, then we shall be achieving our purpose.
What we did purposely is not have a pretty photograph; not have it lighted so as we looked sexy or good. There were a couple of other takes from that session where we looked rather nice, hid the little bits that aren't that beautiful; we looked good. We used the straightest, most unflattering picture just to show that we were human."

John Lennon

Anthology

Lennon gave the film to Jeremy Banks, a staff member at Apple Corps. Banks had it developed, and gave the prints to Derek Taylor, the company's press officer.

"John had just given Jeremy a roll of film and said, 'Get that developed, please.' And when he got it back and saw the nude pictures he said: 'This is mind-blowing.' Everything was always 'mind-blowing' to Jeremy, but – just that one time – he was actually right. He couldn't believe it."

Neil Aspinall

Anthology

Although he later admitted being shocked by the photography, Paul McCartney gave Lennon a quotation for the sleeve:

"When two great Saints meet, it is a humbling experience. The long battles to prove he was a Saint.
Paul McCartney

The album was eventually released in a brown paper bag to hide the cover. On the sleeve was a quotation from the Bible: "25. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed."

"I said: 'Right. OK. Fine. Let's get on with things. Let's do something about this.' It was very interesting and exciting, and I thought that here was a monumental problem with which we could deal. Life there was such an 'action-reaction' situation that this was just one more thrilling thing.
And, of course, the Sunday papers were at us, and at this photograph. This filthy thing! 'Look at These Filthy People!' and there was a big circle over the naughty part and an arrow: 'This is where the naughty part would be if people like us were not so decent. We wouldn't dream of showing it to you – but aren't they awful!'

So I found something – I got a Bible. There's always something to hand, isn't there? And there was a bit in the book of Genesis which said: 'The man and his wife were naked and not ashamed,' or something like that, which I thought was suitable. John and Yoko were not married – but hey! This was life and... 'Here's this thing in the Bible – now what are you press going to do about it?"

Derek Taylor

Anthology

Yoko Ono’s radical influence on pop history has inspired generations of visionary musicians. Deeply rooted in Fluxus, Ono’s newly-reissued early albums help to detail her broader artistic intentions.

Courting confusion is part of the job description for anyone working in the avant-garde. Some experimenters meet this requirement with the equivalent of a shrug, while others take to the task with more evident relish. For over half a century, the singer and visual artist Yoko Ono has found herself in the latter camp, gleefully scrawling her new approaches into the official ledgers of cultural production.

The editors of the recent volume Fluxbooks credit Ono’s 1964 Grapefruit as being “one of the first works of art in book form.” Ono’s early short films likewise helped expand cinematic practices. In the years before she started dating a Beatle, Ono sang with one of John Cage’s most trusted musical interpreters, and turned a New York loft space into a contemporary-art destination that drew the likes of Marcel Duchamp to her door.

Yet this multimedia artist’s most notorious act of provocation was her approach to becoming tabloid fodder. She took one of the world’s most popular musicians and hurried along his engagement with the experimental fringe (an attraction already evident in John Lennon’s work, as early as 1966’s Revolver). In some quarters, she’s never been forgiven for this. But Ono’s radical influence on pop history has also inspired generations of visionary artists.

The Lennon/Ono collaborative albums were a critical part of their take on celebrity coupledom. Their first two LPs carried the series title “Unfinished Music,” a conceptual gambit with deeper roots in the aesthetic of the Fluxus art movement than in that of the British Invasion. The first set to be issued, subtitled Two Virgins, was a sound-collage set reportedly produced during their first night together. The album’s name, and the full-frontal nudity of its cover, referenced the couple’s sense of innocence in approaching a new beginning—as well as the fact that the recording took place just prior to the consummation of their relationship.

As the product of a first date, Two Virgins is fascinating. As a sound artifact from the initial decade of Fluxus-inspired activity, it has plenty of competition. Casual clips of the couple’s conversations—mixed in alongside Lennon’s tape loops—blur the distinction between the private and the public-facing. This approach recalls efforts by some of Ono’s contemporaries, like Charlotte Moorman and Benjamin Patterson. But what makes Two Virgins distinct is the range of Ono’s voice. In the opening moments, she contributes some pure-tone humming, which sounds downright companionable amid Lennon’s meandering keyboard motifs and reverb tape-effects. Four-and-a-half-minutes in, Ono unleashes the first of her extended yelps, from the top of her range. Even if you know it’s coming, this sound always registers as shocking.

This aspect of Ono’s musicianship confused (and enraged) large portions of Lennon’s audience. Despite her purposeful variations of timbre and her ability to hit notes cleanly, Ono’s recourse to this proto-punk wail was often decried as unmusical. And after the White Album’s “Revolution 9”—a much tighter collage created by Lennon, Ono and George Harrison, now sometimes interpreted by classical musicians—she was often accused of being the driving agent behind the Beatles’ breakup.

Tensions from Beatlemania carry over into the couple’s second, less idyllic “Unfinished Music” release, subtitled Life With the Lions. Corporate tussles between the Beatles and their record label provide some of the inspiration for “No Bed for Beatle John,” a piece recorded in Ono’s hospital room, following a miscarriage. The album’s dominant track, though, is the side-length workout “Cambridge 1969,” a live recording driven by Lennon’s guitar feedback and Ono’s harshest vocalizations.

In failing to create much interest over its 26 minutes, “Cambridge 1969” reveals something important about Ono’s art. The performances of hers that work don’t do so merely because she can kick up a unique noise. Instead, the takes that have true liftoff usually find her switching up those extreme textures with greater frequency. Unlike some of the composers she hung out with, circa 1961, Ono is not a drone artist. She’s an expert in subtle variations, carved from blocks of seeming chaos.

Her 1970 album Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band is a triumph, in part, because it sounds fully aware of this reality. It’s also iconic because it contains some of Lennon’s most aggressive guitar work. Opener “Why” hurtles from its needle-drop opening, with slide guitar swoops and febrile picking that anticipate the variety of Ono’s vocal lines. When the singer enters, she wastes no time in applying a range of approaches to her one-word lyric sheet. Long expressions full of vibrato give way to shorter exhalations, rooted in the back of the throat. Spates of shredded laughter communicate the absurdist good humor that’s often present in Ono’s work. The minimalist pounding of drummer Ringo Starr and bassist Klaus Voormann is there as a foil, propped against all the invention on offer from Ono and Lennon.

“Why Not” inverts this script by arranging similar licks inside a slower tempo. Ono’s voice becomes more pinched and childlike, while Lennon’s guitar lines have a bluesier profile. Elsewhere, Ono puts a new spin on an “instruction” piece from her Grapefruit book, with the echo-laden “Greenfield Morning I Pushed an Empty Baby Carriage All Over the City.” Here, in another surprise, Ono’s voice sounds stolid and more traditionally “correct.” That feel is subsequently obliterated by the noisy middle section of “AOS,” a track Ono recorded in ’68 with saxophonist Ornette Coleman’s band. The Lennon-led backing group returns for the final two pieces of the original LP configuration, which have a comparatively calmer air.

Like Lennon’s ’70 solo album of the same name (and near-identical cover), Ono’s Plastic Ono Band initially scans as acerbic, yet manages to create a supple variety of song-forms from that opening template. Ono’s absorption of her new husband’s sonic language was only beginning to pay dividends, too. As Sean Lennon’s Chimera imprint and the Secretly Canadian label continue to reissue her catalog, Ono’s subsequent experiments with rock and pop formats will come into clearer view for audiences that have only heard rumors about her craft. Still, these opening reissues—which come complete with era-appropriate B-sides and outtakes—all manage to reflect a key aspect of Ono’s broader artistic intentions, as defined in a 1971 artist’s statement: “I like to fight the establishment by using methods that are so far removed from establishment-type thinking that the establishment doesn’t know how to fight back.”

Frank Zappa - 2017 - Halloween 77

Frank Zappa
2017
Halloween 77

10-28-77 Show 1

01. 10-28-77 Show 1 Start/Introductions (3:28)
02. Peaches En Regalia (2:42)
03. The Torture Never Stops (13:05)
04. Tryin' To Grow A Chin (3:37)
05. City Of Tiny Lites (6:04)
06. l Pound For A Brown (8:05)
07. Bobby Brown Goes Down (4:33)
08. Conehead (Instrumental) (9:19)
09. Flakes (4:03)
10. Big Leg Emma (1:47)
11. Envelopes (2:29)
12. Terry's Solo #1 (4:42)
13. Disco Boy (3:53)
14. Lather (3:36)
15. Wild Love (24:05)
16. Titties N Beer (7:16)
17. Audience Participation #1 (0:48)
18. The Black Page #2 (3:02)
19. Jones Crusher (2:48)
20. Broken Hearts Are For Assholes (3:52)
21. Punky's Whips (9:43)
22. Encore Audience #1 (1:21)
23. Dinah-Moe Humm (4:55)
24. Camarillo Brillo (3:35)
25. Muffin Man (4:36)


10-28-77 Show 2

01. 10-28-77 Show 2 Start/Introductions (3:13)
02. Peaches En Regalia (2:42)
03. The Torture Never Stops (12:33)
04. Tryin' To Grow A Chin (3:37)
05. City Of Tiny Lites (8:00)
06. Pound For A Brown (9:19)
07. Bobby Brown Goes Down (5:36)
08. Conehead (Instrumental) (9:18)
09. Flakes (4:10)
10. Big Leg Emma (1:48)
11. Envelopes (2:33)
12. Terry's Solo #2 (4:17)
13. Disco Boy (3:54)
14. Lather (3:42)
15. Wild Love[1] (26:01)
16. Titties N Beer (7:50)
17. Audience Participation #2 (2:37)
18. The Black Page #2 (3:14)
19. Jones Crusher (2:58)
20. Broken Hearts Are For Assholes (3:54)
21. Punky's Whips (9:51)
22. Encore Audience #2 (2:13)
23. Dinah-Moe Humm (4:01)
24. Camarillo Brillo (3:36)
25. Muffin Man (6:20)


10-29-77 Show 1

01. 10-29-77 Show 1 Start/Introductions (4:06)
02. Peaches En Regalia (2:42)
03. The Torture Never Stops (12:59)
04. Tryin' To Grow A Chin (3:34)
05. City Of Tiny Lites (7:15)
06. Pound For A Brown (8:26)
07. Bobby Brown Goes Down (6:06)
08. Conehead (Instrumental) (5:50)
09. Flakes (3:53)
10. Big Leg Emma (1:52)
11. Envelopes (2:42)
12. Terry's Solo #3 (3:51)
13. Disco Boy (3:57)
14. Lather (3:40)
15. Wild Love (22:51)
16. Titties N Beer (6:01)
17. Audience Participation #3 (2:42)
18. The Black Page #2 (3:05)
19. Jones Crusher (2:53)
20. Broken Hearts Are For Assholes (3:50)
21. Punky's Whips (9:18)
22. Encore Audience #3 (1:46)
23. Dinah-Moe Humm (5:12)
24. Camarillo Brillo (3:29)
25. Muffin Man (5:09)


10-29-77 Show 2

01. 10-29-77 Show 2 Start/Introductions (4:21)
02. Peaches En Regalia (2:42)
03. The Torture Never Stops (11:30)
04. Tryin' To Grow A Chin (3:36)
05. City Of Tiny Lites (7:01)
06. Pound For A Brown (9:05)
07. Bobby Brown Goes Down (9:12)
08. Conehead (Instrumental) (6:29)
09. Flakes (3:28)
10. Big Leg Emma (1:49)
11. Envelopes (2:52)
12. Terry's Solo #4 (4:07)
13. Disco Boy (3:54)
14. Lather (3:56)
15. Wild Love (27:33)
16. Titties N Beer (8:12)
17. Audience Participation #4 (5:02)
18. The Black Page #2 (2:57)
19. Jones Crusher (2:49)
20. Broken Hearts Are For Assholes (3:48)
21. Punky's Whips (9:36)
22. Encore Audience #4 (2:23)
23. Dinah-Moe Humm (6:19)
24. Camarillo Brillo (3:30)
25. Muffin Man (6:02)


10-30-77 Show

01. 10-30-77 Show Start (1:40)
02. Stink-Foot (7:45)
03. The Poodle Lecture (5:10)
04. Dirty Love (2:32)
05. Peaches En Regalia (2:40)
06. The Torture Never Stops (12:53)
07. Tryin' To Grow A Chin (3:32)
08. City Of Tiny Lites (7:36)
09. Pound For A Brown (10:03)
10. I Have Been In You (8:35)
11. Dancin' Fool (World Premiere) (4:50)
12. Jewish Princess (Prototype) (4:41)
13. King Kong (8:45)
14. Terry's Solo #5 (5:07)
15. Disco Boy (4:01)
16. Envelopes (2:19)
17. A Halloween Treat with Thomas Nordegg (6:17)
18. Lather (3:47)
19. Wild Love (25:19)
20. Titties N Beer (7:01)
21. Audience Participation #5 (8:28)
22. The Black Page #2 (2:59)
23. Jones Crusher (2:53)
24. Broken Hearts Are For Assholes (3:52)
25. Punky's Whips (12:36)
26. Encore Rap (1:11)
27. Dinah-Moe Humm (6:06)
28. Camarillo Brillo (3:27)
29. Muffin Man (5:18)
30. San Ber'dino (6:20)


10-31-77 Show

01. Halloween 1977 Show Start/Introductions (3:11)
02. Peaches En Regalia (2:42)
03. The Torture Never Stops (13:54)
04. Tryin' To Grow A Chin (3:35)
05. City Of Tiny Lites (8:17)
06. Pound For A Brown (13:40)
07. The Demise Of The Imported Rubber Goods Mask (8:33)
08. Bobby Brown Goes Down (3:49)
09. Conehead (Instrumental) (8:21)
10. Flakes (3:04)
11. Big Leg Emma (1:58)
12. Envelopes (2:25)
13. Terry's Halloween Solo (4:38)
14. Disco Boy (3:55)
15. Lather (3:58)
16. Wild Love (30:11)
17. Titties 'N' Beer (7:24)
18. Halloween Audience Participation (7:04)
19. The Black Page #2 (2:55)
20. Jones Crusher (2:58)
21. Broken Hearts Are For Assholes (3:52)
22. Punky's Whips (11:23)
23. Halloween Encore Audience I (2:07)
24. Dinah-Moe Humm (6:41)
25. Camarillo Brillo (3:24)
26. Muffin Man (5:21)
27. San Ber'dino (5:01)
28. Black Napkins (9:19)


Recorded during all 6 shows at The Palladium, NYC on Oct. 28 through Oct. 31, 1977
Special guests Roy Estrada, Thomas Nordegg, Phil Kaufman and New York's Finest Crazy Persons
This is official release #110

Frank Zappa (guitar, vocals)
Adrian Belew (guitar, vocals)
Terry Bozzio (drums, vocals)
Roy Estrada (gas mask, vocals)
Phil Kaufman ("human trombone")
Ed Mann (percussion)
Tommy Mars (keyboards, vocals)
Thomas Nordegg ("some magic tricks")
Patrick O'Hearn (bass)
Peter Wolf (keyboards)

baby snakes zappa from Ali Momeni on Vimeo.

Remembering Frank Zappa’s Epic 1977 Halloween Shows
By DAVID FRICKE

I missed the birth of a tradition – the advanced, instrumental ecstasy, cliff-edge improvisation and impromptu theatrical hijinks of Frank Zappa‘s annual Halloween concerts in New York City – by less than a week and a 90-minute drive. On November 5th, 1974, I saw Zappa in performance for the first time in Allentown, Pennsylvania, in a drafty livestock showroom on the Allentown Fairgrounds. The composer was leading the Mothers featured on that year’s live document, Roxy & Elsewhere, and they were – under his firm direction, despite the dire setting and matching acoustics – in thrilling military-drilled form.

Six days earlier, Zappa celebrated his first Halloween in New York – after ’72 and ’73 stands in Passaic, New Jersey, and Chicago respectively – with early and late shows of two hours each that established the city as Zappa’s mischief-night headquarters into the mid-Eighties. The repertoire on that night in ’74 spanned his entire, winding history in provocation and incisive adventure, going back to jump street – 1966’s Freak Out! – via the jazzy expanse of “Big Swifty” from 1972’s The Grand Wazoo and the devious accessibility of the ’74 chart shock, Apostrophe (‘). During the second set, Zappa also hit the trick-as-treat button, bringing Lance Loud – the aspiring glam-rock star and breakout gay icon from the proto–reality TV series, An American Family – onstage to join the vocal shenanigans.

In 1977, after three years of Halloween at the Felt Forum, Zappa moved to the Fillmore East–style atmosphere of the Palladium (formerly the Academy of Music). He also added shows to the run: six marathons over four nights, with the last two concerts on October 30th and 31st hitting the three-hour mark without intermission. As Zappa told the packed and delirious crowd early on the 31st, introducing the helium falsetto of an original Mother, guest vocalist Roy Estrada, in a “glam-rock opera” about a sexually aroused rubber mask: “You don’t want to have a regular Halloween, do ya? You want the best. You deserve the best. You’re gonna get the best.”

Forty years on – and nearly a quarter-century after Zappa’s passing in 1993 – “the best” has been unleashed in full by the Zappa Family Trust. Halloween 77: The Palladium, NYC (Zappa Records) is a digital-age box with the six concerts from introduction to encores, packed onto a USB stick packaged as a candy bar and accompanied by a Zappa mask and saucy T-shirt for masquerade enthusiasts. Non-completists and those on a budget can get the climax of the engagement on a three-CD set, Halloween 77: October 31st, 1977, with bonus tracks from the 30th (including a rare detour that week into Zappa’s signature instrumental “King Kong”). “By the end of a performance,” guitarist Adrian Belew writes in his liner notes, “I remember that happily-drained feeling. No more to give …”

This was, in fact, a band primed for giving, under Zappa’s strict, exuberant command: drummer Terry Bozzio and Patrick O’Hearn, precocious-fusion furies and comparative Zappa veterans of a year-and-change; keyboard players Tommy Mars and Peter Wolf; percussionist Ed Mann; and Belew, then on his first tour with Zappa and discovered by the latter earlier that year at a club gig in Nashville. Belew’s single year with Zappa would kick off the guitarist’s rapid ascent in the late Seventies and Eighties: next with David Bowie, then in Talking Heads and King Crimson. Mars and Mann would stay with Zappa, on record and the road, in various lineups, until the end of his touring life in 1988.

Zappa arrived at the Palladium in October 1977 under heavy legal weather. A deteriorating relationship with Warner Bros. Records, the distributor of his DiscReet label, reached an infuriating low that year when Warner Bros. refused to release Zappa’s next intended release, a four-LP anthology of new and archival work, Läther. When Zappa took the set to Mercury, planning to release it under his new Zappa Records imprint, Warner Bros. claimed rights to the recordings. Zappa was forced to carve that material across a series of separate LPs for the company while building a new album from scratch.

The Palladium shows were the start of that next record, 1978’s Sheik Yerbouti. In his liner notes, Belew cites “two- and three-hour soundchecks which were thinly disguised recording sessions” for the album. Two performances from that week of “Jones Crusher” and “Jewish Princess” were included on the ’78 double LP. Other Sheik Yerbouti songs that appeared nightly in the set lists included the galloping cynicism of “Broken Hearts Are for Assholes”; the breakneck sequence of “Tryin’ to Grow a Chin” and “City of Tiny Lites”; and Zappa’s biggest hit anywhere, the gleefully scabrous “Bobby Brown.” Issued as a single in 1979, it inexplicably went to Number One in Norway and Sweden. (A personal milestone: Sheik Yerbouti, completed with live recordings from Europe in early 1978, was the first album I ever reviewed for Rolling Stone.)

Zappa was also filming the Palladium concerts for what would become, with Bruce Bickford’s stop-motion clay animation, the 1979 film, Baby Snakes. At one point in the Halloween show, someone in the crowd complained about the glare of the house lights. “We can’t turn off the lights,” Zappa replied, “because we’re making movies of you.”

“Frank was the hardest working artist I have ever known,” Belew writes, “fueled by constant caffeine and cigarettes, and we tried our best to keep up with him.” Zappa, in turn, summarized his working methods and commitment this way, when I interviewed him in 1979 for the magazine Trouser Press: “I just do mine for me and people who happen to like it.”

Halloween 77, in both variations, captures Zappa in a late-Seventies outlaw prime: ignoring critical brickbats and serving a devout cult audience as he fires lethal lampoons of social self-righteousness and pop-culture jive through mock-Fifties grease, propulsive jazz-rock and roiling avant-instrumental challenge. There is surprising vintage material (“Big Leg Emma,” a 1967 non-LP single with the early Mothers); the crushing send-up of the glam-rock band Angel in “Punky’s Whips”; and “The Black Page #2,” a daunting, percussive composition named after the opaque density of Zappa’s written notation. “Wild Love,” which ultimately lasted four minutes on Sheik Yerbouti, goes for half an hour at every show, with Zappa generously spreading the soloing time around. He keeps one guitar showcase, “Conehead” – eight minutes of overdriven harmonics and Hot Rats–fusion slalom – for himself. There is a special encore gift on Halloween too: Zappa’s only outing that week on the Zoot Allures guitar-solo monster “Black Napkins.”

I missed it all, by just a few days, in 1974. I didn’t make that mistake again after moving to New York in 1978, celebrating Halloween week in the city with Zappa that year and then as often as fortune allowed until he retired the tradition, back at the Felt Forum, in 1984. When I interviewed Zappa in 1980 for Circus magazine, after the release of Baby Snakes, he characterized the film – and, by extension, the 1977 Palladium action in it – as “a statement on what people missed in the Seventies. You know the history of rock & roll, how in the Fifties everybody was cool and in the Sixties everybody was crazy and in the Seventies everybody was dull? This movie proves that not everybody was dull.”

Here, at last, is the soundtrack – all of it.

Ian Lynn - 1986 - Celebration

Ian Lynn
1986
Celebration

01. Celebration
02. Interlude #8
03. I Remember
04. The High Forest
05. Time Was
06. Interlude #9
07. Run For Home - Journey's End
08. Finale (Some Day)
09. Dream For Tomorrow

Bass, Choir – Andy Brown
Keyboards – Ian Lynn
Drums – Bob Jenkins
Flute, Saxophone, Choir – Pete Zorn
Guitar – Richie Brunton
Percussion – Martin Ditcham

Ian was performing in London's West End as a jazz pianist whilst still in his teens, and rose to prominence as a musician during the seventies when he became Musical Director for singer Barbara Dickson, a role he enjoyed for many years. In the same capacity, he also worked during that time with Sheena Easton, Gerry Rafferty, and Leo Sayer, performing all over the world in venues from intimate jazz clubs to massive football stadiums. 

Since then he has divided his efforts between writing scores for TV and film, and making documentary films, although still finding time to be asked to work with George Michael, Katrina and the Waves, Miriam Stockley (Adiemus), Lance Ellington and many stars of musical theatre such as Elaine Paige and Michael McCarthy. 

Film credits have included Sweet Talker (Taylor Hackford), The Clandestine Marriage (Sir Nigel Hawthorne) and one of 2006's Royal Premiere films, These Foolish Things, starring Lauren Bacall, Angelica Houston and Terence Stamp. In TV he has scored every genre of programme, from all the Great Railway Journeys series, to the TV feature film Bravo Two Zero.

He has lectured in film and music at Kingston University, and in media contextual studies at Ravensbourne College. He still enjoys teaching and runs a successful recording studio and video post-production suite, and enjoys doing his own camera work and video editing. 

Ian was invited to the States a few years ago to frontline the music for America's 400th celebrations. He also showcases new artists in selected venues such as Pizza on the Park and the Green Room in London, and is often on the lookout for preview venues. Ian now resides with his new wife, Margaret, in the Isle of Wight, where his maternal grandmother was born. Still a frequent visitor to the North Island, he hopes to develop a relationship with Classic FM in the promotion of classical music.

Ian Lynn - 1985 - Early Snow

Ian Lynn 
1985 
Early Snow

01. Introduction 0:09
02. Do You See / Seven Bridges 8:27
03. Golden Days 4:15
04. Interlude #5 1:04
05. When Winter Comes 8:25
06. Snow Mountain 4:47
07. Interlude #6 1:47
08. The River 6:21
09. Interlude #7 1:18
10. Earth Song 5:51

Drums – Bob Jenkins
Percussion – Martin Ditcham
Synthesizer, Vocoder, Piano, Flute, Electric Piano, Clavinet, Vibraphone – Ian Lynn
Bass - Mo Foster
Vocals - Basia

Largely unknown multi-instrumentalist from the UK. An early to mid 1980s instrumental cd mixing vibes, drums and keyboards. Not quite soft jazz and not quite new age either. A melting fusion of jazz and melodic instrumental music. Ian has a penchant for melodic hooks and really knows the fine art of using synthesizers as a painter utilizes a color wheel. All of his solo discs on the UK MMC label are very good and follow a sort of seasonal theme. Uplifting with the pine sap ruining your audio clear coat!!

As its title suggests, Early Snow is decidedly more wintry in flavour, both compositionally and sonically, despite an expanded complement of instrumentation, now including the Roland Jupiter 8, Roland Vocoder Plus, Yamaha acoustic piano, flute and DX7 synthesizer, Premier vibes, Fender Rhodes electric piano, Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 and Hohner clavinet. Once again, Bob Jenkins plays drums and Martin Ditcham plays percussion, but with bass duties now in the hands of the redoubtable Mo Foster (check out his magnificent 1988 album Bel Assis) and (wordless) vocals c/o Basia. Oddly, though, despite Mo Foster's deserved reputation as a fine bass player, I prefer the sound of Ian Lynn's Rose Morris Westwood bass playing on Forgotten Summer.

As was its predecessor, this album was written, arranged and produced by Ian Lynn, recorded at Front Room Recorders and Nivram Studios by Ian Lynn, Dennis Weinreich and Dick Plant and mixed by Dennis Weinreich in 1986.

As a follow up to Forgotten Summer, Early Snow is a fair effort, once again (almost) entirely instrumental but it lacks the magical atmosphere and coherent, end-to-end flow of its predecessor, whilst its sound quality isn't as good either. But it's not at all bad, and worth having to complete the pairing.

Ian Lynn - 1984 - Forgotten Summer

Ian Lynn
1984
Forgotten Summer

01. Another Good Reason
02. Interlude #1
03. Forgotten Summer
04. Interlude #2
05. Grey Sky Blue
06. Some Day Soon
07. Sun Dance
08. Interlude #3
09. The Waltz
10. Interlude #4
11. First Finale

Drums [Pearl Drums] – Bob Jenkins
Percussion – Martin Ditcham
Piano, Electric Piano, Synthesizer, Synthesizer, Clavinet, Synthesizer, Bass – Ian Lynn

This is an all instrumental treasure that's worth its weight in gold. Mr Lynn plays all manner of keyboards, including acoustic piano, organ, Fender Rhodes electric piano, Sequential Circuit Prophet 5, Mini-Moog, Hohner clavinet and the ancient Crewmar Brassman, along with the Rose Morris Westwood bass, the sound of which here is superbly delineated. Fine support is provided by Bob Jenkins on drums and Martin Ditcham on percussion. Had Rick Wakeman written and performed this, he would have been justifiably proud ~ it's better even than Six Wives in my book. If he's ever heard it, I'll bet he wish he had.

Following the (quite long) storming opener, Another Good Reason, the album moves into more pastoral territory, but it isn't dull for a single moment. Rather, it really does capture the essence of a nearly forgotten summer, with many wonderfully evocative moments, moving to a brilliant climax with First Finale. Not to be overlooked, though, is the wonderful closer to (what was) Side 1, Grey Sky Blue(s), which rounds off in superb style the first half of a magnificently coherent album ~ a concept album, I suppose.

Written, arranged and produced by Mr Lynn, the album was recorded at Millstream and Scorpio Sound and engineered by Nick Critchley and Dennis Weinrich, who also did the mixing, all in late 1980. Forgotten Summer was highly regarded at the time of its release and apparently gained him much work in the professional music world.

Find Forgotten Summer and buy it. Your life will be enriched. 35 years on, I still love this album and play it regularly.

Bobby Rodriguez - 1973 - Simply Macrame

Bobby Rodriguez 
1973
Simply Macrame

01. Simply Macrame 16:20
02. Straight, No Changes 4:07
03. Caramba 6:43
04. Judy's In Love 6:05

Alto Saxophone – Hush Preston, Jim Edwards
Alto Saxophone [Solos] – Joe Curazzato
Baritone Saxophone – Jim Sharp
Bass – Ron Chretin
Congas – Kuumba
Drums – Ndugu
Percussion – Angel, Tony Rodarte
Piano – Sam Garcia
Tenor Saxophone – Tony Garcia
Tenor Saxophone, Flute [Solo] – Ray Bojorquez
Trombone – Jeff Dean, Mike Vladcavich, Peter Beltran
Trombone [Solo] – Doug Wintz
Trumpet – Brian Hori, Michael Mercado, Tom Sawzee, Tony Farrell
Trumpet, Producer – Bobby Rodriguez
Vocals – Betty Macias

Recorded: November 21, 1973

Incredible 16 minute latin jazz variation on Freddie Hubbard's 'Little Sunflower', featuring a heavyweight line up including James Mtume & Ndugu Chancler

“Wow, wow, wow, wow, this is just incredible! I think that everybody should have this record, what an incredible version of Little Sunflower” Gilles Peterson, BBC Radio 6 / Worldwide FM

Originally recorded and privately pressed in 1973 on Jazz-Men Records, “Simply Macrame” contains a 16 minute rendition of Freddie Hubbard’s ‘Little Sunflower’, taking it to an entirely new landscape complete with vocals from Betty Macias.

The young Bobby Rodriguez really shows off his skills as a big-band leader, with a total of 21 musicians credited in the liner notes. Although this record is rare, Bobby Rodriguez is not unknown and remains quite active in the music scene in his hometown of Los Angeles. In 2000 his “Latin Jazz Explosion” album was nominated for a Grammy, and is presently director of Latin Jazz Music and Jazz Trumpet at UCLA, UCI, and Pasadena City College.

Sand - 2016 - His First Steps

Sand
2016 
His First Steps

01. Helly Copter 11:27
02. An Old Loggerhead 10:02
03. When The May Rain Comes 2:51
04. Standing On The Corner (Mono) 4:19
05. Julia 9:21

Recorded 1972-3.

In 1974, an obscure German band called Sand released their debut LP, Golem. Like a lot of psychedelic and experimental rock albums from that period, the album obtained a cult following over time, and was reissued a few times during this decade. This album was recorded in 1972, and is basically an early version of Golem. Listening to it, it’s almost astonishing at how much it anticipates people like Coil and Current 93. C93 actually covered one of the songs on this album and Nurse with Wound’s Steven Stapleton did the cover art. The first side features 2 10-minute tracks; “Helly Copter” is very hypnotic and kind of demonic. “An Old Loggerhead” is also, but it’s a lot more sparse and it seems like there’s a lot less happening. The first two songs on second side are comparatively more poppy, but only compared to the first side. “When the May Rain Comes” (the song C93 covered) is the shortest and folkiest song, and yes, it sounds a lot like the apocalyptic folk style that C93 would become infamous for. “Standing On the Corner” is a bit more upbeat, at least musically, with a puttering drum machine and repetitive lyrics about “standing on the corner with my feet soaking wet”. “Julia” is longer and sort of feels like a sort of opera, with 2 distinct parts. Very hypnotic and slowly progressing, with sparse, eerie melodies and echoed vocals. The album feels like a sort of lost chapter in psych/Krautrock history.

Sand - 2014 - North Atlantic Raven

Sand
2014
North Atlantic Raven

01. Golemanation
02. Dance On
03. High Tension

Unreleased 4th album from 70's
Limited and numbered edition of 500 copies

Johannes Vester: vocals, guitar, VCS3
Ludwig Papenberg: congas, VCS3, drum box, guitar, organ
Ulrich Papenberg: bass.

Guests on "High Tension":
Klaus Pankau, electric guitar
Micky Westphal, bass
Dietmar Burmeister, drums

Cover painting by Babs Santini.

The once croaking raven now silently flew over the ocean, higher and higher.

Where are you rolling, sun-ball, and why don’t you fall?

The sandy Golem crumbled into dust. His brave struggle against the mighty forces of darkness soon was dissolving in voiceless space.

Previously unreleased album by German trio Sand, composed and recorded in 1973, '75, and '76. The once-croaking raven now flies silently over the ocean, higher and higher. Where are you rolling, sun-ball, and why don't you fall? The sandy Golem crumbled into dust. His brave struggle against the mighty forces of darkness soon dissolved in voiceless space. There is something magical and inexplicable in creation, and Sand absolutely manifest these mysterious phenomena. Storytellers, musicians, shamans, geniuses -- Sand were known, at the end of the '60s, as P.O.T. (Part of Time). Then Sand -- Ludwig Papenberg, his brother Ulrich Papenberg, and Johannes Vester -- developed a more avant-gardist, proto-industrial, visionary, experimental approach, becoming a truly unique entity in the history of music. Not dependent on a classic krautrock style, Sand is nevertheless part of this movement of German cosmic/psychedelic bands, in addition to being the originators of proto industrial musics. 

Sand - 2012 - Sylph Ballet

Sand 
2012
Sylph Ballet

01. Coastal Nightwalk
02. Amelith/Room
03. Dawn Levitation
04. The Morning Has Blown You Away
05. Giving Golem Respiration
06. Her Broken Wing – Passing My Window
07. Upon Eleven Black Horses
08. A Cosy Trance Of Hibernation
09. Water

Johannes Vester: lyrics, vocals, guitar, VCS3, harmonium, collateral piano,

Ludwig Papenberg: guitar, drums, collateral piano, VCS3

Ulrich Papenberg: bass, generator

Guest: 

Jörg Welz: grand piano

Still living in the mythical landscapes SAND not only created Golem who was a being of the earth. Something else pulsated with a different energy of oscillation. The invisible beings of the air performed their dances. The Golem was large, mighty and of compact matter. He needed an external spirit to be navigated. Sylph creatures moved with the clouds and the wind – from gentle breezes to violent storms, always sensitive to the chimes of the motions. The sylphs are the children of the moonlight as well as the elves with broken wings.The sylph ballet is riding upon ethereal horses and its airy spirit comes true in dawn levitation.

Previously unreleased album from the '70s by German trio Sand. Still living in the mythical landscapes, Sand not not only created Golem (ROTOR 006CD/LP/BLU-LP/PIC-LP, 1974), who was a being of the earth. Something else pulsated with a different energy of oscillation. The invisible beings of the air performed their dances. The Golem was large, mighty and of compact matter. He needed an external spirit to be navigated. Sylph creatures moved with the clouds and the wind -- from gentle breezes to violent storms, always sensitive to the chimes of the motions. The sylphs are the children of the moonlight as well as the elves with broken wings. The Sylph Ballet is riding upon ethereal horses and its airy spirit comes true in dawn levitation. There is something magical and inexplicable in creation, and Sand absolutely manifest these mysterious phenomena. Storytellers, musicians, shamans, geniuses -- Sand were known, at the end of the '60s, as P.O.T. (Part of Time). Then Sand -- Ludwig Papenberg, his brother Ulrich Papenberg, and Johannes Vester -- developed a more avant-gardist, proto-industrial, visionary, experimental approach, becoming a truly unique entity in the history of music. Not dependent on a classic krautrock style, Sand is nevertheless part of this movement of German cosmic/psychedelic bands, in addition to being the originators of proto-industrial musics. 

Sand - 2011 - Desert Navigation

Sand
2011
Desert Navigation

01. Vulture I 5:39
02. Touch The Tyrants 6:21
03. Tendrara 6:20
04. Desert Storm 10:44
05. Burning House 2:06
06. Vulture II 3:55

Johannes Vester - lyrics, vocals, synthesizers, guitar, organ, harmonium
Ludwig Papenberg - synthesizers, organ, generator, guitar, bongos
Ulrich Papenberg - bass

Guests:
Christa Schunke - chorus
Claudia Utke - synthesizer
Dietmar Burmeister - drums
Jörg Hahnfeld - acoustic guitar
Klaus Pankau - electric and acoustic guitars
Martine Rossi-Merue - vocals
Michael (Micky) Westphal - bass.

Sand dissolved sometime around 75', but history prooved they had much more to offer than one album.This unreleased compilation of recordings includes stuff for a never released second album as well as later compositions of Ludwig Papenberg and Johannes Vester.The music is somewhere in the middle between Kraut eletronics and Psych/Folk with an experimental edge.Lots of synthesizers, oscillators, cosmic effects to go along with psychedelic drumming, wordless voices and folky explorations.A bit more diverse than the debut and definitely more convincing.Fans of Experimental/Kosmische Prog will enjoy this one mostly.

Previously unreleased album by German trio Sand, recorded 1973-1982. Live events in the quarry and an archaic sound formed the background music of the young atomic age. In the meantime, after endless trance garage sessions, Sand drifted from the mythical landscapes to Berlin and mingled with various oriental influences. Vultures were scudding along the urban canyons while burning houses illuminated the skyline. Sand navigated in obscure spheres and discovered Tendrara. There is something magical and inexplicable in creation, and Sand absolutely manifest these mysterious phenomena. Storytellers, musicians, shamans, geniuses -- Sand were known, at the end of the '60s, as P.O.T. (Part of Time). Then Sand -- Ludwig Papenberg, his brother Ulrich Papenberg, and Johannes Vester -- developed a more avant-gardist, proto-industrial, visionary, experimental approach, becoming a truly unique entity in the history of music. Not dependent on a classic krautrock style, Sand is nevertheless part of this movement of German cosmic/psychedelic bands, in addition to being the originators of proto-industrial musics. Johannes Vester: lyrics, vocals , synthesizers, guitar, organ, harmonium. Ludwig Papenberg: synthesizers, organ, generator, guitar, bongos. Ulrich Papenberg: bass. Guests: Christa Schunke, chorus; Claudia Utke, synthesizer; Dietmar Burmeister, drums; Jörg Hahnfeld, acoustic guitar; Klaus Pankau, electric and acoustic guitars; Martine Rossi-Merue, vocals; Michael (Micky) Westphal, bass. Remastered by Hervé de Keroullas, 2008. Graphic Design by Frédéric Tacer, 2011. Cover painting by Babs Santini, 2009. CD in six-panel digipak.

2017 remastered edition, with new standard glossy jackets. Texture and feeling of 1975 with boosted audiophile sound quality. Black vinyl version. Previously unreleased album by German trio Sand, recorded 1973-1982. Live events in the quarry and an archaic sound formed the background music of the young atomic age. In the meantime, after endless trance garage sessions, Sand drifted from the mythical landscapes to Berlin and mingled with various oriental influences. Vultures were scudding along the urban canyons while burning houses illuminated the skyline. Sand navigated in obscure spheres and discovered Tendrara. There is something magical and inexplicable in creation, and Sand absolutely manifest these mysterious phenomena. Storytellers, musicians, shamans, geniuses -- Sand were known, at the end of the '60s, as P.O.T. (Part of Time). Then Sand -- Ludwig Papenberg, his brother Ulrich Papenberg, and Johannes Vester -- developed a more avant-gardist, proto-industrial, visionary, experimental approach, becoming a truly unique entity in the history of music. Not dependent on a classic krautrock style, Sand is nevertheless part of this movement of German cosmic/psychedelic bands, in addition to being the originators of proto-industrial musics. Live events in the quarry and an archaic sound formed the background music of the young atomic age. In the meantime the desert storm accumulated in endless trance garage sessions. Then Sand drifted from the mythical landscapes to Berlin and mingled with various oriental influences. Vultures were scudding along the urban canyons whilst burning houses illuminated the skyline. Sand navigated in obscure spheres and discovered Tendrara.

Sand - 1974 - Golem

Sand 
1974
Golem

01. Helicopter 13:40
02. The Old Loggerhead 8:20
03. May Rain 4:30
04. On The Corner 4:30
05. Sarah 10:40
a. Part I (Passacaille)
b. Part II (Per Aspera Ad Astra)


Bass Guitar, Percussion, Chorus – Ulrich Papenberg
Electric Piano [Electronic Piano] – Christian von der Schulenburg (tracks: B3)
Guitar [Guitars], Organ, Electronic Drums, Chorus – Ludwig Papenberg
Lead Vocals, Synthesizer [VCS 3 Synthesizer], Chorus – Hannes Vester

Recorded By – Klaus Schulze

Golem is widely regarded to be a lost psychedelic masterpiece among the sorts of people who are interested in such things, numbering David Tibet, Stephen Stapleton, and Julian Cope among its more outspoken champions.  In fact, Current 93 even covered "May Rain" on Thunder Perfect Mind.  Now, 36 years after it initially appeared, Golem has finally been reissued for the first time in its original form (though it previously surfaced as part of Durtro's Ultrasonic Seraphim retrospective in 1996). I don't think I'd quite call it a masterpiece myself, but it is definitely one of the more memorably bizarre albums to emerge from the krautrock milieu and that is certainly no small feat.

Curiously, both the cause of Sand's dissatisfaction with Golem and one of the primary reasons for its semi-legendary status share an identical root: producer Klaus Schulze. At the time, Schulze and engineer Manfred Schunke were developing a proto-surround sound recording technique called Artificial Head Stereo Sound and this was one of the first albums to make use of the new technology (and the only one that is still remembered today).  On the downside, the technique apparently compromised the music's dynamics, much to Sand's lasting chagrin.  However, the upside is that Golem sounds crazily vibrant and hallucinatory on headphones and whatever dynamic disasters befell the album are probably unnoticeable to anyone who was not in the band.  I have to side with Klaus on this one.

While the production is definitely a key element to the album's appeal, Sand were also pretty weird in their own right.  For one thing, only two of the three band members (the Papenburg brothers) were "serious" musicians, as the band became Sand after Part of Time's organist and drummer quit.  As such, these songs generally have a very skeletal and oft-dirgelike structure, often just a bass and a synthesizer, or a bass and a guitar.  Despite his lack of instrumental prowess, however, vocalist Johann Vester was the band's resident visionary, contributing both tripped-out atmospheric synth burbling and whooshing as well as some very impressively weird and evocative lyrics (a feat made more impressive by the fact that he was a German singing in English).

It is easy to hear why this appealed to David Tibet so much when he found it in Stephen Stapleton's record collection that fateful day, as Vester seems something like a mad prophet ranting poetically though a gurgling, panning, swooping, and flanging haze.  In fact, it even seems like some moments on this album may have had a direct influence on what Current 93 eventually became, like the moment in "Helicopter" where Johannes portentously sings "And the air is dark and strange and cold…it's moving there," which triggered a flicker of "All the Stars Are Dead Now" in my mind.  At the very least, Golem certainly falls awkwardly into the pantheon of apocalyptic folk that predated Current 93's eventual perfection of the form.

The biggest downside to Golem for me is that Johannes Vester is a rather unique vocalist, to put it politely.  I think he sounds a lot like an agitated leprechaun at times during "Helicopter," but Julian Cope has more insightfully described his unique aesthetic as "post-apocalyptic space-cockney."  My other problem is the song "On the Corner," which clumsily wrecks the lysergic gnomes-and-ghosts-and-dark-forests vibe of the album with some utterly baffling hippified blues rock and over-exuberant conga playing from Schulze.  Even the lyrics are mundane—I don’t get it at all.   Also, I think the Current 93 version of May Rain hopelessly eclipses the original, but I suppose that is an inherent hazard in letting David Tibet cover one of your songs. However, none of those grievances change the fact that this was (and is) a deeply aberrant and unique record:  Golem is the sound of cutting edge analog mindfuckery circa 1974 and no one else has quite made anything like it.  I can't call the experiment a complete success by any means, but "batshit crazy, but flawed" still trumps most other music in my book.

Review by Julian Cope:

When Gento and Yogi finally fled back to their homes in Bodenwerder, in Lower Saxony, they were looking for normality and safety. As members of the burgeoning Krautrock scene, they had loved their Cologne show supporting Can, and believed that their band Part Of Time could only become bigger and better. But they were all from the fanstastic land of Baron Munchhausen, a beautiful rural area whose biggest local town was the fairy-tale Hamelin, where once had come the famed and legendary Pied Piper. And though each was intrigued by these industrial cities in which they had been called upon to perform, they had all grown up playing in the woods and ancient quarries of the mysterious Weser Valley. Yes, they wanted to play the new rock’n’roll, but all were still mistrustful of the druggies and weirdos which permeated their new lives - full of student demonstration, anti-Cold War attitude and communal living. And so, when the rest of Part of Time decided to move to Berlin, both Gento and Yogi freaked out and quit the band.

Of course, this left the Papenburg brothers in a real fix. Both Ludwig and Ulrich were excellent musicians, but how should they proceed? Their lead singer Johannes Vester was a visionary lyricist, but he was no musician. True, he contributed a mean short wave radio to the soup of their live sound, but it was hardly going to help now that the drummer and organist had both run back to the forest.

However, this was the experimental Krautrock scene of 1972, and anything was possible. Can’s manager, Manfred Schmidt, had been enormously impressed by Part of Time’s performance in Cologne. He had sat up half the night listening to Johannes Vester’s notions of where experimental rock’n’roll should go next. And he had introduced Vester and the two Papenburg brothers to Klaus Schulze, who had in turn encouraged their plans to move to his own city Berlin, where anything was possible, and the weirder the better.

And so Sand was born - a cosmic and drummerless trio with a lead singer who played VCS3 synthesizer and sang mysterious and pedantic English lyrics in a voice like a Frisian Puritan reared on Melanie Kafka and David Bowie. Sample lyric? "He is an old loggerhead - actually long ago he is dead." Reviewer’s comment: Nuff said.

On arrival in Berlin, these three longhairs beat a path to Klaus Schulze’s front door and asked him to produce their first LP, to be entitled Golem. Why did they want to call it Golem? Well, Golem was a mysterious Jewish figure from the 16th century who had been fashioned out of the earth. The members of Sand used ‘Golem’ as a verb to describe the transmutations which occurred when they played together. In the words of Johannes Vester:

"To experience with the unknown, to give life... that was our impulse... [those lyrics expressed] exactly what was in our mind when we Golemned." 

And so it happened that Klaus Schulze recorded five strange and extended ambient ballads by a trio of little people from Lower Saxony, who each knew precisely what sound they wished to achieve. Some of the songs hung around from their days as Part of Time, but these, now without drums or organ, were considerably extended in duration in order to consciously create "reduction, frugality, monotony, even mantric principles and elements", as Johannes Vester would later comment.

And so long as the results sounded like nothing else ever heard before they would all be quite happy. And quietly and seemingly quite easily, they achieved this goal. For Golem is a beautifully mystical and hauntingly empty record, inhabiting those same pre-industrial landscapes in which they had played as children. The songs were occasionally propelled by picked glassy acoustic guitars and pulsing monolithic bass, as though powered by the heartbeats of frost giants delicately picking their way through their ancient Saxon township in outsize and ill-fitting seven league boots. But often-as-not the music was left to hang in mid air, as hauntingly weird translated lyrics, strangely sung in some undefined post-apocalyptic space-cockney sauntered and cooed out their bee-zarre message over washes of belt-driven synthesizers and a-rhythmic agricultural ur-folk music. 

It must also be understood that this Sand LP was recorded at a time when Klaus Schulze was actually being paid by Membran Records of Berlin to experiment with the famous Kunstkopf-Stereophonie or Artificial Head Stereo Sound, in which a whole other world was placed in the headphones of those listeners who wanted to go beyond the Quadrophonic of the day. There was a plethora of recording and mixing aids being used in the early-mid 1970s, many of which followed on naturally from the 1960s Hi-Fi industry boom. But probably equal amounts were generated through the desires of sonic experimenters such as Karlheinz Stockhausen. This culminated in a situation wherein many different composers, utilising any number of variously-sized loudspeakers placed in different configurations around the audience, gradually allowed the technology itself to dominate their work rather than enhance it. Fortunately, though the Artificial Head technique did compromise the final mix of many of these LPs, the effects achieved when wearing headphones are still remarkable today. It really does do your head in. So when you listen to this Sand LP, get the cans on, babies - it’s a stone groove of ambulent proportions. Unfortunately, though Membran’s experimental record label Delta Acustic simultaneously released several other experimental ‘rock’ LPs, it is said that the Sand LP is by far the most achieving and entertaining.1

Golem begins with "Helicopter" in which the phased vocals and twittering VCS3 of Johannes Vester set up a sound worthy enough to accompany some newly-imported space religion. A few minutes into this comes the electronic pulsings of Ludwig Papenburg and the strummed bass of Uli Papenburg, rhythmic but wholly uninterested in the 4/4 beats of rock’n’roll. Their sea shanty listing ship rocks from side to side, as Johannes Vester takes up the story:

"In the sky is flying high a blackbird with a dusty cry,

On the hills the ravens croak while satyr plays a dreadful joke,

By the water damp fog whirls see the smoking steaming earth,

And the air is dark and strange and cold."

Where does this guy get his pronunciation from? Is this a regular voice in Bodenwerder? Are orators of his type ten-a-penny round his neck of the woods? Or does Johannes Vester inhabit the peripheries of every neighbourhood? Around eight or so minutes into "Helicopter", a whole other rhythm takes over and we’re suddenly pitched into a world of the recent dead. Now, Vester is some north European shaman summoning reluctant spirits out of their graves. Just as Odin pissed off the sleeping Goddesses with his acts of midnight seething, so then up pops Johannes to do the same to poor old sleeping Allfather himself. 

Next up is that crazy "Old Loggerhead" song, which kicks off with the eeriest harmonica and synthesizer-cross-the-swamp. Down comes the slow descending bass chords of Uli Papenburg, as Vester begins his next strange tale of dark forest characters at the edge of sleepy dark age townships.

"He scraped a living in a ramshackle cot

Outside the village near the mystery wood."

Of course Old Loggerhead’s behaviour is far too anti-social for the locals, themselves guilty of all kinds of clandestine habits. And Vester continues his tale of how:

"Once some fellows stalked up to his shack

They used caution - took the old beaten track

Painted a white cross on the brittle gate

So they marked the place of imaginary fate

And they returned to their peace-loving folk

Reported excited on the nocturnal joke."

Hearing Vester pronounce the phrase ‘once some fellows’ is a revelation in itself. And when he tells of Old Loggerhead’s disappearance with a ‘sinister giggle’ the effect is quite superbly chilling. And, as I said at the start of the review, you can’t get a better lyrical pay-off than:

"He was an Old Loggerhead - and actually long ago he is dead."

Side Two opens with the Alpen folk of "May Rain", a strange cross between Pearls Before Swine and Witthusser & Westrupp, with a melody directly from Can’s "Vitamin C". Mallet-balalaika and picked winter acoustics hurry along this hook-nosed song like long-coated spirit-Fagins on some unknown stroke-of-midnight mission to the gates of Hel (sic).

By the time we come to "On the Corner", Vester’s dialect has become cross-continental. He moves happily and effortlessly from a kind of Brummie-Swiss Syd Barrett to cartoon Norwegian milkmaid and her cow, via South Africa and the Amish - and sometimes all in the space of one line of lyrics. "On the Corner" is the catchy one. Y’know how certain songs sound like singles NOT because they’re commercial, but because they are just not nearly so fucking weird as the stuff that’s gone before. Well "On the Corner" is that guy. Starts with boogie drum-machine, moves through several (catchy) rhythm changes, then out of the blue settles on the single-most jarring and inappropriate cajun soul beat you ever did hear. Hear it the first time you laugh. Then you whizz back in case you misheard. Then you listen one final time for pleasure and the sheer audacity of THAT beginning. Finally you hear the entire song, and by the way it is great.

"Well, I’m standing on the corner with my feet soaking wet," sings Johannes Vester, over a soul bass line and an acoustic guitar and not much else. Maybe his voice is just a fucking genius joke because the guy sounds like a sheep-shagger. I’m not saying he is but he don’t half sound like it. Sounds like the biggest hick yokel ever allowed in the recording studio - makes "Da Da Da" by Trio sound truly worldly wise and city slick! And when we get to the line about Johannes having ‘a pain in my bones’, he really makes the overly-mannered pronunciation of Marc Bolan and Donovan sound bog standard in comparison. 

The album closes with the ten-minute two-part epic called "Sarah" - a sort of Not Available-period Residential lost-Child-Goddess-in-the-attic-of-the-world tale. Part one asks the same question over and over again: "Is it you Sarah? No, it’s the storm." The sounds are atmospheres which fall and rise like the breathing of the twilight wind on the Marlborough Downs. The music is the movement of the Sun glimpsed from some ancient eminence in that final hemi-second before it dips below the horizon. And, of course, by the middle of this song, it has become quite clear that Sarah and the storm are one. And even though Sarah the Storm Giantess has picked her way everso carefully though their neighbourhood, she has still "uncovered all the fields" and "petrified trees". And so, uncover of darkness, Sarah is "gone with the stream". Sarah is gone, Sarah is gone, Sarah is gone, Sarah is gone, Sarah is gone... fade... Sarah is gone... fade... Sarah is gone...

And so the Golem LP finishes. Sand had a truly eternal sound. Like the Mongolfier Brothers hanging above 19th century Paris, it is so close but so out-of-reach that you could imagine them all blowing away at any moment - a life-threatening experiment which seems superficially simple to achieve. And this is what you hear on W.S.Y.M. Unfortunately, it is nowadays quite impossible to buy this LP is the original format. So please beware that the modern Sand reissue suffers from that horrid modern phenomenon - Extra Tracks! O Yeah! You get no sense of the single-mindedness which Sand used for their original muse. There’s not even a nice big 30-second gap between "Sarah" and the following piece. Instead, beware that you get unnecessary demo versions of LP tracks aplenty plus a very nice unreleased solo LP by Johannes Vester.2 This lot all comes under the banner Ultrasonic Seraphim, which you have to buy to get to the real deal. That said, several of the tracks are really fucking great. It’s just a shame that it all gets mish-mashed (and even horribly cross-faded at times) in the dreaded name of Good Value. Still, it would be horribly churlish of me not to praise this reissue, because I myself wouldn’t even have had a copy otherwise. So enter the world of Sand with both feet jumping and you’ll descend into a quicksand - keep your hands free and close to the CD eject button. But dig this fucking weird Saxony sound and fill your heart. You know it makes no sense.