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Simon Finn
Pass The Distance
Durtro 1970
CD
£14.99
Reissue of the revelatory acid folk album recorded by Finn in 1969 and originally released on Mushroom Records in 1970. Finn’s recent return to live work and recording has seen his wildly idiosyncratic vision barely dimmed, but Pass The Distance remains his crowning achievement, an ecstatic/apocalyptic vision of the other side channelled via zoned vocals, guitar, recorder, organ, harmonium, mandolin, flute, accordion and violin with the help of Finn’s then-shadow David Toop. Features the epic “Jerusalem” and a bunch of bonus/unreleased tracks as well as liners from both Finn and Toop. Highly recommended.
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Bill Fay Group
Tomorrow Tomorrow And Tomorrow
Durtro 1976
CD
£11.99
Fay cut two albums for the Deram label that fused jazz rock with elements of British freakbeat, vaudeville, orchestral pop and eschatological Christianity. The guitarist on both albums was Ray Russell, a player who came out of jazz but applied plenty of post-psychedelic flash to his wild instrumental conceptions. The combination of Fay and Russell made for a pair of LPs that have little parallel in British jazz or rock. After the release of the second album, 1971’s apocalyptic Time Of The Last Persecution, Fay disappeared from the radar completely. But it seems he never stopped playing and recording and the recently exhumed Tomorrow Tomorrow And Tomorrow features a clutch of material recorded 1978-1981 that would have made up the never-released third album. By this point Russell had left the picture and his replacement was a young Gary Smith, guitarist with the great UK jazz/rock group Acme Quartet and recent duo partner to players like the late free percussionist John Stevens, Chie Mukai and Shoji Hano. Smith’s playing illuminates much of this set, while Fay works his obsession with childhood and deliverance into beautifully fragile psychedelic song-forms, particularly on the heart-breaking title track and the eerie “Goodnight Stan”. Recommended.
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