Come hither, children. Put on your plimsolls, sit on the mat and cross your legs. It’s time for a story.
Tag Archives: box set
Cherry Red Records/HNE Recordings to release a 6CD King’s X box set in April
Cherry Red’s hard rock subsidiary label, HNE Recordings, is no stranger to plundering the Atlantic Records archives for material. Over the years, they’ve reissued much-loved albums by Ratt, White Lion, Back Street Crawler and more to bring affordable box set reissues to the masses. ‘In The New Age’ follows suit by pulling together most of the recordings that King’s X made for the legendary label and re-presents them in a basic clam shell box.
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Deep In The Woods: Pastoral Psychedelia & Funky Folk 1968-1975
Subtitled ‘Pastoral Psychedelia & Funky Folk’, this three disc anthology from Strawberry Records delves deeply into an era where folk music adopted a more progressive approach, and prog/psych bands weren’t afraid to get whimsical. Although the music within isn’t always easily pigeonholed, the bands and artists featured cross genres and moods freely, in a way that captures a period like no other, mixing folk narratives and very English tones with the worldly haze of a prog rock experimentation and a love of jazz. Without these genre-bending pioneers, John Martyn’s ‘Solid Air’ mightn’t be the much loved masterpiece that it is, and Al Stewart might’ve been forever stuck in a Dylan-esque narrative rut. And that’s just scratching the surface.
THE FALL – Fall Sound Archive Vol 7: 1970s
The Fall’s early work has been reissued several times, but with a few of their “Fall Sound Archives” releases, Cherry Red Records managed to go above and beyond to give some well worn material the best send off ever. Both ‘Live At The Witch Trials’ and ‘Dragnet’ were released as lavish three disc editions in 2019, but even better, the seminal ‘Hex Enduction Hour’ formed part of a brilliant box set, ‘1982’, later that same year. By making the much loved album the main feature of a 6CD anthology, it set a precedent for similarly great reissues.
Taking the same approach as that box set, ‘1970s’ is a hefty 12CD tome that claims to include all of the band’s work from that decade. It doesn’t – there are notable omissions – but it pulls together a huge wealth of material, including several live shows that have never been officially released. There’s always a question of how much bootleg quality Fall material you need, but as the old fan mantra suggests, “you must get them all”, and the lure of six unavailable live sets here will certainly be enough for the hardened fan to want this set – quality be damned-ah.
SNAKECHARMER – Anthology
In terms of “supergroups”, Snakecharmer’s first line up was hard to beat. Centring around ex-Whitesnake members Micky Moody (guitar) and Neil Murray (bass), the band immediately came with a solid, classic rock sound that would be partially indebted to their formative years with David Coverdale, but – as was proven by their debut album – they relied far less on nostalgia than their earlier vehicle The Company of Snakes. Much of Snakecharmer’s superior sound not only came from stronger songwriting, but also the presence of vocalist Chris Ousey (ex-Virginia Wolf/Heartland), a man blessed with the kind of range capable of tackling almost everything with ease.