The Graham Bond Organisation

Love Is The Law (1968). In 1968 Graham Bond left the Britain after the collapse of the Graham Bond Organisation to record two legendary albums for mercury records in the us. Recorded in Los Angeles, Love Is The Law saw Bond play all instruments on the album (except drums) & featured material that featured jazz influences alongside emerging psychedelic & underground rock influences resulting in a truely unique and highly sought after work, laced with fine musicianship and mystical lyrics. Previously bootlegged on CD with poor quality sound, this Esoteric release of Love Is The Law has been re-mastered from the original master tapes and restores the original artwork with a new essay to make the definitive edition of this classic album…

Ray Russell has had quite the glittering career. Setting off at age 15 with the John Berry Seven, the guitarist went on to play with the Graham Bond Organisation and then Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames. Eventually, Russell would lend his talents on-stage and/or in the studio to a plethora of performers, from Tina Turner to Lulu, the Bee Gees to Phil Collins, and branching out in the '70s to compose for the small screen. Amidst this busy career, Russell also put together the odd band, like the Running Man, whose sole, eponymous album was released with little fanfare in 1972. The core trio of Russell on both guitar and bass, vocalist/organist Alan Greed, and vocalist/drummer Alan Rushton was supplemented by Harry Beckett on trumpet and flügelhorn and the late Gary Windo on tenor sax.

It has to hurt to be dumped from the band you lead, but that's what happened to Pete Brown with the Battered Ornaments – and to add insult to injury, right on the eve of a prestigious support slot opening for the Rolling Stones at London's Hyde Park in 1969. But Brown, already an acclaimed poet who'd penned many of the lyrics for Cream, dusted himself off and founded Piblokto!. This, their first album, was actually far more accessible and commercial than his work with the Battered Ornaments. The inventive title track percolates, and "High Flying Electric Bird" (which was the B-side of the band's first single) features Brown on the highly unusual rock & roll slide whistle, mimicking a birdsong. But it's "Golden Country Kingdom" that's the highlight; long and involved, it's a wonderful and highly affecting piece of prog rock that stands as the best thing Piblokto! ever put on tape. It stands as a contrast to the more laid-back "Firesong," although "My Love's Gone Far Away" offers a more soulful organ sound.

While it would be utterly foolish to consider a two-disc set by guitarist John McLaughlin as anything other than a sample of the wildly diverse career he's enjoyed since the early '60s, it should be noted and underscored that what Legacy does with this set is to provide a solid look at not only the man's gifts but at the way he's employed them, exploited them, and let them get the best of him for the past 40-plus years.

Various Artists - A Slight Disturbance in My Mind: The British Proto-Psychedelic Sounds of 1966 (2020) {Grapefruit Records}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44.1kHz - Digital Download -> 1.04 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 547 Mb | Cover | 5% repair rar
© 1966, 2020 Grapefruit Records / Cherry Red | CRSEGBOX066
Rock / British Invasion / British Psychedelia / Freakbeat / Psychedelic / Mod

Another lovingly curated rock & roll gem from Cherry Red's archival Grapefruit Records imprint, A Slight Disturbance in My Mind is an expansive three-disc set entirely devoted to the opening phases of Britain's budding psychedelic movement. By late 1965, the American underground, particularly San Francisco's LSD-inspired drug culture, had begun to infiltrate popular music. The Byrds and other West Coast groups began to adopt a more experimental attitude while in the U.K. bands like the Yardbirds and, more prominently, the Beatles forged their own new directions away from rock's more easily digestible conventions.

Crawling Up A Hill is a fascinating document of a genre that, though relatively short-lived, would have a seismic influence on the subsequent development of rock music.