Three CD set. Lullabies For Catatonics charts the journey without maps that was fearlessly undertaken in the late '60s and early '70s by the more cerebral elements of the underground, inspired by everyone from Bartok, Bach and The Beatles to Dada, Dali and the Pop Art movement. Suddenly pop music was no longer restricted to moon-in-June lyrics and traditional song structures. Instead, it embraced the abstract, the discordant and the surreal as pop became rock, and rock became Art. A new, post-Dylan emphasis on lyrics led to self-proclaimed poets like Keith Reid, Pete Brown, Pete Sinfield and Adrian Henri aligning themselves with rock bands, while the free jazz and classical influences embraced by the underground scene resulted in a new musical hybrid. While Soft Machine's mordant wit and musical complexity established them as progenitors of the so-called Canterbury Scene, the likes of Procol Harum instigated a more portentous, symphonic style that was subsequently classified as art rock, a sub-division of a wide-ranging scene that would be codified by the one-size-fits-all term Progressive Rock. Those two complementary strands are at the heart of Lullabies For Catatonics, with the more challenging American bands of the era also an influence: The Velvet Underground impacted on everyone from a young David Bowie to teenage ingénues The Velvet Frogs, while Captain Beefheart's Magic Band would inform Arthur Brown's equally uncompromising playmates Rustic Hinge. A fascinating window on a movement that stands as one of the most creative, challenging and esoteric in British music history, Lullabies For Catatonics incorporates the hugely successful (Yes, Genesis, 10cc) cheek-by-jowl alongside the unsigned (both Gnome Sweet Gnome and As You Like It now gain their first-ever commercial release), together with the art-rock collectables (Gnidrolog, Spring) and the unclassifiable avant-garde iconoclasts (Third Ear Band, Pink Floyd collaborator Ron Geesin).
Details
Title:
Lullabies For Catatonics: Journey Through The British Avant-Pop/ Art-Rock Scene 1967-1974 / Various [Import]
2 I'm Waiting for the Man - the Riot Squad Featuring David Bowie
3 Conquistador - Procol Harum
4 Bypass the By-Pass - the End
5 World War Three - Dantalian's Chariot
6 Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914) - the Zombies
7 I Talk to the Wind - Giles, Giles & Fripp
8 Tramcar to Frankenstein - the Liverpool Scene
9 The Battle - the Strawbs
10 Xoanon Bay - Woody Kern
11 In the Beginning - Genesis
12 Wasted Ground (Memento Mori) - the Velvet Frogs
13 Beyond and Before - Yes
14 Druid One - Third Ear Band
15 Through the Eyes of a Child - Bachdenkel
16 All Over the Country - the Crazy World of Arthur Brown
17 Merry Go Round - Eyes of Blue
- Disc 2 -
1 Egyptian Tomb - Mighty Baby
2 Banquet - Audience
3 To Play Your Little Game - Cressida
4 Parachute - Pretty Things
5 Crystallised Petard - Rustic Hinge
6 Vivaldi - Curved Air
7 World of Ice - Sweet Slag
8 Mockingbird - Barclay James Harvest
9 The Prisoner - Comus
10 Home (Reconstruction) - Nirvana
11 Death May Be Your Santa Claus - Second Hand
12 The Prisoner (Eight By Ten) - Spring
13 Don Alfonso - the Coxhill-Bedford Duo
14 Grande Piano - Stackridge
15 Saving It Up for So Long - Samurai
16 No. 2 Psychological Decontamination Unit - Blonde on Blonde
17 Me and My Kite - Fuchsia
- Disc 3 -
1 Welcome for a Soldier - Deep Feeling
2 Can I See You? - Open Road
3 O Caroline - Matching Mole
4 Unhinged - 9.30 Fly
5 The Machine Grinds on - Gnome Sweet Gnome
6 No More Sunshine Till May - As You Like It
7 A Winter's Tale - Jade Warrior
8 C. F. D. T. (Colonel Frights' Dancing Terrapins) - Bond & Brown
9 Ship - Gnidrolog
10 Anvils in Five - Rupert Hine
11 Upon Composition - Ron Geesin
12 Growing Up and I'm Fine - Mick Ronson
13 Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape - Be-Bop Deluxe
14 Somewhere in Hollywood - 10CC
15 Mother Russia - Renaissance
Three CD set. Lullabies For Catatonics charts the journey without maps that was fearlessly undertaken in the late '60s and early '70s by the more cerebral elements of the underground, inspired by everyone from Bartok, Bach and The Beatles to Dada, Dali and the Pop Art movement. Suddenly pop music was no longer restricted to moon-in-June lyrics and traditional song structures. Instead, it embraced the abstract, the discordant and the surreal as pop became rock, and rock became Art. A new, post-Dylan emphasis on lyrics led to self-proclaimed poets like Keith Reid, Pete Brown, Pete Sinfield and Adrian Henri aligning themselves with rock bands, while the free jazz and classical influences embraced by the underground scene resulted in a new musical hybrid. While Soft Machine's mordant wit and musical complexity established them as progenitors of the so-called Canterbury Scene, the likes of Procol Harum instigated a more portentous, symphonic style that was subsequently classified as art rock, a sub-division of a wide-ranging scene that would be codified by the one-size-fits-all term Progressive Rock. Those two complementary strands are at the heart of Lullabies For Catatonics, with the more challenging American bands of the era also an influence: The Velvet Underground impacted on everyone from a young David Bowie to teenage ingénues The Velvet Frogs, while Captain Beefheart's Magic Band would inform Arthur Brown's equally uncompromising playmates Rustic Hinge. A fascinating window on a movement that stands as one of the most creative, challenging and esoteric in British music history, Lullabies For Catatonics incorporates the hugely successful (Yes, Genesis, 10cc) cheek-by-jowl alongside the unsigned (both Gnome Sweet Gnome and As You Like It now gain their first-ever commercial release), together with the art-rock collectables (Gnidrolog, Spring) and the unclassifiable avant-garde iconoclasts (Third Ear Band, Pink Floyd collaborator Ron Geesin).