Agincourt
Fly Away

The prolific post-1968 musical era would not have been the same without the equally prolific array of A&R, Promoters, and Talent Scouts unleashed practically at every pop event by record labels and managers, in a grand race to snatch up that band or songwriter using the classic method of word-of-mouth or thanks to some hidden hook, showing off skillful moves to play a dirty trick on fierce competition. England, in particular, showed extreme interest in the Progressive verve, but even Hard Rock and "revised" Folk were tasty morsels not to be missed, so the affair soon expanded to the rest of Albion, a territory of endless trips for the "hounds," relentless sniffers of young artists unable to perform in London for clear economic reasons.

In 1970, it seemed that everyone had settled: the Majors, armed with specialized Sub-Labels, had created a world apart, leaving the Beat behind and transforming it into BubbleGumPop in chart-topping 45s, and focusing almost exclusively on making entire albums to exalt those new sounds, whether of a cultured or wild origin mattered little, the goal was solely to shake the new generations of record buyers with products that sounded absolutely new. 

The Indie Labels were still a utopia, the small labels relied on large distributors not to go bankrupt after a couple of releases, the record craftsmanship corresponded, as never before, to certain commercial suicide. It took a good 20 years for a few but genuine pearls that had been hurriedly buried in the ground to resurface and which very few had had the chance to see... and hear. 

Surely none of those tempting devils had ventured to the tiny village of Ditching, in Sussex, where a pair of kids, Peter Howell and John Ferdinando, had long been amusing themselves by sketching compositions using a Philips recorder. In such a small place, everyone knew their passion, and the chance to set Alice Through The Looking Glass of Carrollian memory to music for a play at the local theater put them in the position to privately press the work: the two went to London, with little money and resorted to a pressing plant used exclusively for religious recordings, finally, complete with a homemade cover, the finished product, easily carried by a pair of arms, was ready for the enjoyment of the entire village.

The two charming characters, aware of their organizational abilities, did not leave the beautiful experience as an isolated episode but, on the contrary, launched into a free and constant production until 1973, recording a total of five albums using five different names, from the third step onward using the name Agincourt, with external musicians to create a true pop ensemble. The ace up their sleeve is the addition of the female voice of Lee Menelaus: her dreamy and hypnotic timbre often embraces the clear vocals of John Ferdinando in a unison journey of rare brightness, the opener When I Awoke remains etched on the first listen, imagine Comus in intensive Lexotan therapy or the Incredible String Band no longer tripping diving headfirst into a pool filled with white chocolate mousse or finally the very first Renaissance aftermath of the theft of all classical scores and you'll have the idea.

This is primordial Dream Pop, recorded as best they could but with the hiss that is now so trendy in many new offerings, and often so audibly fake. The thirteen tracks float between soft psychedelia and pastel folk-pop, with lyrics inspired by the serenity of their countryside landscapes, the distant past in Kind Sir and the unsettling present of Mirabella illuminate the same impervious but sure path, Though I May Be Dreaming is the last vivid dream of a Summer of Love ready to expire amid soft melodies and velvety flutes, the electric guitar makes a brief appearance among countless acoustic inventions, in Get Together the lessons of the very first Soft Machine bloom into an ironic and tasty DadaFolkPsych. The flow of tracks is rushing and gently pleasant, not without a subtle acidic aftertaste, until it finally plunges into the mini-suite Through The Eyes Of A Lifetime, a primitive taste of the predominant progressive moods in a subsequent chapter, the indispensable A Game For All Who Know in the name of Ithaca, already cautiously discussed in the Deb.

 For years, my first CD print on Background (Bless those junk dealers who unearthed the pearls!) along with the one from Ithaca had such an echo that they were reprinted again and again, today Fly Away is finally available even in numbered vinyl for the joy of a few lucky enthusiasts. Those who wish to download it may do so happily, of vinyl there is no certainty.