Various
Shapes And Sounds, Vol. 3
Available again. Top Sounds Records return once again with another collection of music recorded live for BBC radio and TV during the late 1960s and early 70s, with a significant proportion of wonderful material long thought lost. The compilation begins and ends with some most welcome performances from BILL FAY, documenting his appearance on the Disco 2 television show in early 1971. With the TV programme being wiped this is the only known evidence of Bill playing live, and he performs in superb audio quality 'Tell It Like It Is' and a song he never recorded anywhere else called 'After The Revolution'. Three tracks from THE PRETTY THINGS late 1968 session for Top Gear have been widely available for a while but the fourth, a version of 'Old Man Going', was never retained by the BBC - needless to say Top Sounds have located a master tape of the performance and are pleased to inform the Pretties' fans that its even better than the album version, with the fuzzed guitar cranked up to maximum! A double CD of DAVE DEE, DOZY, BEAKY, MICK and TICH's BBC sessions was released in 2008, but Shapes And Sounds Three adds to that considerable legacy with a better version of 'Frustration' and more spectacularly, the band's fantastic psychedelic rock assault on the First Edition's ust Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In)'. Long time favourites with psych pop enthusiasts are THE END who have had much previously unreleased music released in the past, their BBC sessions however have always proved elusive as the BBC wiped their tapes. Rescued from off air recordings Top Sounds present two numbers from their 1968 'Top Gear', with an atmospheric rendering of 'Shades Of Orange' and a brilliant take of 'Under The Rainbow' which is wildly different from the studio version on the 'Introspection' album. Like The End, Geordie psychsters SKIP BIFFERTY have been well served by compilations - 'In The Morning' and 'Follow The Path Of The Stars' however now appear in pristine quality straight from transcription disc whilst 'On Love' and 'Yours For At Least 24' (from their first ever radio session) make their debut and were previously presumed lost. BBC material by CUPID'S INSPIRATION similarly emerges for the first time with a quite splendid mix of pop, blues and rock across four numbers, only one of which was ever released in their original discography. Especially noteworthy is a crunching take of 'Dream' and a frantic version of Garnet Mimms' 'As Long As I Have You'. GULLIVERS PEOPLE prove admirably they could deliver psych pop with an excellent performance of the Bee Gees' psych opus 'Horizontal' whilst 'On A Day Like This' improves on the single, then finally Plymouth group THE EARTH offer some rather good tunes with live versions of 'Everyone Sing The Song' and the prog rock favourite 'Resurrection City' from 1969. The music has all been professionally restored and mastered and the presentation is immaculate and as with the previous 'Shapes And Sounds' volumes, Artholeghraphics have designed a memorable period flavoured package. The CD has a twenty eight page colour booklet based on a vintage Radio Times magazine packed with illustrations, band histories and listings of all their known BBC sessions written and supplied by Nigel Lees, author of much of Record Collector magazine's 'The British Psychedelic Trip' series. Bar the appearance of some of the Skip Bifferty recordings which have previously appeared in off air quality, none of these performances have ever been commercially available and most have not been heard in public since the 60's. 'Shapes And Sounds Volume Three' is a legitimate release, licensed from the BBC with the blessing / co-operation of many band members.