Desiree Barclay

Cut live at the Reichstag in the German city, Berlin is very different from The Live Tapes, with a rather leaner, harder-rocking sound, and more of a dance-rock feel as well, and is also miked much closer for a more intimate sound…

Face to Face is the fourteenth studio album by British rock band Barclay James Harvest, released in 1987. The working title for the album whilst recording was in progress was Elements, but there was a last-minute change to Face to Face…

If you are a fan of Barclay James Harvest, or are an uninitiated soul looking for a good introduction to one of the worlds most underrated bands, then look no further than "Caught In the Light"! This is a brilliant album from start to finish…

One Way reissued Barclay James Harvest's third and fourth albums, Barclay James Harvest and Other Short Stories, and Baby James Harvest, on a single disc in 1994…

By the time of "Welcome to the show", BJH were almost forgotten in their UK homeland, outwith their small but faithful band of followers. Their reputation in continental Europe, and Germany in particular, however meant that there was still a market for their albums. Consequently, this release was very much geared towards fans in that country…

Esoteric Recordings are pleased to announce the release of a re-mastered and expanded deluxe two-disc edition of the classic 1993 album by Barclay James Harvest, "Caught In The Light". The album was the band’s last album to be issued by Polydor Records in the UK and was a highlight of their later work.
Featuring excellent material such as ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’, ‘A Matter of Time’, ‘Knoydart’, ‘Back to Earth’ and ‘Ballad of Denshaw Mill’, this re-mastered edition also includes the full version of ‘Forever Yesterday’ (only released on the cassette edition of the album) and a bonus track of the rare German promotional edit of ‘Who Do We Think We Are?’.
Significantly, this expanded Deluxe edition features a bonus CD of unreleased live material recorded at the band’s 25th Anniversary concert at the Town & Country Club, London on 16th February 1992…

BJH's early exploration of different sounds and styles was well behind them by 1983, and in its place came some pretty standard fare. The songs here are soft rock; Alan Parsons Project type compositions…

Based very loosely around the motif of literary genres (science fiction, fantasy, classics, etc.), XII shows Barclay James Harvest following many other progressive bands in the late '70s with slicker production and simplified song structures. This attempt at the mainstream doesn't always succeed; the album begins inauspiciously with "Loving Is Easy," a generic rock track with embarrassing "shoot my love into you" lyrics. But the simple yet effective arrangement of the keyboard ballad, "Berlin," shows that the band is capable of stripping down their compositions without having to sink to the lowest common denominator. Still, most fans won't find much to love here, except perhaps for "In Search of England," which briefly resurrects Wolstenholme's epic keyboard-driven orchestration.

A double CD set of all previously unreleased recordings from the BBC archives. Disc One features an In Concert programme recorded at the Golders Green Hippodrome in London on 19th June, 1974, including She Said, which was not broadcast at the time. The second CD comprises session recordings made for John Peel's and Bob Harris's Radio One programmes, two tracks recorded live for the Old Grey Whistle Test and four songs recorded in concert at the Liverpool Empire on 14th October, 1976.

Time Honoured Ghosts continued Barclay James Harvest's development away from the orchestral sweep of the earlier albums, although there's a little more filler than usual here. "In My Life" emphasizes BJH's penchant for ghostly descending vocal choruses and features an angular lead guitar part that would be recycled several years later in "Loving Is Easy." "Titles" remains memorably catchy in spite of its faintly irritating musical parlor trick of lyrics created entirely from Beatles song titles. "Moongirl" in particular demonstrates how Stewart Wooly Wolstenholme's approach to keyboards differs from most prog rock bands (with the exception, perhaps, of Pink Floyd); by subtly combining a variety of background textures (Mellotron, harpsichord, organ, piano), he acts as a foil to set off the more obvious roles played by the vocals and lead guitar.