Tuesday, 3 October 2017

Bob Stanley & Pete Wiggs Present English Weather


Rating: 5/5

Review:
A terrific compilation



This is a terrific compilation.  There's a mixture of fairly well-known bands and (to me, anyway) very obscure stuff, and it gives a really good picture of the prog scene as the 60s moved into the 70s.

I turned 16 in 1970, so this is pretty much the sound of my adolescence.  I knew some of this music at the time, largely through listening to people like John Peel on Top Gear (later excitingly retitled Sounds Of The Seventies), but some of it was entirely new to me.  As with any compilation, I like some more than others, but it's a very intelligent and lovingly compiled selection, much of which is surprisingly melodious with some very lovely harmonic work, too.  Prog could be a pretty hard slog sometimes, but I found little of that here and most of it is very listenable without ever being facile.  (I'd forgotten quite how many flutes there were at the time – and not a Jethro Tull track in sight on this album, either.)  It's both musically intelligent and an enjoyable listen.

If you have any interest in the prog/underground music of the late 607s and early 70s, I can warmly recommend this disc.

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