Caravan
In The Land Of Grey And Pink

THE REVIEW

The Canterbury School was prolific with artists, each characterized by their own particular style, although the sound remained unmistakably the same. The progressive of Caravan fused rock, jazz, and psychedelia into a delicate combination of harmonies and visions, and moreover, already from the enchanted grey and pink landscape on the album cover, we can imagine which dreamy atmosphere we are about to immerse ourselves in: indeed, unreachable peaks of prog and melody, this is the product of Caravan.

It is one of the foundational albums of progressive, but it's also one of those albums that captivates you on a full listen and enters you immediately without asking permission. Here a personal judgment is warranted: well, in a possible "value scale," I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to place this album on the same step (the highest, of course) as "Third" or "Close to the Edge" or some works by Pink Floyd and King Crimson. It must first be highlighted that the technical and compositional prowess of Caravan is certainly also due to the knowledge and influence of the greatest musician of the modern era: sir Robert Wyatt, Canterbury master and father of the genre, with whom, among others, R. Sinclair had played in the Wild Flowers, together with Hugh Hopper and Kevin Ayers (the crème of Canterbury). But what characterizes Caravan? How was it possible that they created such a masterpiece, capable of transporting us so far from reality, to discover the hidden world where each of us has always wanted to live? It’s their enchanting cadence, that makes even a 23-minute piece seem very short, keeps us listening closely to avoid missing even a single note of trumpet, mellotron, guitar, or bass.

However, be careful not to misunderstand: listenability is not synonymous with simplicity nor banality, rather it must be acknowledged Caravan's rare ability to make melodic even what is in itself complex or strictly technical, though never for its own sake. The Caravan playing in "In the Land of Grey and Pink" are Richard Sinclair, singer and bassist, cousin David on keyboards, singer and guitarist Pye Hastings, drummer Richard Coughlan, and there’s also the backing of Jimmy Hastings on winds (sax and flute). So capable of transporting us truly into a grey and pink world inhabited by fairies and elves, Sinclair’s pure voice is endowed with a tone of soothing melancholy that wraps the surreal lyrics like a honeyed veil. The album, released by "Deram" in 1971, starts with the compelling "Golf Girl", which tells of Pat, a girl dressed in PVC, selling tea to Richard as in the strangest dreams. From the start, it’s easy to notice the completeness of the sound, especially due to organ and wind interventions, which, together with R. Sinclair’s vocal purity, reach peaks worth noting. The next track is the delicate "Winter Wine", whose best expression emerges in the melodic moment; it almost seems to describe a medieval dream but, unfortunately, "dreams are always ending far too soon."

The cheerful freak-song "Love to Love You (And Tonight Pigs Will Fly)" by Pye Hastings is certainly the most banal track of the album but still with significant moments, see the final flute solo. The fourth track "In the Land of Grey and Pink" fully reflects the group's humor, with seemingly nonsense lyrics; the piano and winds interludes are remarkable, and I agree with Sgrignoli about the rainbow that might peek out while this music flows! A sublime masterpiece of Caravan and a manifesto of progressive as a whole is the monumental suite "Nine Feet Underground", 22.44 minutes of pure musical ecstasy, a shocking flight with closed eyes in the vast and boundless skies of prog, jazz-rock, and melody. It culminates with various transitions between instruments, every time the solar voice of R. Sinclair enters, and the continuous rhythm changes, like an unpredictable wind that gently lulls us until it lays us down slowly or throws us away. A curiosity: the title is inspired by the room where R. Sinclair lived, which was, indeed, nine feet underground. The artistic evolution of Caravan reached such a high level, never again attained by themselves, due also to subsequent line-up changes.

The reissued CD edition by "Decca" in 2001 contains 5 additional tracks, including some prototypes of already released songs. With the dawn of the new millennium, "Nine Feet Underground" shines ever more brightly, and its fairy-tale conceptions of time and place permeate the generational sensitivities of those to come, sealing the timelessness of such a nobly purposed art, and, far beyond, the perennial human quest for inner freedom.

A unique and superlative album, "In the Land of Grey and Pink" is recommended for those with refined palates but especially for those who want to approach the genre.