Another vinyl reissue of Steve Hillage's first recordings - with Bonus track

Wonderfully over the top classic psychedelic album....er....again

Another record company, a French one, jumps on the Arzachel vinyl re-issue bandwagon. The selling features this time are a lower price than the other version, the addition of a bonus track, Holst's 'Saturn The Bringer of Old Age', and the original cover illustrations being given a silver background instead of the usual blue or pink.

I always enjoy listening to Arzachel's enthusiastic, youthful psych madness, it's great fun, wonderfully carefree and a bit over the top, and very 1968/'69. But isn't it strange that a day's recordings way back in 1969, by what was basically a bunch of music-mad very young men (I think Steve was only 17) have generated such a flow of re-issues over the years. I suspose that's what happens with some murky ownership issues and original vinyl copies fetching £400 or more in the collector's market - plus of course it is delivers so very good music.

If you want a vinyl version and haven't got the money (or madness) for a original this is certainly as good an edition as any. However if you are not that bothered by the format an want the artist sanctioned, fully bonus-tracked, illustrated booklet deal, you'll have to track down a copy of the Dave Stewart's re-mastered CD and his fat little entertaining 'Copious Notes' booklet.

Some promo wordage: - One of the great lost albums of British psychedelia, original copies of Arzachel's 1969 self-titled debut fetch huge sums on the collectors' market and it is not difficult to understand why. Originally released in 1969 on the small Evolution label, this album quite simply contains some of the best psych to ever come out of the UK. However, like so many other great albums of the era, it soon dropped entirely from the radar due to bad promotion. In fact, it may not have ever been rediscovered at all if guitarist Steve Hillage and keyboardist Dave Stewart had not gone on to be so well known. Hillage would soon become famous for his work in Gong, and Stewart would become a legend of British prog with Egg, Hatfield and the North, National Health, and his work with wife Barbara Gaskin in the 1980s. Contains bonus track from a lacquer of the same period.