This Review Along With 300+ Others Is Available In My
SOUNDS GOOD E-Book on all Amazon sites
1960s and 1970s MUSIC ON CD - Volume 1 of 3 - Exceptional CD Remasters
As well as 1960s and 1970s Rock and Pop - It Also Focuses On
Blues Rock, Prog Rock, Psych, Avant Garde and Underground
Just Click Below To Purchase for £3.95
Thousands of E-Pages - All Details and In-Depth Reviews From Discs
(No Cut and Paste Crap)
(No Cut and Paste Crap)
"...Board Game In The
Cotswolds..."
What you've got here is a
reissue of a reissue.
I first saw the CD variant
of Gryphon's third studio album "Red Queen To Gryphon Three" (a 1974
four-piece instrumental work loosely based on the game of chess) on one of
those fab and natty Japanese Mini LP 'Paper Sleeve' Reissues in November 2003 -
a Remaster on Archangelo ARC-7031 (Barcode 4988044370319). It was an expensive
little import sucker but a beautiful looking AND sounding release nonetheless -
complete with Obi and White Booklet rammed with Japanese wording you can't
read.
Next up was Sanctuary's
Talking Elephant Label in May 2007 - a UK release in a standard jewel case with
a picture CD and a gatefold inlay (Talking Elephant TECD112 - Barcode
5028479011223).
What you've got here is a
January 2016 reissue of that 2007 CD "Red Queen To Gryphon Three" by GRYPHON with a new catalogue number -
Sanctuary/Talking Elephant TECD313 (Barcode 5028479031320). None of the three
reissues list the Remaster Engineer - but all have truly gorgeous and vibrant
audio reflecting Gryphon/Dave Grinstead's fantastic Production values back when
they recorded the album at Chipping Norton Studios in the Cotswolds back in August
of 1974.
Coming on like a giddy child
of Amazing Blondel, Greenslade and Genesis circa 1971 to 1973 – Gryphon Music
consists of English Medieval Folk Instruments like the woodwind Krumhorn
combined with Prog Rock and a little keyboard Symphonia thrown in. The November
1974 album had in fact followed only months after their second platter – the
equally-praised "Midnight Mushrumps" from May 1974 on Transatlantic
TRA 282 and is the only one of their five studio sets to be issued in the USA
and Canada (their self-titled debut "Gryphon" appeared June 1973 on
Transatlantic TRA 262). LP No. 3 breaks down as follows (38:47 minutes):
1. Opening Move (9:48
minutes) [Side 1]
2. Second Spasm (8:21 minutes)
3. Lament (10:50 minutes)
[Side 2]
4. Checkmate (9:48 minutes)
Tracks 1 to 4 are their 3rd
studio album "Red Queen To Gryphon Three" - released November 1974 in
the UK on Transatlantic Records TRA 287 and December 1974 in the USA on Bell
Records BELL 1316. Produced by GRYPHON and DAVE GRINSTEAD - it didn't chart in
either country.
GRYPHON was:
RICHARD HARVEY - Keyboards,
Recorders and Krumhorn
BRIAN GULLAND - Bassoon and
Krumhorn
GRAEME TAYLOR - Guitars
PHILIP NESTOR - Bass
DAVID OBERLE - Drums, Percussion
and Tympanies
The gatefold slip of paper
that acts as an inlay has simply had the words 'April 2007' edited out of
Graeme Taylor's liner notes for this 2016 reissue. The picture CD is the same
and the rear inlay tells you precious little. The Black Border variant of the
original US and Canadian Bell Records album is pictured on Page 3 and there's a
credit to DAN PEARCE who did the beautiful cover design and illustration. And
as I said earlier - there is no Mastering Credits of any kind but the Audio is
superb throughout. Let's get to the music...
As recently as August 2017 -
Esoteric Recordings (part of Cherry Red) used Gryphon's Track 1 gambit here
"Opening Move" as a representative song on their superb 3CD Box Set
"Let The Electric Children Play: The Underground Story Of Transatlantic
Records 1968-1976" (see separate review). And it's easy to hear why.
Accomplished, polished and musically adventurous in a nuts-way that only
British Prog Rock can be - "Opening Moves" harbours all their
trademark sounds - long tracks filled with ye-olde rhythms mashed up with new
Prog Rock Jazz Fusion flourishes on a Yamaha DX7 keyboard - all of it sounding
like Elizabeth I has dropped acid and suddenly wants to expressive herself via
the Clavinet, Bassoon, Recorder and Krumhorn (a bent Renaissance woodwind
instrument). Nice you say - and it is my merry minstrel traveller.
Sounding not unlike a bad
egg-and-spoon-race injury – the 8-minute "Second Spasm" begins in
just such a jolly mood – all hop-skippity-hop before a Bass Guitar that means
business bursts in and really speeds things up. The soothing acoustic guitars
of "Lament" follow – pretty Prog Rock as lovely chunky chords and
deep Bassoon notes slip in like a warm breeze on Kent's Walpole Bay (probably
my fave track on the LP). Ten minutes of "Checkmate" is very
Greenslade in its keyboard rhythms - brilliant playing surrounded by crashing
high-hats, dense structures and a drummer-boy musical jaunt that brings the
piece romping home. It won't be for everyone for sure - but I love it.
Gryphon would go on to
release two further studio sets - "Raindance" in September 1975 on
Transatlantic TRA 302 and "Treason" in April 1977 on Harvest SHSP
4063 - neither of which were particularly well-received and given Punk and New
Wave's dominance of the mid to late Seventies - wildly out of place on a
musical map changed forever. Founder member Richard Harvey popped out a solo
set called "Divisions On A Ground" in 1975 (Transatlantic TRA 292)
and would later pen music for TV and Cinema including Alan Bleasdale's
much-loved "G.B.H." from 1991, along with "Animal Farm" and
"Arabian Nights" in 1999 and 2000 respectively. Supporting Prog-Rock
Supergroup YES on their US Tour of 1975 - Guitarist Steve Howe was so impressed
with the band's instrumental dexterity that three Gryphonites - Graeme Taylor,
David Oberle and Malcolm Bennett (he’d played on "Raindance") turned
up on Howe’s debut solo LP "Beginnings" released November 1975 in the
UK on Atlantic K 50151.
But even by Taylor’s own
admission in the liner notes he penned in 2007 - "Red Queen To Gryphon
Three" remains probably their best work – an album that grows on you and
continues to impress 44 years after the frumpy-frocks event.
And I’m sure that’s Gentle
Giant’s older brother Nigel Giant playing Russia's Boris Spassky on the front
cover at a particularly gruelling chess match. Prepare for defeat Boris - because
I know who my money's on...
