Throughout the 1990s, Cuneiform Records has released essential Happy the Man material that had been overlooked by the band's label Arista in the mid-'70s. Death's Crown presents three archival recordings made in 1974 and 1976 in Happy the Man's rehearsal room. The sound quality is rather poor (the voice is particularly lost in the background), but it is still enjoyable and the beauty of the music makes up for the inconvenience. The record opens with the title track, "Death's Crown," an 11-part suite of 38 minutes. Composed in 1974, "Death's Crown" was originally a multimedia performance including dancers, actors, and a light and slide show. The piece has been performed on numerous occasions, and the band later integrated some parts into its live show (as an example, part five appears on the Live CD as the track "Open Book"). It is the tale of a man's journey into the other side of life, sung in the most emotional way by Frank Wyatt…
Though it met with little commercial success, Happy the Man's 1977 debut quickly became a cult sensation with fans of prog rock. It's easy to see why: their sound combines a number of diverse influences in a distinctive manner, and their music is as complex and meticulously arranged as any prog album one cares to mention. Unlike some popular prog acts, Happy the Man does not allow one instrument to take center stage or allow relentless soloing to dominate the songs. Instead, the focus is on complex interplay between the group's players: compositions like "Knee Bitten Nymphs In Limbo" and "Stumpy Meets the Firecracker in Stencil Forest" are built on the kind of mathematically complex yet playful instrumental interplay that is normally associated with Frank Zappa's most complex work…
The Turtles enjoyed eighteen US hit singles between 1965 and 1970, three of which (“Happy Together”, “She’d Rather Be With Me” and “Elenore”) were also huge hits in the UK. From their original incarnation as surf band The Crossfires, all the way to their final single, the Turtles traversed several different musical paths during their career. Edsel Records is proud to present the band’s six albums, each as a 2 CD digipak set.
SCARED TO GET HAPPY (A Story Of Indie Pop 1980-1989) was the first box set ever to document the explosion of Indie Pop in Britain across the 1980s. This release is a 5 CD Cherry Red's box set, charting Indie Pop’s development from the post punk era and the dominance of Scottish bands through to its genre-defining C86 period and onto the end of the decade, with the arrival of Madchester and the shoegazing sound.