Customer Reviews

Arzachel

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Before Egg, Dave Stewart, Mont Campbell and Clive Brooks played a half a zillion low-paid gigs as a 4-piece with guitarist Steve Hillage. When Steve, seeking a brighter future, quit to go to university, the trio changed their name from Uriel to Egg and soldiered on against their all of their accountant's advice.

Several months later, after Egg had already landed a contract with fledgling Decca Records, they unexpectedly got an opportunity to record the original quartet. In one long afternoon in the studio, with no prepared material and under assumed names for legal reasons, Arzachel was born... and died the same night, like a mayfly. Nevertheless, with musicians of this calibre and familiarity with each other, they managed to pull off a minor classic in the late '60s/early psychedelia genre.

Unfortunately the record stiffed. It wasn't until decades later that anybody deciphered the true personnel (and the guilty confessed to their youthful indiscretions). So this pre-Khan lost Canterbury classic, which had been trading hands among cognoscenti for absurd prices, finally saw re-release with all of the confessions and recriminations printed inside a tiny CD booklet in a text size which guaranteed the musicians couldn't read it without their glasses.

I'm still waiting to get an original 1970 US pressing on Roulette Records. I believe the original UK version was released by Decca Records in 69' and goes for thousands of $$$ (if you can find a copy)! I purchased the import CD reissue on the UK Drop Out label in the mid 90's and the sound quality was excellent (considering the source tapes). Everything is drenched in reverb! I love Mont's distinct British vocals, kinda Arthur Brown-ish. I get the chills when I hear the first few notes of "Clean Innocent Fun" and then the organ begins, even though it was played through a guitar amp and not a leslie, but the album contains some inventive Hammond organ work from Dave Stewart (not The Eurythmics). "Garden Of Earthly Delights" is a great tune that could fit right in with the psychedelic sounds of 67' & Steve Hillage's guitar solo at the end alone is worth the price of admission. "Metempsychosis" is a long spacey jam that reminds me of The Pink Floyd just a year earlier. I wish the drums were recorded in one channel on this album giving it that wonderful stereo separation we all know and love. Five stars for Uriel's project here! The EGG LP which was released in 1970 (post-Arzachel) is also highly recommended! Excellent raw British prog/psych.

Pre-gong, pre-egg and pre-khan members team up to do this 1969 release cd. The sound & style is basically Egg with Steve Hillage on guitar. It does sound a little dated and unrehearsed, but not bad at all. I love Stewart & Hillages playing on this cd. It's very stretched out and spacey for it's time. Something like Floyd's Sauceful of Secrets. I think they should reform this group and start releasing new material. Highly recommend this cd if you are into psychedelia, or the Canterbury scene. Issued by Akarma in heavy cardboard sleeve and high quality artwork.

Another title that took me awhile to land down a copy. Arzachel was a short-lived project that saw Steve Hillage (prior to joining up with Gong) teaming up with the three members of UK progressive outfit, Egg. This was the band's sole lp release that originally came out in 1969. It sounds SO 1969-ish that it simply isn't even funny. Call it prog / psych, call it a true underground classic. I call it explosive psychedelic that's a MUST-have for all fans of the genre. All six tracks will fully trip you out, but the ones that made me sit up and take notice were the hit-you-in-the-face opener "Garden Of Earthly Delights", "Queen St.Gang" and the sixteen-minute mind scrambler "Metempsychosis". Should appeal to fans of The Move, Tomorrow, Khan, Caravan and maybe early Moody Blues. Most highly recommended.

This album is Egg plus Steve Hillage at 17! Though the band did a lot of bar gigging from 1967 to its demise, this is a legendary psychidelic (sp?) recording. Steve Hillage is what stands out as an inventive musician, hanging right with his time. This is worth owning from a historical perspective. Here the beginnings of the canterbury scene (sort of)! This is better than Egg's first album, but not quite as intense as The Polite Force a year later. The feel of the album is a 1968 acid trip; very intense to a novice ear and probable scary too. They all go under psyeudonyms as the had already sign a contract with Deram minus Hillage. Again, you won't want to listen to this everyday...but every once in a while. Great spin!

shocking to believe this searing psychedelic rock classic was actually recorded by teenagers - however they were the leading lights of the then developing canterbury progressive rock scene; a very young steve hillage and dave stewart got their start in this band(which was actually called Uriel) performing cover versions of jimi hendrix, cream, the nice, etc.. Legal obligations forced the band to record under this pseudonym, and this intense mind-bender is the result. Full of screaming guitar and over the top keyboards, the album plays more as a spontaneous and live in studio performance. Interesting to compare to hillage's and stewart's later performances together in khan and steve hillage 'fish ring' which were much more composed and complicated pieces. However, this their sole album is brain frying acid rock and must be considered one of the ,if not the very first example of space rock. This album at one time incredibly rare now on cd is an essential purchase. This band truly could have been huge with talent to match yes or hawkwind.

It is unbelievable that none of the musicians on this album had reached twenty years old when they made this record in the late sixties!

These are the musicians that later formed or were members of groups like Egg, Khan, Gong, Hatfield and the North, National Health, that is, the cream of the so called Canterbury brand of prog rock.

This record, in spite of the musicians's youth, stands as an underated masterpiece of progressive and psychodelic rock, containing some of the most brilliant trippy and instrumental passages of that style of rock music. Better than anything that Hawkwind would make ever.

In 1969, I was fresh out of the Army and back in college (I failed miserably in my first semester in 1965, and was -- of course -- drafted). I lucked into a chance to work as an advertising copy-writer at a local AM radio station (1000 watts AM, 250 after sundown!). They'd just switched from polkas and elder-talk (complaint) radio, and I had some initial sway in how things would work. He got a beer company to sponsor a free-format "Underground" weekend program. It was dead money anyway!

When we switched to the new format (Top 40 during the week), record companies flooded us with music. I had a blast listening to all of this new stuff from 'back in the day,' and deciding what I wanted to play: Creedence Clearwater's first album -- psychedelic it was, with "I put a spell on you," and "Susie Q," the coming decline of "The Jefferson Airplane" and the tidal wave of the new world in bands like "Led Zeppelin" and ..."Arzachel."

Played one tune at a time, Arzachel just didn't seem to work. As I recollect, I found it surprisingly brilliant anyway, and wanted to use it. My program (anonymous, no ego, mostly music...sponsored by a local beer company I called 'The Golden Stream of Consciousness') was on 6 PM Saturday night to 6 AM Sunday morning, and twice a year had the opportunity to use Arzachel in the Spring, when there was an hour lost, and in the Autumn when it came back.

I called the ersatz program "The Hour That Never Was," I'm not sure, but I think the LP was about an hour total, so it fit about perfectly -- in all ways. "Liberated Radio," as I called it, had a good, but limited following (250 watts doesn't go far in an area with lots of mountains and valleys). It built up a little rep in northeastern Pennsylvania among the cognoscenti (or the usual suspects...take your pick).

I'm only now finding Arzachel again and can't wait to hear the CD) after selling the Arzachel LP album, along with about 1500 others, for about 1200 bucks. I knew I was 'giving away' alot of great stuff (to whit: Spooky Tooth, the LP [I forget the name] with the spike being driven through somebody's head). The guys came to my house, and seemed to love the music, so it was a good karma sale.

A few days later, I went by their store and what did I find? Arzachel, with the proud pink LP cover poking your eye out, advertised in the center of the front window for $1,000.00. I don't know if they ever sold it, and if so, for how much. "Psychedelic album, recorded by unknowns (no names at all, even phoney, on the cardboard cover) and played only twice a year. Special sale price, One Thousand Dollars." I'm replacing it today with the CD...and it WILL be played more than twice a year.

I've known this album for about a year, I'd say. I have this friend who has knowledge on, it seems, every band of the world. One day I heard "Clean Innocent Fun" and I immediately borrowed the cd. I don't know how I managed to do it, but I eventually found it in stores and now can enjoy it anytime I want. Enough with the touching story now.

I consider this album to be a pretty good one, especially considering it was made in one day after Arzachel had won a contest (or so I read). It is original and creative and you can feel the pleasure the musicians are having (or so it seems).
There are two deceiving points. First, it is clear that they were not virtuosi at the time (guitar solos could be more fluid in order to naturally come out of the songs, instead of being forced out), but it is also clear that they're trying real hard to play at the best of their skills. It also lacks of a certain musical unity. What I mean is that sometimes, you feel like the keyboardist is doing is things separately from the guitarist and vice versa (like in the long solo in Clean Innocent Fun, for instance).
However, it remains an excellent debut and a good effort at breaking through conventions to create a unique sound (that somehow sounds blue like the cover!). In addition to that, you get to read fake biographies

John Hea's best songs : Queen St. Gang, Clean Innocent Fun.

Functioning psychedelic-prog exudes bluesy integrity but can sound datedly drowned in guitar and organ reverb when not focused on epic instrumental buildup (as the worth-alone-for final track accomplishes).