Rare Bird

Rare Bird is a quartet that relied heavily on keyboards as both Kafinetti and Field played together, the former on piano and synthesizers and the latter on organ - much like Procol Harum and later on Greenslade. They had a hit with "Sympathy" in the UK but were more successful in Continental Europe where they became quite popular, their sound often reminding us of Barclay James Harvest. This double keyboard attack held no place for a guitarist until Field left along with the drummer Ashton and another keyboard player Lamb. This change occurred as they switched to Polydor label and they took on a guitar player, and played a harder rock with some funky lines. Nic Potter of VDGG played on two albums of the second line-up and John Wetton guested on one.

A new 6CD boxed set anthology celebrating the music of Rare Bird recorded between 1969 and 1975. Featuring 59 tracks on 6 CDs including the albums Rare Bird, As Your Mind Flies By, Epic Forest, Somebody’s Watching & Born Again along with a previously unreleased disc recorded Live At The Theatre Royal, drury lane in 1974 and a further 12 bonus tracks drawn from rare singles, an ep and a studio out-take. All newly remastered. Includes an illustrated book with extensive essay & interviews with Steve Gould & Mark Ashton & poster.

A new 6CD boxed set anthology celebrating the music of Rare Bird recorded between 1969 and 1975. Featuring 59 tracks on 6 CDs including the albums Rare Bird, As Your Mind Flies By, Epic Forest, Somebody’s Watching & Born Again along with a previously unreleased disc recorded Live At The Theatre Royal, drury lane in 1974 and a further 12 bonus tracks drawn from rare singles, an ep and a studio out-take. All newly remastered. Includes an illustrated book with extensive essay & interviews with Steve Gould & Mark Ashton & poster.

Rare Bird's unpolished but sturdy brand of early progressive rock was built on their heavy keyboard implementations, as they were one of the few bands to produce music without the employment of an electric guitar. Using only a couple of keyboards, a bass guitar, and drums, Rare Bird represented the simplest form of synthesizer prog, but their music ranged anywhere from busy and rambunctious to light and delicate sounding. Sympathy is a compilation that takes five songs from their 1969 self-titled debut album and four tracks from 1970s As Your Mind Flies By and unites them conveniently on one disc. Starting off with the modest, elementary organ runs in "Sympathy," the album moves on to more layered pieces like "Bird on a Wing" and "What You Want to Know," highlighting the sometimes strained vocals of Steve Gould…

This debut featured an organist and an electric pianist, but no guitarist, resulting in a moody Hammond-heavy album from a band that would later become more progressive and varied in its sound. "Beautiful Scarlet" shifts easily from histrionic soul to offhanded slow-four interludes, and the instrumental "Iceberg" shows off the organist Graham Field and the rest of band's chops well…

Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music.
Featuring "Sympathy"
The photo of the band clinched it - in those days any strange album i found depicting "four hippies in a field / park / wood" was worth investigating as part of my "scene".

Rare Bird - Sympathy
EAC+LOG+CUE | WV: 229 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Virgin # CDOVD 280 | Country/Year: UK 1990, 1976
Genre: Rock | Style: Psychedelic Rock, Prog Rock

…Without the complexity or the multi-layered intricacies that other progressive bands were fusing into their music, Rare Bird stuck to a format that singled out the workings of each instrument so that overlapping very rarely occurred. As a result, their inherent musical methods were easy to appreciate as this type of raw prog began to deteriorate among a busier-sounding group of bands like Emerson, Lake & Palmer and King Crimson, as well as the advent of German progressive music and Krautrock. Sympathy is a fine example of this band's unembellished style of progressive rock.

Essential: A masterpiece of progressive rock music
Back in 1970, whilst browsing in my favorite used record store, i came across this album. Despite the ghastly sleeve art (not the cover pictured above), i turned it over and noticed “Sympathy”…