Album Reviews

“The greatest LP ever recorded in England” gushed The Lama Review (http://www.lysergia.com/LamaReviews/lamaMain.htm) a website dedicated to psychedelic music. “…the best middle Eastern acid folk album ever recorded,” sayeth MOJO. “An oblique masterpiece…” according to Record Collector.

What's that you say? You know a lot of music but you've never heard of COB or its album Moyshe McStiff and the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart?

Join the crowd. But now, thanks to Radiocative Records, Moyshe… can be yours on 180g vinyl, mastered by Nick Webb at Abbey Road from the AAA master tape.

Formed by Clive Palmer, founder of The Incredible String Band, COB was a later trio formed in the mold of ISB. So if you appreciate the acoustic folk/mystical/psychedelia of ISB you might find this to be a time-release treat existing in a parallel plane.

Mystical chant-like melodies, Rastafarian imagery, delicately blown recorders, sitar-like drones, whistle, pump organ, bongos, fiddles and the like are the backdrop for prayer-like tunes that sound as much like “dovening” (Hebrew praying) as they do tunes being performed by a pop group.

Like ISB, COB trades in atmospherics evocative of musty peat moss, late Autumn leaves burning, and small rooms with ceilings that make you crouch. I don't know where that last sentence comes from, but that's what this stuff makes me think of.

A highlight for me is side two's second track, “Chain of Love,” but every track has its own charm-that is, if you find this hippie-stuff appealing in the first place. Danny Thompson sits in on bass on a few tracks.

Originally produced by Ralph McTell and recorded at Sound Techniques and Air Studios in 1972, the recording quality is superb: natural, transparent, intimate and pure-yet with a very particular and carefully chosen atmospheric vibe. It almost sounds recorded outdoors, with a sort of “field recording” quality.

While this is a charming, intensely atmospheric record certain to appeal to some of you, the hyperbolic quotes above are a little over the top in my book, but usually such near-hysteria for a minor, interesting and overlooked album is in direct proportion to its rarity and obscurity. Consider an original of this impossible to find then. Thanks to UK-based Radioactive, this short, minor masterpiece is once again available in a very limited quantity on vinyl (1000).

Incidentally, Radioactive Records are pressed on 180g vinyl in Hayes-Middlesex using the very same EMI presses used for The Beatles Parlophone LPs, and all EMIs pressed during the “golden age” of vinyl. Someone bought the presses and brought back the plant manager who supervised EMI's record pressing operations during the 1950's and '60's. The presses are located in a different building but not that far away from where the presses originally operated. I visited a few years ago, and if I can find the pictures, I'll post them in the website's “Gallery” section.