DREAMS WIDE AWAKE

I am pretty new to Progressive Rock and I do not deny that I use Progarchives as my guide into this very exciting world. So when I found this album at Amazon by this highly acclaimed band; I made a purchase. I now feel slightly ripped off. Which I probably should not do.

The artwork/cover is very bad. Marine blue with white print......... give me strength !! The 8 page booklet is not as bad as expected. Page 2- 3 lists the musicians on every track. Page 4 - 7 contains a good National Health biography, signed by Alan White. Page 8 contains the track list. What the booklet or the J-card does not include, and this is major flaw with this release, is the useful fact that all the tracks on this double CD has been taken from both National Health and Of Queues and Cures. There is no mentioning of these two albums whatsoever. This glaring omission is........ what can I say, like throwing sand in the eyes of the buyer. This is why I feel slightly ripped off by this album. Because there is nothing on this album you cannot find on the two above mentioned albums. Another sore point of this album is the fact they have taken out all the tracks from National Health and Of Queues and Cures and just mixed the track listings together to create this album. The album starts with the fourth track from Of Queues and Cures (Dreams Wide Awake), followed by the fourth track from National Health (Borogroves, part 1). I can go on and on, but I guess you get my drift here. The music itself is not bad at all. Both National Health and Of Queues and Cures are expensive and difficult to find these days so I may suggest this album may solve a problem if you are desperate to get hold of these albums, like I was with Of Queues and Cures.

The music itself is superb and I cannot fault it whatsoever. I guess it has been taken from the original albums without any more treatment whatsoever. The sound is good. But I do not like the presentation of the music on this album. That's why I dish out two stars.

The first is to remind people what a valuable 'link' National Health provide in the Canterbury family tree. This package features members of Matching Mole, Soft Machine, Gilgamesh, Gong, Hatfield & The North. Caravan Of Dreams, Whitesnake and Caravan......along with countless others.

The second is that NH only released two albums in their lifetime, with a third issued posthumously. This collection features tracks from the original two albums only. So why the hell not just package the two albums together and release them as a 2 x CD package !!!!!!

So, if you're a fan of cerebral jazz rock with a smattering (but not much) of whimsy and some phenomenal organ and guitar playing then this will be your bag.....but I'd recommend tracking down the original albums so you can enjoy the artwork and the correct track order. Incidentally, this collection features some dreadful sleevenotes by Chris White (?) which certainly don't add to it's value.

Personally I find National Health's music too chaotic. I tend to enjoy the shorter, whimsical songs of Caravan and Matching Mole, rather than the jazz infused lengthy instrumental epics, but hey, that's just me. Highlight for me would be 'Binoculars' which features (unusually) lyrics but even here, with Canterbury music so full of masters like Kevin Ayers, Robert Wyatt and Richard Sinclair, we have the vocals of Neil Murray who I'm sure would be the first to admit he's not the greatest or most original singer in the world.

Treat with caution folks but track down the originals as valuable historical wibblings.