Tractor
Tractor

And to think that even today this underground flow of sound experimentation called Tractor continues... and yet in forty years they have left behind not even a handful of recordings.

The guitarist Jim Milne and the poet, writer, drummer Steve Clayton were classmates in 1969 and owe the release of their first album to their non-musician friend, but skilled tape manipulator, John Brierely. The bedroom as a studio, two reel-to-reel recorders, a Grampian spring reverb for the guitar effect, and a homemade mixer constituted the meager equipment to release "A Candle for Judith" under the pompous name of The Way We Live.

The folk mishmash with Indian influences pleased the great John Peel, who wanted them at Dandelion, resulting in re-recording the album and changing their name to the more direct Tractor. But the sound created with spontaneous homemade energy was lost, so for the second self-titled album, our three heroes got a third recorder and a six-channel mixer to return to John's house.

And here is the Tractor sound: simple melodies but dressed and manipulated in such a whimsical way that leaves you amazed. The duo Milne/Clayton managed to pass with indifference from the lysergic folk ("Everytime happens" and "The Watcher") to the menacingly Sabbathean heavy ("All ends up"), from the West Coast ballad ("Make a Journey") to dirty boogie blues ("Ravenscroft 13 Bar Boogie"), from Floydian experimentalism ("Shubunkin") to semi-acoustic Jethro-style gallops ("Lady of Astorath"), from full-blown psychedelia ("Hope in Flavour") to the poppish acidity of Lennon/McCartney brand ("Stone Glory").

 In the end, you turn around in your hands a great album of varied inspiration immersed among whiffs of hemp mixed with those of incense,  sweltering riffs packed together with  folk & West Coast guitars. Maybe stuff from another time, but you could see it for free at festivals like the Deeply Vale of 1976, where 51 bands played, including the very first Motorhead. In the year 2000, to be the hippie lying on the grass at the Summer Solstice of Glastonbury, you have to shell out a lot of sterling.

 Meditate, folks, meditate....

Epilogue.

 The two Tractors have continued to record a lot and publish little ("Worst Enemies" in 1980 and several compilations from the good old days) but with a bit of luck if you're passing through London, you can still catch one of their gigs in some dive in the city.

The tape manipulator John Brierely opened the Cargo Studios between 1976 and 1977, where among others The Fall, Joy Division, Gang of Four, A Certain Ratio, Nico, The Teardrop Explodes, Mekons, Here and Now, Red Alert, Vini Reilly, The Chameleons, Poison Girls, Echo and the Bunnymen, GBH, The Teardrops, Ludus, DAF, Discharge, Durutti Column have passed through.

Peace&Love