"Genesis 1970-1975" by GENESIS (November 2008 Virgin/Charisma 'Hybrid CD, SACD, DVD' Box Set - Tony Cousins and Nick Davis Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...It's Been A Long Time...Hasn't It...."

Here are details for the six saintly shrouded men…

UK and Europe released November 2008 - "Genesis 1970-1975" by GENESIS on Virgin CDBOX 14 (Barcode 5099951968328) is the 3rd box set in an extensive reissue campaign. Each of the original five vinyl albums from the Peter Gabriel period are pumped up here into double 2CD issues - whilst the 1974 2LP-set "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" now becomes a 3-Disc CD set. "The Lamb Lies Down Broadway" is presented in a beautiful Book Pack while the other albums are in 2CD jewel cases.

Disc 1 of each issue is the SACD and CD Remaster of the album with both mixes encoded onto the disc, while Disc 2 is a DVD with 5.1 Surround Sound with extras tagged on at the end of each. The sixth and final double is called "Extra Tracks 1970-1975" and features singles, demos and BBC Sessions - again both in Audio and DVD. "Extras' is housed in a 48-page hardback book with an essay, band contributions, photos and celebrity reviews. Here's a detailed breakdown of the sets:

1. Looking For Someone [Side 1]

2. White Mountain

3. Visions of Mountains

4. Stagnation [Side 2]

5. Dusk

6. The Knife

Disc 1 (42:33 minutes) is their 2nd album "Trespass", originally released on LP in November 1970 on Charisma CAS 1020 in the UK and Impulse 9295 in the USA (the original UK issue had the 'Pink Scroll' label design and the CD reflects that). The DVD Audio version also has a 'reissues interview from 2007'.

1. The Musical Box [Side 1]

2. For Absent Friends

3. The Return Of The Giant Hogweed

4. Seven Stones

5. Harold The Barrel [Side 2]

6. Harlequin

7. The Fountain Of Salmacis

Disc 2 (39:36 minutes) is their 3rd album "Nursery Cryme", originally released on LP in November 1971 on Charisma CAS 1052 in the UK and Charisma 7208 552 in the USA (Pink Scroll Label also). The DVD audio version also has the 'reissues interview from 2007'.

1. Watcher Of The Skies [Side 1]

2. Time Table

3. Get 'Em Out By Friday

4. Can-Utility And The Coastliners

5. Horizons [Side 2]

6. Supper’s Ready

Disc 3 (51:20 minutes) is their 4th album "Foxtrot", originally released on LP in October 1972 on Charisma CAS 1058 in the UK and Charisma 7208 553 in the USA (changes now to the `Mad Hatter' label design for 3, 4 and 5 reflecting the original vinyl). The DVD Audio disc has 3 extras - reissues interview 2007, Brussels, Belgium Rock Of The 70's 1972 clip and Rome, Italy, Piper Club 1972 clip.

1. Selling England By The Pound [Side 1]

2. I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)

3. Firth Of Fifth

4. More Fool Me

5. The Battle Of Epping Forest [Side 2]

6. After The Ordeal

7. The Cinema Show

8. Aisle Of Plenty

Disc 4 (53:39 minutes) is their 6th album "Selling England By The Pound", originally released in October 1973 on Charisma CAS 1074 in the UK and Charisma 7208 554 in the USA. (Their 5th album, "Genesis Live", was released in July 1973 on Charisma CLASS 1 in the UK; it was an official release and no explanation is given for its no show in this box set).  The DVD Audio version has 3 extras, reissues Interview 2007, Shepperton Studios, Italian TV, 1973 clip and Batacain, France, 1973 clip.

1. The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway [Side 1]

2. Fly On A Windshield

3. Broadway Melody Of 1974

4. Cuckoo Cocoon

5. In The Cage

6. The Grand Parade Of Lifeless Packaging

7. Back In N.Y.C. [Side 2]

8. Hairless Heart

9. Counting Out Time

10. The Carpet Crawlers

1. Lilywhite Lilith [Side 3]

2. The Waiting Room

3. Anyway

4. Here Comes The Supernatural Anesthetist

5. The Lamia

6. Silent Sorrow In Empty Boats

7. The Colony Of Slippermen [Side 4]

8. Ravine

9. Riding The Scree

10. In The Rapids

11. It

Disc 5 (45:38/48:51 minutes) is their 7th album "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway", originally released in November 1974 as a 2LP set on Charisma CGS 101 in the UK and on Atco 7599 122 in the USA. The DVD has all of the slide show that accompanied the stage shows offering both Surround and standard stereo versions.

Disc 6 "Extra Tracks" (46:44 minutes):

Track 1 is "Happy The Man", a non-album 7" single issued in the UK on May 1972 on Charisma CB 181 ("Seven Stones" is its B-side - a track off "Nursery Cryme")

Track 2 is "Twilight Alehouse", the non-album B-side to "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)" issued on 7" single in May 1974 on Charisma CB 224

Track 3 is "Sheppard (BBC Nightride 1970)"

Track 4 is "Pacidy (BBC Nightride 1970)"

Track 5 is "Let Us Now Make Love (BBC Nightride 1970)"

Track 6 is "Going Out To Get You (Demo 1969)"

Tracks 7 to 10 are called Genesis Plays Jackson.  Michael Jackson was a painter who put music to a silent film of "Metropolis" and invited Genesis in to score it. Some tracks were done, but the full project was abandoned. These tapes have only recently come to light and the four tracks are; "Provocation", "Frustration", "Manipulation" and Resignation" - "Frustration" would later turn up as "Anyway" on "Lamb" and "Manipulation" became "The Musical Box" on "Nursery Cryme".

NICK DAVIS prepped the 5.1 Surround Mixes and Stereo CD mixes with the remastering carried out by TONY COUSINS at Metropolis Mastering. Both of these guys handled the preceding box sets to both applause and derision in equal measure. While I admittedly don't have a Surround capability at home, I find the sound quality on the Stereo CD mixes to be GORGEOUS - a revelation. "Trespass" & "Nursery Cryme" are hissy in places, but still so much better sounding than the crap 1994 Virgin remasters we've been lumbered with all these years (which in turn were supposed to replace the dire 80's issues). But the great news is "Foxtrot", "Selling" and "Lamb", each of which now has GORGEOUS SOUND. At 8:15 minutes into "Supper's Ready" on Foxtrot when the acoustic guitars kick in, I was in floods, huge sound filling my room... We've been waiting 35 years to finally hear these great works in DECENT AUDIO.

While the DVD and Audio elements are fantastic and the extras fascinating - I find the packaging naff (typical of all things Virgin). The box lid won't close no matter what you do, the individual booklets are simply the original artwork restored, but again they're too small to read and massively underwhelming compared to the beautiful event feel of the original vinyl gatefold sleeves (especially "Lamb"). And with no new essay, no new photos, nor nothing of their history - when they're released as stand-alone CDs, fans are going to feel mightily short-changed – again. And why no "Live" set - nor the 1975 single edit of "Carpet Crawlers" - or its unique B-side, the live in the USA (Evil Jam) version of "The Waiting Room"? Nor is it cheapest of things either…so with the boys now individually credited as Limited Companies on the rear sleeve - the whole thing is beginning to smack a little too much of corporate greed instead of musical celebration.

The Music is truly incredible and still stands up with "Foxtrot", "Selling England By The Pound" and that amazing 1974 double "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" still eliciting gasps – and I’d have to say that the Audio is gorgeous and revealing throughout. "Trespass" and "Nursery Cryme" have their moments for sure – but it’s the final three in the Charisma period that are Proggy Heaven.

Wonderful in some respects and yet strangely disappointing in others - this eagerly awaited box is 4-stars really when it should have been six. And yet I love it and them in all their mad, imaginative and sprawling brilliance. Fans will know what I mean when I say - "...something tells me I’d better activate my prayer capsule…"

"A Trick Of The Tail" by GENESIS (April 2008 Virgin/Charisma 'Standard Version' CD Reissue - 2007 Tony Cousins Remaster) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Madrigal Music Is Playing..."

After the high of 1974's concept double-album "The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway" and the subsequent departure of Peter Gabriel (such an integral part of a unique band and their charismatic frontman for five years) – common consensus held was that Genesis would implode or worse – carry on with a heart-hearted crew pumping out half-assed material.

The first album post PG-apocalypse featuring Phil Collins as the band's Lead Vocalist was February 1976's "A Trick Of The Tail" and it proved the naysayers wrong. In fact many would say that the following year's "Wind And Wuthering" in January 1977 followed in October of that year by the triumphant live double "Seconds Out" hammered shut the cakehole of that gobby and argumentative git. Genesis had never been so popular or so commercially successful and did so in the two years where Punk and New Wave Music seemed to be wiping away all that was perceived as old fart.

So when it comes to CD reissues of "A Trick Of The Tail" the only real argument here is about the AUDIO. Is it any good? Or to be exact (after the crap we’ve had for years) - is it any better? Hell YES is the answer here...

Having been inflicted with what was called a 'Definitive Edition Remaster' in 1994 (themselves replacements for earlier shambolic issues in the Eighties) – fans held their collective hairpieces when the April 2007 Remasters were released in SACD form – Remastered by Tape Engineer Supremo TONY COUSINS. But one listen to this amazing-sounding standard single CD edition (reissued April 2008) and all those reports and raves about revelatory sound were true. Just taking in "Entangled" or "Ripples" on this CD is enough to elicit a little proggy tear from my ageing and weary googly-ganglers.

This is a gorgeous and amazingly well handled transfer of dense and rich music. And as the SACD 2-Disc variant from April 2007 (Barcode 094638596424) is now garnishing extortionate sums since deletion (forty quid and more) – at least this April 2008 single-disc stripped-down standard-variant reissue with just the album on it - is available for less than the price of a kebab whilst still retaining that great TC Remaster. Let’s get to the Squonk and dreams of Mad Man Moon (that's Genesis-speak for details)...

UK released April 2008 – "A Trick Of The Tail" by GENESIS on Virgin/Charisma GENYCD 6 (Barcode 0094639164226) is a straightforward CD 'Standard Edition' transfer of their 1976 album (SACD and Stereo Mixes used here first issued April 2007) and plays out as follows (51:15 minutes):

1. Dance On A Volcano [Side 1]

2. Entangled

3. Squonk

4. Mad Man Moon

5. Robbery, Assault And Battery [Side 2]

6. Ripples

7. A Trick Of The Tail

8. Los Endos

Tracks 1 to 8 are their seventh studio album (eighth overall) "A Trick Of The Tail" – released February 1976 in the UK on Charisma CDS 4001 and in the USA on Atco SD 36-129. Produced by DAVID HENTSCHEL and GENESIS – it peaked at No. 3 and No. 31 in the UK and USA LP charts.

GENESIS was:

PHIL COLLINS – Lead and Backing Vocals, Drums and Percussion

STEVE HACKETT – Electric and Acoustic Guitars

TONY BANKS – Piano, Synths, Organ, Mellotron, 12-String Acoustic Guitar and Backing Vocals

MIKE RUTHERFORD – Bass and 12-String Guitar

The booklet reproduces the lyrics first aired on the inner gatefold of the 1976 vinyl LP along with Colin Elgie's design and those cartoons that followed each song. But the big news is the TONY COUSINS Remaster.

When those beep-beep notes and drums open the band-written "Dance On A Volcano" and it finally gets into its Prog swing - the power is huge. But it's not until you get to the gorgeous six and half-minutes of Hackett and Banks' "Entangled" that you 'feel' the audio change - those acoustic guitars so clear - Collins and the others singing Lead and Backing Vocals - children dreaming - the rush and swirl as the melody swoops and soars. Rutherford and Banks provided "Squonk" - probably the nearest the album gets to Rock - a swaggering Prog tune with Drums and Cymbals crashing around your room as the Remaster brings the rhythm section to the fore.  Side 1 ends with seven and half minutes of "Mad Man Moon" - a piano based ballad provided by Tony Banks. Collins sings about pain with conviction 'oh how I loved you...quite some time ago...I was the one who decided to go...' and then about a thousand mirages later Banks brings the Mellotron up with those wall of voices - very Lamb Lies Down On Broadway meets Selling England By The Pound. The later piano passages and fast lyric rolls to the end make for a sophisticated but moving listen.

Side 2 opens with "Robbery, Assault and Battery" - a 1975 Collins and Banks song that lyrically seemed to point the way to his 'Buster' film role more than a decade later during the height of Collins' solo career. But for me the album's masterpiece is the beautiful "Ripples" - eight-minutes of sail-away Genesis gorgeousness. Hell PC even sounds like PG in some verses while Steve Hackett's delicate twelve-string guitar picking harks back to the glory of "Horizons" and "Supper’s Ready" on "Foxtrot". It's a gorgeous melody and the slow to fast Rutherford/Banks song construction gives it an epic feel - 0whilst still feeling like an intimate ballad (memories of 'The Grove' in Clontarf when this song was played during a 'slow set').  The jaunt of the title track (a Tony Banks song) offers a clever change of pace and mood - magical creatures in the city of gold somewhere up there in the distance. The album comes to a close with the manic dash of "Los Endos" - a motorcar-fast Proggy instrumental that always seems to represent the album on those endless 'Best Of' and 'Anthology' CD sets.

Personally I think this rather plain looking CD reissue in its dull jewel case loses some of the original LPs visual impact (time to get one of those Japanese SHM-CD Mini LP Repros) - but the Audio more than makes up for that. Sail away indeed, but even after 40+ years those Ripples keep carrying me back...

"Stormcock" by ROY HARPER - May 1971 UK LP on Harvest Records featuring Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin (August 2013 and February 2018 Science Friction CD Reissue and Remaster in 'Hardback Book' Packaging) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Love's Cascades..."

Some albums do your nut in. You love them with a passion that borders on calling in the thought police to calm you down. Always a vinyl rarity when I worked in Reckless (20 years as a buyer) - 1971's "Stormcock" wasn't the kind of record you saw in second-hand stores in abundance or in personal collections (neither did the four that preceded it for that matter). But even now I'm stunned that Harper's seismic fifth studio platter isn't on some Classic 1971 Rock Album Winner you-must-hear-before-you-die pedestal somewhere like say The Who's "Who's Next", Joni Mitchell's "Blue" or Cat Stevens' "Teaser And The Firecat" - more nuggets from that astonishingly creative year. Time to rectify this heinous anomaly - ye Gods of taste and twisty beards. Here are the hard facts, old cock...

The album’s CD reissue history is tangled – so here goes. "Stormcock" by ROY HARPER was first released December 1990 onto Awareness AWCD 2001 (Barcode 5017701200122) in the UK. Then October 1994 in the UK onto Science Friction HUCD004 (Barcode 5020522397728 - reissued October 1996). Then in October 2007 - it was again reissued and remastered onto Science Friction HUCD047 (Barcode 679076770478) – itself reissued 2013 and now in February 2018.

2013 and 2018's Science Friction HUCD047 (Barcode 679076770478) comes in specialist ‘hardback book’ packaging and is a straightforward transfer of Roy Harper's 5th UK album "Stormcock" from May 1971 originally on Harvest Records SHVL 789 - it plays out as follows (41:29 minutes): 

1. Hors d'Oeuvres (i) [Side 1]

2. The Same Old Rock (ii)

3. Old Man Rock And Roll Band (iii) [Side 2]

4. Me And My Woman (iv)

With only 4 tracks (2 to each side) - "Stormcock" might seem 'lean' but it's nothing of the sort. This album is closing in on being 48 years old - yet it remains amazingly contemporary and has stood the test of time incredibly well. If anything re-listening to it in 2018 - you can imagine that this 1971 album is a bit of a secret stepping point for so many new writers and bands - because after 40 minutes with it you can 'so' hear how Fleet Foxes, Elbow and Vetiver got their sound (Kate Bush and others have name-checked RH too and of course Zeppelin had the song "Hats Off To Roy Harper" as the last track on Side 2 of III in 1970).

Beautifully produced by PETER JENNER (Engineered by PHILP MacDONALD) - the songs are primarily long acoustic workouts with some electric guitars, keyboards, string flourishes, brass and vocal over-layering thrown in. Each song takes it sweet time - allowing you to wrap your ears around the thought-provoking life-observations in the lyrics. This is also one of only two releases on his own Science Friction label that has received a rather gorgeous 'hardback' book makeover in the art department - the other title is 1975's equally brill "HQ" (Science Friction HUCD048 - Barcode 679076770485). 

 

The 22-page colour booklet is attached to the inner hardback and reflects the '(i) to (iv) artwork of the original album - each song being parts one to four (I used to think that squiggle on the front gatefold was a typo!). Like "HQ" this reissue contains more cryptic almost poetry liner notes from RH, black and white and colour photos from the period, the lyrics, the inner gatefold spread, recording and reissue credits and a sheet-card offering all of his albums from 1967's "Sophisticated Beggar" through to 2005's "The Death Of God" (DVDs, Lyric Books and Tee-shirts too) from Science Friction Ltd in Clonakilty, Cork in Ireland. They're also directions to Roy Harper's own website.

But the big news is that the album has been Digitally Remastered by ROY HARPER and JOHNNY FITZGERALD in August 2007 providing stupendous Audio - all those clean instruments swirling around your speakers like their "Meddle"-period Pink Floyd on an Acoustic tip. This CD is a winner sonically. Harper pretty much plays the lot - every instrument - with the exceptions noted below. Let's get to the music...

It opens with "Hors d'Oeuvres" - a near nine-minute Nick Drake/Tim Buckley acoustic dreamscape about a man "...whose brains bred answers like flies..." It builds and builds to gorgeous treated vocals towards the end - more of a mood than a song really with David Bedford of ELP fame playing the Hammond (he also arranges the strings on "Me And My Woman"). But then you get the album's first piece of undeniable Harper genius - and for me one of the great unspoken masterpieces of the Seventies - the 12 and half minute Side 1 closer "The Same Old Rock". The song famously features JIMMY PAGE on Lead Acoustic Guitar credited as the delightfully oblique 'J. Flavius Mercurious' for contractual reasons. You can so hear Page’s Zep "III" and "IV" acoustic phase - and his thunderous solo towards the end swirling around multi-layered Harper vocals is just brilliant. You have to say too that the remaster is just gorgeous here (lyrics above). Harper himself rates it as Page's best ever work...

Side 2 opens with "One Man Rock And Roll Band" - another multi-layered acoustic strum-fest "...welcome back you total stranger..." His treated vocals add so much to the seven and half-minutes - the plucked steel guitar-strings rattling around your speakers - again the remaster so beautifully clear. It ends on the gorgeous 13-minute "Me And My Woman" with lush orchestration from long-time Mike Oldfield collaborator DAVID BEDFORD. Even after all these years - the 'freshness' of it all still amazes me. And it's so uniquely Roy Harper...

"Stormcock" is an old English name given to the Mistle Thrush bird - a feathery friend of these here isles that is prone to glorious singing of a morning (and apparently it's also the artist's nickname on occasion). "Stormcock" - spread your wings on this secret CD masterpiece and let your spirits fly...

"HQ" by ROY HARPER - August 1975 UK LP on Harvest Records (August 2013 and February 2018 Science Friction CD Remaster in 'Hardback Book' Packaging) - A Review by Mark Barry...

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"...Stand In This Light And See..."

Roy Harper's back catalogue is not surprisingly undergoing constant rediscovery by generations hungry for Seventies Classic Rock and frankly (Frank) by those who were there but simply left his albums in the racks when such things were plentiful in second-hand stores. Somehow our Roy has always remained a bit of a cult – an acquired taste really – like Bovril or Cliff Richard calendars (I like both unadorned myself).

Not unavailable anymore - at least for the purposes of CD reissue that is. Harper owns/controls his own back-catalogue now and this is reflected by the 'Science Friction' label that offers a whopping 27 albums of his for sale on CD – 50-years of original material including obscure sets like the "Flashes From The Archives Of Oblivion" live/studio double album on Harvest Records in 1974. He may no longer walk on water, but you can at least buy something that looks and sounds like he does - which by way of beefy beverages, bare-chested Julys and whiffy underarms brings us to Roy Harper's eight studio set…

1975's "HQ" featured heavy-hitters like Pink Floyd's Dave Gilmour and Zeppelin's Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones - whilst the core band accompanying multi-instrumentalist Harper was ace-axeman Chris Spedding and his Bassist Dave Cochran playing a storm alongside the Yes/King Crimson drummer Bill Bruford. David Bedford of ELP fame also did some of the arrangements especially the gorgeous brass of The Grimethorpe Colliery Band on "When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease". The album is also only the second of two Roy Harper reissues to receive a packaging upgrade into a 'hardback 'book' set on CD (the other is 1971's "Stormcock" - see separate review). "HQ" comes with a 28-page booklet attached within and a new 2012 'digital remix and re-sculpt' by JOHN FITZPATRICK.

In truth (like so much of his catalogue) "HQ" is all but forgotten now and of course screams out not to be. Time to rectify this heinous anomaly - ye Gods of taste and twisty beards. Let's get back to an England joining the EU with a smile instead of leaving it in a strop...

UK released August 2013 (reissued February 2018) - "HQ" by ROY HARPER on Science Friction HUCD048 (Barcode 679076770485) is a straightforward 7-track remaster of his eighth UK album from August 1975 on Harvest Records SHSP 4086. This reissue CD comes in specialist 'hardback book' packaging and it plays out as follows (40:54 minutes):

1. The Game (Parts 1-5) [Side 1]

2. The Spirit Lives

3. Grown Ups Are Just Silly Children

4. Referendum (Legend) [Side 2]

5. Forget Me Not

6. Hallucinating Light

7. When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease

The 28-page colour booklet designed by HARRY PEARCE is attached to the inner hardback and reflects the Hipgnosis artwork of the original album complete with the James Edgar sketch of RH on the inner sleeve. Like "Stormcock" this reissue also contains pages and pages of new cryptic almost-poetry-like liner notes from RH, black and white photos of the boys in their bare-chested cricket outfits and some shots of RH playing live, the lyrics to all six songs typed out instead of being in the illegible scrawl they were on the original inner sleeve (repro’d as they were would make reading the words all but impossible), recording and reissue credits and a sheet-card offering all of his albums from 1967's crudely-recorded "Sophisticated Beggar" through to 2005's "The Death Of God" (DVDs, Lyric Books and Tee-shirts too) from Science Friction Ltd in Clonakilty, Cork in Ireland. They're also directions to Roy Harper's own website.

Like "Stormcock" in 1971 – Master Producer PETER JENNER returns at the knobs helm (John Leckie this time as his Engineer) and delivers a gorgeously deep and rich sound yet again. But the big news is that the album has been Digitally Re-mixed and Re-sculpted in 2012 for CD by Irish Musician and Audio Engineer JOHN FITZGERALD at Lettercollum Recording Studios in Ireland (Produced by Roy Harper). This team has produced stupendous Audio - all those clean instruments swirling around your speakers like "Wish You Were Here"-period Pink Floyd on an Acoustic tip (John Fitzgerald recorded Ireland’s own Brian Kennedy and played on Harper's 2005 set "The Death Of God"). Like "Stormcock" (which he prepared also) - this CD is a sonic winner. Now let's get to the music...

Re-listening to this simple yet somehow dense album in 2018 - "HQ" remains alarmingly up-to-date what with its very own referendum song on joining the EU in 1974 as Britain now prepares to leave it 44-years later for exactly the same cultural reasons Harper mentions (amongst other things).  In fact his whole soundscape of huge Acoustic Guitars and echoed swirling treated vocals has surely been a secret stepping point for so many new writers and bands (you can 'so' hear how Fleet Foxes, Elbow and Vetiver got their sound - whilst Kate Bush and others have name-checked RH too and of course Zeppelin had the song "Hats Off To Roy Harper" as the last track on Side 2 of Zep III in 1970).

The brilliant and lyrically acidic five-parter "The Game" is nearly fourteen minutes long and features a bevy of famous types adding hugely to the riffage and chop/change musical ins and outs. Steve Broughton of The Edgar Broughton Band is in there as is Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Dave Gilmore of Pink Floyd, Bill Bruford of King Crimson and Chris Spedding doubling-up with Page on Guitars. You can even sense the spirit of 1976 Punk creeping into "The Spirit Lives" where an angry Harper still wants to believe that 'love prevails'. Side 1 ends with a fun Rock 'n' Roll pastiche to heroes of old in the witty "Grown Ups Are Just Silly Children" - Spedding letting rip on Guitar as he channels Eddie Cochran via T. Rex.

Although it doesn't say so in the liner notes or credits - I'd swear that's Page again on guitar in the 'join the EU' tune "Referendum (Legend)". Whether it is or not my fave-rave on Side 2 is the gorgeous "Forget Me Not" - a love song bathed in swirling guitar-romance and flanged voices - a sort of emotional floating tank for the ears. Hearing it again like this is a total blast and brings me back too to the fabulous soundscapes of 1971's "Stormcock" - always good news in my book. The six-and-a-half minutes of "Hallucinating Light" is a deceptive slow Blues - a sad song with hurt rumbling beneath - organ notes adding poignancy to the beautiful production values and echoed vocals. "HQ" ends on a total winner - the deeply moving "When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease" where David Bedford organises Saxophonist Ray Warleigh and the brass hum of The Grimethorpe Colliery Band into the song which such a deftness of arranging touch. You can envisage the scene, smell the grass and hear his shoes shuffling as he leaves something he loves deep down in his DNA.

The 1995 2nd CD Reissue of "HQ" on Science Friction HUCD019 (Barcode 5020522393522) actually included early mixes and a single version from the 1974 double-LP "Flashes From The Archives Of Oblivion" as three bonus tracks ("The Spirit Lives", "When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease" and "Hallucinating Light") and I suppose you could argue that their absence here is a bit of a reissue steal rather than a gift - but I'm still loving this 'upgrade' anyway - especially with this upgraded audio.

Whatever way you spin the ball "HQ" on this CD is a classy affair - reigniting my love of Roy Harper's criminally forgotten contributions to England's mighty musical repertoire. Brill my son and bowled for a six. Just keep the shirt on next time old bean...