Euroman Cometh

Esoteric Recordings are proud to announce the release of Strange Worlds - A Collection 1980-2010, a clamshell box comprising every solo album by Barclay James Harvest founder Woolly Wolstenholme and his band Maestoso. Described by BJH guitarist John Lees - as "the soul of Barclay James Harvest", Woolly departed BJH in June 1979 to plough his own musical furrow. The 1980 album Maestoso was a majestic work with many outstanding highlights. Black Box Recovered, released in 2003, featured abandoned recordings, along with a selection of rare demos and live recordings. In 2004 Woolly and his band Maestoso released the acclaimed album One Drop in a Dry World. The limited edition live album Fiddling Meanly was issued in 2005. He released the album Grim in 2006, following this with his final solo work, Caterwauling in 2007…

The album that essentially kick-started the U.K. glam rock craze, Electric Warrior completes T. Rex's transformation from hippie folk-rockers into flamboyant avatars of trashy rock & roll. There are a few vestiges of those early days remaining in the acoustic-driven ballads, but Electric Warrior spends most of its time in a swinging, hip-shaking groove powered by Marc Bolan's warm electric guitar. The music recalls not just the catchy simplicity of early rock & roll, but also the implicit sexuality - except that here, Bolan gleefully hauls it to the surface, singing out loud what was once only communicated through the shimmying beat. He takes obvious delight in turning teenage bubblegum rock into campy sleaze, not to mention filling it with pseudo-psychedelic hippie poetry…

Initially a British folk-rock combo called Tyrannosaurus Rex, T. Rex was the primary force in glam rock, thanks to the creative direction of guitarist/vocalist Marc Bolan (born Mark Feld). T. Rex's music borrowed the underlying sexuality of early rock & roll, adding dirty, simple grooves and fat distorted guitars, as well as an overarching folky/hippie spirituality that always came through the clearest on ballads…