As every label attempts to crush that duplicate mileage out of back catalogues that have long lain inactive. In the 60ss and 70s to the highest degree majors, in bid to avoid looking like 'the man' put out the left field chancers and genuine avant garde rock on subsidiary imprints with cooler name calling and logos. In recent years there have been a some great attempts to represent such labels like Vertigo, Decca's collection of freakery from Deram and EMI's Harvest label amongst others.
Which brings us to Spirit of Joy: Polydor's prime underground mark was Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert's Track Records, and much of this box plant comes from there. As so often happens with such collections the auditor not only comes out with a head-spinningly diverse collection of tunes in their ears, but likewise a grand sense of how broad-minded the so-called 'corporations' of the 60s and early 70s were. For every sure-fire dispatch such as This Wheel's On Fire - Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity or Thunderclap Newman's Something In The Air (penned by Pete Townshend, so maybe not such a gamble after all) you get the crazed sounds of Aphrodite's Child or Second Hand.
Spirit Of joy journeys from the nascent psych of Arthur Brown's still-brilliant Fire! (here appropriately prefaced by its manic spoken word of honor prologue) fillet en route for some genuine rarities such as Soft Machine's first individual, Feelin' Reelin' Squealin', the early work of Fairport Convention on It's Alright Ma, It's Only Witchcraft , recorded when they were still the UK's answer to Jefferson Airplane, along with large hitters like Cream and Eric Burdon and The Animals. Notable points are Caravan's start forays, Van Der Graaf Generator - when they still sounded like a normal pop band - and a truly genius inclusion of The Who's lovely upbeat Dogs; the best strain about greyhounds, ever.
By saucer two you've moved into blues rock with Rory Gallagher's Taste and Jethro Tull stomping around, as well as the agit prop rock of Ladbroke Grove's Pink Fairies. Highlights include a post-Cream Jack Bruce, former Tangerine Dream and an out-there electric John Mclaughlin. And on disc trey it's about time for prog, with Barclay James Harvest and the not-so-tasty Golden Earring. However there's still elbow room for some challenging krautrock with faust and more great jazz rock from Jack Bruce again.
It's a heady rush of that sits on the cusp of failure, simply by dint of the fact that too many bands hither actually 'made it' and escaped the titular underground. But as with today's redundant 'indie' label, it's just a word. What's on declare oneself is wide-ranging, intriguing and still pretty damn far out. That's joyous enough for near music lovers.
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