|
|
|
|
||
|
|
 |
 |
Highlighting in album tracklistings denotes 'contains Mellotron'. On 'multi-part' tracks I've tried to indicate which parts contain 'Tron, although this isn't always possible.
Ratings:
The * rating (½-5) is my personal, entirely subjective and completely partisan rating of the music.
The 'T' ('Tron, of course...) rating (0-5) is an only slightly more objective indicator of an album's Mellotronness.
 |
Voyage of the Acolyte (1975, 40.52/64.24) *****/TTTTT |
|
| Ace of Wands Hands of the Priestess Part I A Tower Struck Down Hands of the Priestess Part II The Hermit Star of Sirius The Lovers Shadow of the Hierophant |
[remastered CD adds: Ace of Wands (live) Shadow of the Hierophant (extended playout version)] |
|
 |
Please Don't Touch (1978, 38.32/54.30) ***½/T |
|
| Narnia Carry on Up the Vicarage Racing in A Kim How Can I? Hoping Love Will Last Land of a Thousand Autumns Please Don't Touch |
The Voice of Necam Icarus Ascending [remastered CD adds: Narnia (John Perry vocal) Land of 1000 Autumns/Please Don't Touch (live) Narnia (alternate version)] |
|
 |
Spectral Mornings (1979, 39.08/73.31) ****½/TTTT½ |
|
| Every Day The Virgin and the Gypsy The Red Flower of Tachai Blooms Everywhere Clocks - the Angel of Mons The Ballad of the Decomposing Man Lost Time in Cordoba Tigermoth Spectral Mornings |
[remastered CD adds: Every Day (alternate mix) The Virgin and the Gypsy (alternate mix) Tigermoth (alternate mix) The Ballad of the Decomposing Man (alternate mix) Clocks - the Angel of Mons (single version) Live Acoustic Set Tigermoth (live)] |
|
 |
Defector (1980, 37.05/59.48) ****/TTT |
|
| The Steppes Time to Get Out Slogans Leaving Two Vamps as Guests Jacuzzi Hammer in the Sand The Toast |
The Show Sentimental Institution [remastered CD adds: Hercules Unchained Sentimental Institution (live) The Steppes (live) Slogans (live) Clocks (live)] |
|
 |
Cured (1981, 34.05/42.13) **½/T |
|
| Hope I Don't Wake Picture Postcard Can't Let Go The Air-Conditioned Nightmare Funny Feeling A Cradle of Swans Overnight Sleeper Turn Back Time |
[remastered CD adds: Tales of the Riverbank Second Chance The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (live)] |
|
 |
 |
Bay of Kings (1983) ****/T½ |
|
| Bay of Kings The Journey Kim Marigold St Elmo's Fire Petropolis Second Chance Cast Adrift |
Horizons Black Light The Barren Land Calmaria |
||
 |
 |
Time Lapse (1992, recorded 1981/90, 69.09) ****½/TTT½ |
|
| Camino Royale Please Don't Touch Everyday In That Quiet Earth Depth Charge Jacuzzi The Steppes Ace of Wands |
Hope I Don't Wake The Red Flower of Ta Chai Blooms Everywhere Tigermoth A Tower Struck Down Spectral Mornings Clocks - the Angel of Mons |
||
 |
Live Archive 70, 80, 90's (2001, recorded 1978-93, 258.37/334.18) *****/TTTTT |
|||
| Intro Please Don't Touch Tigermoth Every Day Narnia The Red Flower of Tai Chi Ace of Wands Carry on Up the Vicarage Etude in A min Blood on the Rooftops Horizons Kim The Optigan A Tower Struck Down Spectral Mornings (Introductions) Star of Sirius Shadow of the Hierophant Clocks |
I Know What I Like Wardrobe Boogie Racing in A Racing in A Coda The Air Conditioned Nightmare Jacuzzi Funny Feeling Ace of Wands Picture Postcard The Steppes Every Day Overnight Sleeper Hope I Don't Wake Slogans A Tower Struck Down Spectral Mornings The Show Clocks |
Medley Myopia Los Endos Imagining Ace of Wands Hackett to Pieces Vampyre With a Healthy Appetite Sierra Quemada Take These Pearls In the Heart of the City Walking Away From Rainbows There Are Many Sides to the Night Kim Dark as the Grave Always Somewhere Else Lost in Your Eyes |
Spectral Mornings/Firth of Fifth/Clocks Cinema Paradiso In That Quiet Earth [Please Don't Touch Tigermoth Every Day The Steppes Narnia Red Flower of Taichi Blooms Everywhere Sentimental Institution Star of Sirius Spectral Mornings Clocks Ace of Wands Hands of the Priestess Racing in A] |
|
Current availability:
Mellotrons used:
Steve Hackett joined Genesis in 1971, in time to play on Nursery Cryme, going on to play on another five studio albums and launch his own moderately successful solo career. Voyage of the Acolyte was recorded in the lull between Peter Gabriel leaving Genesis and Phil Collins taking over as vocalist, and is a stunning piece of work. I suspect Hackett always felt underused in Genesis, particularly as a writer, and this album shows what he was really capable of, with nary a duff track among its 40-odd minutes. It has to be said that Hackett lacked the restraint of his regular outfit's keyboardist, but it's difficult to fault a performance like this; strings and choir everywhere you look, often simultaneously. Notable highlights are both parts of Hands of the Priestess, A Tower Struck Down and the superb Shadow of the Hierophant. I was always under the impression that this last track was unperformable live in its entirety, until the recent live box proved me wrong.
Genesis swung into action again at the end of that year, and Hackett never toured his album. He didn't record solo again until after his departure from the band, precipitated, it's said, by their refusal to record more of his material (only one Hackett track, the sublime Blood On The Rooftops, made it onto Wind & Wuthering, rumoured to have been planned as a double, to include both Please Don't Touch and the Spot the Pigeon material). To be brutally honest, you can see why after listening to '78's Please Don't Touch. It's a bit of a curate's egg, possibly too diverse for its own good; a handful of 'classic' Hackett pieces (the title track and the acoustic Kim spring to mind) thrown in with an attempt at a torch song (Hoping Love Will Last), Genesis-type humour (Carry On Up The Vicarage) and studio messing about (The Voice Of Necam). Where Voyage of the Acolyte was cohesive, Please Don't Touch sounds like several different bands on the same album, not helped by Hackett's use of guest musicians on different tracks, including a couple of the guys from America's most successful progressive band, Kansas. There is some good material, but the album sounds unfocussed compared to its predecessor. The bonkers title track is the album's chief Mellotron-fest, although there's also some to be heard on the schmaltzy Love Will Find a Way.
By the following year, Steve had recruited a proper touring band, including keyboard whizz Nick Magnus (ex- the rather wonderful and little-known Autumn, and briefly with The Enid), with the recorded results being noticeably far more together; Spectral Mornings is an excellent album, with only the seemingly obligatory 'joke' song, The Ballad Of The Decomposing Man letting the side down. Every Day (or Everyday) is a typically Hackett vocal number, with a strange 'musical theatre' feel to the vocal lines, but things pick up considerably by track three, the pseudo-Japanese The Red Flower Of Tachai Blooms Everywhere, featuring some nice 'Tron strings, segueing into another absolute Hackett classic, Clocks - The Angel Of Mons. Clocks is one of those pieces of music that makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck; a doomy 'Tron string part swelling up underneath a bass melody from the Moog Taurus pedals (another Hackett favourite), leading into a frantic 'verse' section, only to repeat the intro with variations. If you haven't heard this track, you need to. Now. Tigermoth has a great instrumental section at the beginning, replete with 'Tron choirs, and the title track (another absolute classic) finishes things off with the sort of melody most songwriters would kill for.
1980's Defector has some great moments, but the rot appears to be setting in; it starts brilliantly, with the eastern-flavoured The Steppes (great 'Tron string line), but apart from maybe three or four other instrumental tracks, including the other two containing Mellotron, the rest of the album has too much of that idiosyncratic vocal stuff, not least the crummy Time To Get Out. Another 'joke' track, the Optigan-driven Sentimental Institution, finishes things off badly, I'm afraid to say, although The Toast is better than expected, and Slogans and the upbeat Jacuzzi help to give the album four stars.
The following year's Cured is far worse, with only one 'killer' piece, the instrumental (can you see a pattern emerging here?) The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, named after a book on the horrors of modern living, although the classical guitar instrumental A Cradle Of Swans is every bit as good as the bulk of Steve's guitar pieces. A couple of other songs have passable parts, not least the bulk of Overnight Sleeper, but overall, this is most disappointing. Part of the problem must be down to Steve's decision to dispense with the bulk of his band, leaving just himself and Nick to do everything, making for (I suspect) a lack of perspective. The only (Nova)'Tron track is another dodgy vocal number (as is most of the rest of the album), Can't Let Go, with a brief string part near the beginning.
Steve moved right away from the Mellotron at this point, although I'm assured that the stuff that sounds like sampled strings on the all-acoustic Bay of Kings is in fact heavily-treated 'Tron. It's a really quite beautiful album, but the Mellotron doesn't honestly enhance it very much. The next Hackett 'Tron on record is an archive live release from 1992, Time Lapse, featuring material from gigs in 1981 and 1990, with the '81 tracks strangely sandwiched between two chunks of later recordings. The '90 stuff has decent enough 'Tron samples, from Julian Colbeck, but the '81 recording has Magnus' real thing on almost every track, pretty much as per the studio versions. For the record, tracks 1-5 and 13-14 are from 1990, strangely bookending the earlier material, which explains the lack of real Mellotron on Clocks.
In late 2001, Steve released a 4-CD set (expandable to five via his website), the grammatically-crap Live Archive 70, 80, 90's, of live material from 1979, 1981 and 1993, with the bonus disc covering 1978/9. Well, what can I say? Top-notch quality, and some great gigs, namely Hammy Odeon '79, Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome, '81 and the Clapham Grand, London, '93, with the bonus disc being made up of '79 and even '78 tracks. There are some great performances contained herein, and the only disc of the five not to feature Nick Magnus' mighty 'Tron is, of course, the '93 set (a great gig I attended, incidentally). Disc two proves that Shadow Of The Hierophant was indeed performable live in its entirety, and the band were stunningly well-rehearsed, as proved by their tightness on Racing In A. The five tracks on disc one from the Etude to Kim are actually Steve's acoustic set, sounding identical to the version on the b-side of the Clocks 12", released in '79. The bonus disc contains two tracks unavailable on the main set, including a cracking version of Hands Of The Priestess, and is well worth splashing out on.
After the original, rather shoddy CD issues of Steve's albums, many of which didn't even credit the musicians, a beautiful remastering and expanding job was done on the first four in 2005. Voyage of the Acolyte gains a live version of Ace Of Wands from an undated Theatre Royal, Drury Lane show, with a smattering of 'Tron choirs, but the ace in the pack is the 'extended playout version' of the already mighty Shadow Of The Hierophant. A stupendous 17 minutes long, this is obviously the original, unedited version, adding six minutes of heaven to the song's end section; if you listen closely (and you're as sad as me), you can work out which bits were chopped for the album edit. Please Don't Touch adds two different takes of the rather ordinary Narnia, plus a killer (no info at all) live version of Land Of 1000 Autumns/Please Don't Touch, with some great Magnus 'Tron strings. Spectral Mornings opts for alternate mixes of four album tracks, including a shortened Tigermoth, losing the 'Tron-and-Taurus intro, plus the entire contents of the Clocks 12", including the main track's edit, the acoustic set and the other half of Tigermoth, this time leaving out the somewhat inessential 'song' part. Defector adds the punky b-side (no, really), Hercules Unchained, another Drury Lane track (Sentimental Institution), possibly dating Ace Of Wands from around 1980, too, and three Reading Festival tracks, all containing 'Tron, though possibly from two different festivals, going by my boots of the sets. In a word (OK, several words), these are clearly the versions of Steve's early albums to get, both musically and Mellotronically.
So; buy Voyage of the Acolyte, Spectral Mornings and Defector NOW, if you haven't already. Time Lapse is a fair record of the band live, and Live Archive is pretty essential, too. Bay of Kings is pleasant and relaxing, though not essential, and Cured is only worth it for one track, which isn't even the 'Tron one. You'll have to make up your own mind about Please Don't Touch, I'm afraid; I'm not getting into any more arguments on this one.
Hackett went through his career doldrums in the late '80s/early '90s, after a disastrous linkup with Steve Howe in the entirely average GTR. However, by the mid-'90s he was recording regularly again, and for his '97 album of mostly reworked Genesis material, Genesis Revisited, Hackett sampled a MkII and used the samples extensively. After hauling it down to his basement studio with Martin and John from Streetly Electronics, it seems strange that he didn't bother recording the real thing... The samples cropped up again on The Tokyo Tapes, a live version of Genesis Revisited plus, involving ex-King Crimsons John Wetton and Ian Macdonald among others, and '99's Darktown. Steve Hackett sold his Novatron 400 to Paul Weller a few years ago, but he's obviously rediscovered that Mellotron magic, if only via samples.
