Customer Reviews

In & Out of Focus

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

 

 

For the most part, Focus was a jazz duo consisting of Jan Akkerman on guitar and Thijs Van Leer on flute and keys. The rhythm section tended to vary from album to album, with Akkerman doing some of the bass himself. The prog i.d. was added by virtue of tracks like "Anonymous", which used the staple guitar and organ arrangements imitative of ELP, bracketed fore and aft by a Renaissance woodwind theme. A much later 1980s Mercury release called "Focus: Jan Akkerman & Thijs Van Leer" doesn't seem to be available here--it goes deeper into their jazz roots than the original three releases. Back then they didn't have that liberty while they were targeting British and American prog audiences. Certain concessions to culture had to be made, such as the song "Happy Nightmare (Mescaline)". This is a very good jazz number given a dope-oriented title to draw stoner attention. The moral here is: if you know the sound, don't let a badly-chosen title throw you. There's a definite Syd Barret-era Pink Floyd sound to "Why Dream" and Van Leer does a good enough Ian Anderson flute imitation in "House Of the King" that I mistook the song for a Jethro Tull instrumental on an FM prog station. Then I got this album after having bought and loved the second "Moving Waves" release and stumbled on the song by accident. Which I guess is a corollary to the title versus sound hypothesis. It's the latter that matters.

Released in 1970, this debut by the Dutch prog band Focus is fairly well developed and many of the elements of the classic Focus sound are in place - a sound that would come to glorious fruition on the excellent Moving Waves (1971) and Focus III (1972). Featured prominently on this album are the incredible talents of virtuoso guitarist Jan Akkerman and flautist/keyboardist Thijs van Leer (love the Hammond organ work and his flute work is killer). Let us just say that their playing is impressive even at this early stage. Supporting them is a solid bass player and an excellent drummer. Come to think of it, Focus always had good drummers. With respect to the vocals, they are actually pretty good and fit well with the material.

What sets this album apart from their definitive works however, are tinges of 1960's psychedelia, which can be heard to varying degrees on Black Beauty, Why Dream, and especially on the perky, chirpy tune Sugar Island (an anti-Fidel Castro track). I suppose the psychedelia makes sense however - this was 1970 after all. Other tracks, while extremely enjoyable, show evidence of growing pains such as the Jethro-Tull inflected House of the King, along with the jazzy (and mellotron heavy) Happy Nightmare (Jan rips it up on this tune). Because I have no imagination whatsoever, my favorite tracks include those that sound just like classic Focus - the opening track Focus (vocal), the blistering instrumental jam Anonymous, which features excellent solos by Jan and Thijs (although I could have done without the not-so-hot bass solo), and the awesome closing instrumental track Focus. I guess it is worth noting that iterations of the tracks Focus and Anonymous would turn up on subsequent albums (e.g. Focus II and III, and Anonymous II).

Although this album has been (supposedly) remastered by Red Bullet (2001) and features excellent sound quality that is about it - there are no liner notes or photos whatsoever.

All in all this is a great debut by a fantastic prog rock band and is highly recommended along with Moving Waves and Focus III.

In & Out of Focus is not bad for a debut by one of the biggest prog rock bands to come out of the Netherlands (same country that also gave us bands like Earth & Fire, Ekseption, Trace, Finch, Alquin, Supersister, Kayak, etc.). Of course the sound of this album has not been fully developed, and there are several pop oriented numbers like "Black Beauty". This is also by far their most vocal dominated album. There are a couple of cuts that showed the more progressive direction the band will quickly move to. One is the instrumental opening, "Focus", and the other is "Anonymous" which I think works a lot better than Focus 3's "Anonymous II" because it's shorter allowing the band to focus (no pun intended) better. "House of the King" is a totally wonderful and cathy Jethro Tull-like number that was later featured on the LP version of Focus 3, because the American LP version of In & Out of Focus did not feature that cut (but the European version did). Also the US version of this LP did not feature "Sugar Island" either. The IRS CD reissue features the American cover but all eight of the European tracks. Regardless, this is a nice and listenable album, but much better things were to come to this band with their followup Moving Waves.

True, this album, on musical merits alone, does not measure up to later Focus albums. This is before the addition of the cookin' rhythm section (ex-Brainbox) heard on Moving Waves or bass player Bert Ruiter who joined up for album 3. Also worth mentioning is the sloppiness of a few tracks and a vocal flub on Mescaline (pun?) I find these sort of things negligible to my enjoyment of an album. Fact is these glitches were relsults of a small recording budget. Its the music that matters.
Many would say that vocals were not Focus' strong point. I agree. But the vocals fit the music and I don't find Van Leer's voice even slightly annoying.
Why is this a 5 star album , you ask? I judge an album based on content and performance, not budget. I take into consideration what the band has to work with when doing an album. It's about utilizing the tools and talents available in the best way, for maximum effect. A live album would not be judged the same as a big budget studio one. A young band rushed in and out of studio (another pun?) would not be judged the same as a veteran band taking their sweet time. What works for In and out of Focus is that the material is solid. I love the tremendous buildup from a slow and gentle beginning in Focus Instrmental to the absolutely giddy flute solo later on. Then the descrescendo is just as effective, and a final blow of yee-haw country pickin' to end it. An impressive unstructured jam. Great. The vocal tracks are great songs, very inspired songwriting. Great coloration with the instrumentation. Melodic yet with drive. Happy Nightmare (mescaline) is an ode to mood jazz, with another great build up. More free jamming with Anonymous, which features a funky drum/bass workout. Great groove on that song. The album closes with Focus Vocal, which is a pedestrian version of the beginning section of the album opener, Focus Instrumental. It is short, and probably filler, but ends the album nicely. It grows on you after a while, and gives insight to how such a simple idea can be worked into a frenzy as heard in the opening track.
A very friendly album that hints at the progressive direction Focus would soon take. Not by any means a weak effort!
Also: original sound quality is quite good, (expensive back in 1970) no sound fidelity issues.

This CD is a great mix - even better than my original vinyl, and it has an extra track "House of the King" which was not included on my vinyl. Well done! to Ian Gillespie & Mike Vernon for mastering/producing this CD.

And what a band they were! Intelligent, yet powerful - Jan Akkerman right up there with the best English prog rock (and heavy rock) guitarists, and Thijs van Leer a powerful combination of brilliant flute & keyboards - only ever-so-slightly below Ian Anderson on flute, and only slightly below Keith Emerson on keys; but, Keith couldn't play flute (& didn't sing much) and Ian couldn't play keys like that.

I don't know why they shed their rhythm section for their following album ("Moving Waves") because you can hear that Martijn Dresden & Hans Cleuver are really top notch (but the new guys were brilliant too).

I've read we have American talent scouts to thank for hearing Focus, because the English ones were ignoring them - at least until they broke big in the U.S. first.

I've not long come back from Holland (with forays into Belgium, Paris, Germany, Prague & Vienna), and I'm not surprised that such a friendly & cultured country gave rise to such an excellent band, with such an excellent debut album, and for 1970 - with all the competition around then in one of the pinnacle years of Rock.

Side One

1. Focus (Instrumental)

2. Why Dream

3. Happy Nightmare (Mescaline)

Side Two

4. Anonymus

5. Black Beauty

6. Focus (Vocal)

Focus is a really cool pop band. This is the only album I have heard by them so far, and I'm very impressed. There's a 6 minute instrumental that's melodic and features a nice variety of instruments such as flutes, piano, and electric guitar. The mood of the jam reminds me of the Allman Brothers Band classic "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed".

Another really cool song is called "Why Dream" with its Pink Floyd-like vocals (the early version of Floyd, that is) and powerful lyrics. A very good band if you like beautiful arrangements, great songwriting, and just the right amount of creativity.

Just as the previous reviewer states, this CD issue contains the full original release, with "Sugar Island" and the single "House of the King". The running order and cover picture are different however. Also, the latter track was re-recorded for Focus 3.

This Focus's first album. In Europe, it was originally released with a purple and violet polka dot cover. In the US, it was released with a cheesy looking cover that had an advertisement on the back for the band (calling Jan Akkerman the best guitarist in the world). When Focus's second album, Moving Waves became a hit, In And Out Of... was reissued with a new cover, the one used for this CD. The Japanese version of the CD has the original European cover (which is unusual...Japanese CD's usually use the American covers).

This CD is 36 minutes long (like the original European LP). The American LP had one song missing, House of the King. The track order was also different than the European album.

House of the King, with a slightly different mixing, was also included on both the US and European LP versions of Focus 3 (I know, becuase I have both). But, it was not included on most CD versions of Focus 3 (only the Japanese version has it).

This album sounds very dated, especially for 1970. It is like the first album from many progressive rock acts, like Caravan, Pink Floyd and others.

This album has three vocal tracks that sound like typical late sixties British rock. Not like the Beatles or the Rolling Stones, but like the groovy music you would hear in the mod movies. These tracks are not very good. After this album, Focus mostly gave up on vocal tracks and stuck mostly to instrumentals, for good reason.

There are two very good, extended instrumental tracks, Anonymous and Focus. But, the sound quality is a little thin and tinny, giving these tracks a dated feel, also. Later Focus albums will have a much richer sound.

This is a good album, but Focus would rework most of this material on later albums. Nearly every Focus album has a variation on the instrumental composition called Focus. Anonymous is redone on the album Focus III and is 20 minutes longer.

I don't know if I would recommend this CD, even if you already had everything else by Focus. It is only 36 minutes long and it is only a slight variation from what you can get on other Focus albums. I certainly wouldn't buy it for the rare vocal tracks.

Focus would go through many personnel changes, with Jan Akkerman leaving after the fifth studio album. Focus would only record 4 studio albums and 1 live album in this style. The fifth studio Focus album (Mother Focus) would be light jazz fusion. The sixth would feature a pop singer and be blues oriented. After that, the group broke up for almost 20 years. Tjis Van Leer has reformed Focus with members of tribute band and recorded Focus 8 and some live CD's released with several different names.

I (as i said in my review of Mother Focus) am a huge Focus fan. However, nothing makes me cringe more than when they try to sing. None of the band members have ever sang very well. The only vocal tracks in their history that are not cringeworthy are La Cathedrale De Strausbourg & Focus (Vocal) which the latter is on this album.

Of the instrumental cuts, definately what they excelled at doing, they rock good and hard. Focus (Instrumental) is an almost 10 minutes of great prog rock. One of the long ones they did that was NOT repetitave. This was the first of 6 "Focus" songs. Thijs Van Leer had a Focus theme and this was technically part one. The last reviewer is incorrect. They do not rework it on later albums. Focus II, III, IV & V are all VERY different from each other and this one. As for the other 2 tunes. Anonymus is better here than in its longer jazzier version on the album Focus 3. It rocks more in this version. As for House of the King. THIS LINEUP DID IT, if i had a dollar for every person who crapped on the cd release of Focus 3 for not including it I'd be rich. House of the King was only included on the US version of Focus 3. It was a non-lp single in 1970. This is where it truly belongs.

As for the vocals. Happy Nightmare, Focus (vocal) and Why Dream are the better ones. But all the vocals drag my rating down. Thankfully they realized this and did almost ALL instrumentals on subsequent albums.

If you want to complete your Focus collection, Buy it. If you are exploring them, buy the album Best of Focus (Hocus Pocus) for a good 16 track sampler of their career.

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