Alchemy Desktop

There is an interesting contrast on this 94-minute double-disc live album (recorded at London's Hammersmith Odeon in July 1983) between the music, much of which is slow and moody, with Mark Knopfler's muttered vocals and large helpings of his fingerpicking on what sounds like an amplified Spanish guitar, and the audience response…

THIRD EAR BAND was one of the earliest signings to EMI’s Progressive imprint, Harvest Records. The band was formed in 1968 around a nucleus of GLEN SWEENEY (percussion), PAUL MINNS (Oboe), RICHARD COFF (Violin, Viola) and MEL DAVIS (cello). Third Ear Band were unique in their exploration of exotic baroque music fused with experimental rock. Signing to Blackhill Enterprises in 1969, the quartet opened for many of the legendary Hyde Park free concerts by Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones and Blind Faith. Their debut album, “Alchemy”, released in July 1969, was championed by legendary DJ John Peel and is regarded as one of the most striking and original works of the era with its unique gothic improvisational music.

Welcome to "Alchemy of Happiness", music for the Museum of Alchemy of Córdoba. You enter a sound space that invites meditation and work. Alchemy, the ancient art of transmuting matter, is also an art of spiritual transformation. The alchemist goes through the same phases as the raw material on which he operates.

vant-garde rock & roll of 1970s vintage – especially, it must be said, of the British variety – doesn't typically age very well. And although Henry Cow was quite a unique ensemble, even by the standards of the 1970s avant-garde, it would be silly to deny that much of the music captured on these two live discs (originally released on LP in 1976) sounds pretty dated…