Strontium 90
Police Academy

Even if the name of the group makes you think of a dual possibility of translation, it's good to know that behind this band are the then-bassist and now producer Mike Howlett (formerly of Gong), Sting (formerly of Last Exit), Andy Summers (with Soft Machine and Dantalian's Chariot among others) and Stewart Copeland (formerly of Curved Air). In short, an unknown London musician along with those who, shortly after this experience, would begin to win over the general public by gifting them masterpiece records destined to become milestones in rock history. It had already been a few months since the young Howlett had left the band Gong and needing to prepare some demos, he began looking for the instrumentalists who would help him complete the anticipated recordings. Within a month, the talented Mike managed to recruit the right formation that would allow him to record on tape the five studio-tracks present on this "Police Academy."

The CD opens with "Visions Of The Night" (soon after only traceable as a B-side of one of the first singles by The Police post-academy), an aggressive track just enough, whose simple structure and the driving solo by Summers in pure rock'n roll style, would help make this formula their most rock trademark. A superlative follow-up is represented by the great emotional impact of "New World Blues", where the magnificent vocal performance by Sting and Howlett's precision bass make it, in the opinion of the author, the best track of the compact, also for those pioneering and sparkling sounds that a little later would characterize Andy's guitars. With "Lady Of Delight", written by Howlett like its predecessor and also present in a near-useless live version at the end of the work, the quartet goes for a tender pop rock that would not have been out of place on a record like "Outlandos D'Amour". The excellent executive qualities of Mr. Howlett are showcased in tracks like "Electron Romance", where there are clear funky influences very close to the sound of masters like the James Taylor Quartet (for more, see the theme of "Starsky and Hutch"); not least the fluid and magnetic bass solo that good Mike gives us in "Towers Tumble" (where Sting is certainly not singing!), a track with a dark and haunting vocal that sees the light again in a longed-for refrain so naturally memorable.

The live performance of Strontium 90 - which was recorded at the Cirque Hippodrome in Paris on May 27, 1977 -, includes: "Lady Of Delight", less polished but identical to the studio version; "Electron Romance" where the four Englishmen use the track as a platform to spread their own talent; finally "3 O'Clock Shot" (which has the same introduction as what would be "Be My Girl - Sally"). Immediate, sharp and at the same time a harbinger of those gems that would appear on the first two real The Police albums. A track that deviates from the Strontium 90 discourse appears in this work: it is the embryonic version of "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic", sung/played by Sting and immortalized on a Tcac four-track recorder in Howlett's house in the autumn of 1976, to officially come to light in the decent "Ghost In The Machine" a full five years later.

For the sake of completeness of information surely appreciated by curiosity devourers, know that the rest of the recordings of "Police Academy" (made on eight tracks) were hosted by the Virtual Studios in London, while for those who intend to own everything of Sting & Co., the Japanese edition of the CD includes two more tracks taken from the live act.