Rare Bird

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 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.

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…

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.

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…

When they recorded their third album, Rare Bird had recently undergone some personnel changes that had a serious effect on the band's musical direction. One of the band's two keyboardists, founding member and primary songwriter Graham Field, had left, marking an end to the group's nearly unique organ-electric piano-drums-vocals lineup. Rather than replace him with another organist, the group added guitarist/second lead vocalist Ced Curtis, with singer Steve Gould taking up guitars as well…

Rare Bird came together in October 1969 when organist Graham Field, keyboardist Dave Kaffinetti, drummer Mark Ashton, and vocalist Steve Gould envisioned a two-keyboard rock sound without guitars. They released their debut before the end of the year, featuring the minor radio hit "Sympathy." The next year they released As Your Mind Flies By, a dark and heavier album that put further emphasis on Gould's melodramatic singing style…

'Born Again' is a great ROCK album, but there really isn't much 'progressive' about it - Graeme Field took the prog idealism along with him when he left Rare Bird after the exciting album 'As Your Mind Flies By'. That said, the songs here are very tight, undeniably well arranged, performed, and sound fantastic…