Bus 47

Devon based Cosmic troubadours Magic Bus mark their 10th anniversary with their fourth album The Earth Years, their first visit to our planet since 2017’s Phillip The Egg…

Hailing from the transition town of Totnes, Devonshire, England, Magic Bus are a band that freely admits that they think they are still producing music of the psychedelic era of the 1960s and early 1970s. Their sound definitely conjures up early psychedelic jazz of Canterbury Scene bands Caravan, Soft Machine and Steve Hillage though it also takes inspiration from the psychedelia coming from the West Coast of the USA in the late Sixties (specifically Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills & Nash)…

Well, it does exactly what it says on the box. The 57 tracks on this 'Magic Bus' compilation run from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, but, with remarkable perspicacity, the compiler has mixed them up very cleverly. The CDs are called 'Turn On', 'Tune In' and 'Drop Out' and the songs on each one reflect, more or less, their monikers. Thus, on CD1 Scott McKenzie rubs shoulders with Barry McGuire, CD2 is full of singer-songwriters; Dylan, Cat Stevens and the like; whilst CD3 rocks it up with Steppenwolf and Cream. What this collection is selling is nostalgia and it does it very, very well. Anyone who grew up through the years in question will remember every one of these songs and probably sing along with them too. It has to be said that there are two major omissions though, there is nothing by either The Beatles or The Rolling Stones. Down to licensing presumably. That said, this is an absolutely classic collection that has been selected with extreme care and, dare it be said, love.