Tea & Symphony
An Asylum For The Musically Insane

How could this gem emerge while everything was happening around it?

Harvest released this LP, conceived by Jef Daw and James Langston, both on guitar, vocals, and flute, in 1969, a year when we were all focused on other events.

Demanding our attention, among other things, were the Beatles, playing together for the last time on the Apple rooftop; the Rolling Stones, who, in response, played for free in front of half a million young people at Hyde Park in memory of Brian Jones; Neil Armstrong, walking on the lunar surface (do you remember the RAI live broadcast?); in August, the Woodstock festival took place, and at the same time - I mean - really on the very same days, Miles Davis entered the recording studio, plugged in, and invented the masterpiece that is Bitches Brew; "In The Court Of The Crimson King" was released in record stores, at Altamont; during the sadly famous Rolling Stones concert, security killed a black man; and then Jan Palach, "...Jan Hus once again burned at the stake on the horizon of the Prague sky."

What did we miss out on? A masterpiece!

We are faced with a kaleidoscope of images and sounds: the base is predominantly acoustic, and the genre is a convincing progressive rock. The group consists of Jeff Daw and James Langston, both on guitar, flute, and vocals, and Nigel Philips on keyboards, vocals, and percussion; for the recordings, they were joined by Dave Clempson, who would later be with Bakerloo and Colosseum, Bob Lamb, and Gus Dudgeon on percussion. The title and cover already warn us about what we are going to hear, presaging provocative bizarreness and musical fantasies that go beyond every barrier.

The album, in its entirety, is a splendid patchwork blanket that gathers and preserves moments touching on folk, blues, and rock; here and there, flashes of brilliant classical light, colorful progressive projections, improvisation, and noise flashes peek out, all intelligently and convincingly blended to create ambrosia to be drunk in one gulp and never quench the thirst!

In conclusion, I want to make a bold claim. Think about how much fun the Talking Heads must have had creating that beautiful mosaic called "Little Creatures": I believe the same mood existed sixteen years earlier when our guys recorded this beautiful harlequinade.