JAN DUKES DE GREY

JAN DUKES DE GREY sounds like a French nobleman, but they were actually a short-lived Prog/Psych-Folk band from Leeds in northern England. Their first album "Sorcerers" (1970) passed by virtually unnoticed at the time of its release, but their second album "Mice and Rats in the Loft" (1971) will be much more familiar to Prog/Psych-Folk fans. Both albums have since become real collectors items. They recorded a third album "Strange Terrain" in 1977, but that long-lost album wouldn't see the light of day until 2010/11. The "Mice and Rats in the Loft" album reviewed here, consists of three extended songs of improvisational acid-drenched Folk:- 1. "Sun Symphonica" (18:58); 2. "Call of the Wild" (12:48); & 3. "Mice and Rats in the Loft" (8:19).

The outlook for "Sun Symphonica" is for bright and sunny spells of long pastoral flute passages with occasional outbreaks of classically-inspired orchestral showers. Just as the song title implies, "Sun Symphonica" is a radiant sunburst symphony of sound, featuring flutes, clarinets, saxophones, harmonicas, violins and hyperactive percussion in abundance. It's very bold and brassy, but it's also very sophisticated and classy, mainly due to the ornate chamber music from the orchestra. Some of the exotic musical passages sound faintly middle eastern, conjuring up bizarre images of a Turkish bazaar where one is expected to haggle over the price of a carpet, whilst the vendor puffs away calmly on a hookah pipe. The music is a veritable potpourri of musical styles, combining pleasant strolls through golden meadows of woodwinds amidst glorious showers of lush strings and vibrant percussion. The song as a whole is a very pleasant confection that's as sweet and exotic as a box of Turkish Delights.

The next song "Call of the Wild" is nothing to do with wolves barking at the moon. No, this is more of a call of the wild in human terms with the lyrics apparently advocating free love and a freeing of the spirit:- "I will be free to sleep where I want and with who and what I will." ..... If the promiscuous lyrics are anything to go by, the northern town of Leeds in the seventies was just as footloose and fancy free as proverbial swinging London in the sixties, so maybe it's not so grim up north after all. The music is pretty wild and swinging too, consisting mainly of lively bursts of infectious fluty Folk blended together with a liberal dose of saxophonic jazz in a musical tour de force. Think of Jethro Tull combined with Soft Machine, and that's the kind of Jazzy Psych-Folk you have here.

And now we come to the title track: "Mice and Rats in the Loft". If you really DO have mice in the loft, here's a handy hint: mice absolutely love chocolate, far more than cheese, so if you want to catch mice humanely, just bait the walk-in trap with some hot chocolate powder and they'll be queuing up to get into the trap and the trapdoor will close behind them. You can then let them out later in a rodents version of the "Catch and Release" program. Anyway, back to the music after that brief digression. This is where the musicians really get to let their hair down and go off on an improvisational free-for-all. The wacky over-the-top singer sounds like he's on a mad LSD trip here and the weird psychedelic Jazz sounds as wild and crazy as bats in the belfry, or mice and rats scampering about in the loft.

Jan Dukes de Grey appear to have invented a whole new genre of music with their unique "Mice and Rats in the Loft" album. The music can best be described as Psychedelic Jazz-Folk. Sometimes, the music is rousing and spectacular, and sometimes it's pleasant and pastoral, and maybe it's even weird and wonderfully zany at times too, but it's NEVER dull.

If you were first exposed to Sorcerers, nothing's going to prepare you for Mice and Rats in the Loft. Sorcerers sounds like a positively ordinary psych folk album compared to this! Instead of a bunch of relatively short songs, this album consists of only three songs, the first piece taking up all of side one. The music really goes way beyond their debut in terms of ambition and complexity. "Sun Symphonica" may start off rather lightweight, but after a few minutes the band really gets to business. Lots of great use of percussion, acoustic guitar, mandolin, violin, sax, with some rather ominous lyrics with an ominous vibe going on. Lots of wonderful jams too. The next two are also equally complex and ambitious. These guys certainly didn't sit on their laurels in between the year between albums. As far as I'm concerned, the reputation of Jan Dukes de Grey rests on Mice and Rats in the Loft. This album really blew me away, and by far one of the best things I've heard off the Transatlantic label. You hadn't lived until you hear this!

Not Tull, not Comus, but just as spectacular as them both: 9/10

The late 60s was a blossoming age for experimental bands. It was, too, the epoch of JAN DUKES DE GREY's conception, consisting of ex-soul musician Derek Ney and guitarist Michael Bairstow. Despite their debut, SORCERESS, obtaining poor sales and not demonstrating the duo's utmost capabilities, the band proceeded with its musical adventures and, along with a new member, recorded a much more accomplished follow-up, MICE AND RATS IN THE LOFT.

While the pastoral cover might evoke images of subtleness and tranquility, the album is, in fact, dynamically explosive and remote from the concept of just a folksy lovely album. Simplifying MICE's style to acid folk is also a misconception and a gross oversimplification, as it would diminish the album's chronic eclectism and compositional maturity. The album's utmost greatest quality lies in the mature songwriting and masterful blend of folk with several other elements and genres, disparate and apparently immiscible. Many other bands who attempted to put together discrepant styles more often than not sound like strange mumble-jumble, yet JAN DUKES' numerous influences sound seamlessly stitched in a natural amalgam. All of this without abandoning musicality or approachability, regardless of how eerie their experiment might result.

JAN DUKES is in many ways an overlooked mammoth, just as accomplished as other important folk bands such as JETHRO TULL or COMUS. The first infuses progressiveness into a genuinely folksy ambiance whereas the second applies their depraved nature to uncommon sonorities and compositions, but through their own methods both bands created unique styles and pushed their genre's musical boundaries. JAN DUKES DE GREY did no less than that, albeit they obtained little recognition for their work. Nonetheless, MICE AND RATS IN THE LOFT's capability of creating simultaneously enjoyable and inventive music without sounding poor or bland is pivotal to consolidate its status as a prog folk masterpiece and nothing shorter of it.

Having met via an 11-piece 60s soul band called Buster Summer Express in Leeds, England in 1968, the duo of Derek Noy and Michael Bairstow found that they shared a similar musical adventurousness and as Noy, then only 21 was setting out to find his own way after leaving the band, he crossed paths with Barstow who was auditioning for the band at the tender age of 18. Together they would become renowned for their nonesuch classic release 'Mice And Rats In The Loft,' an album so outside of the norms of the contemporary folk scene that the only other musical entity of the time that could be of equal comparison would be the similarly demented English act Comus. The duo's reputation of being one of the most original acts around caught on quickly as they gigged many venues and led to a signing with Decca Records which landed them an early touring with Pink Floyd and The Who. The duo successfully recorded their first album SORCERERS by October, 69 and released it early on in 1970 which caught them immediate attention on the university campuses although high sales and success eluded them.

While the progressive behemoth 'Mice And Rats In The Loft' syphons away every bit of attention away from this early beginning, it would be a great mistake to overlook this unique debut album from the oddly named JAN DUKES DE GREY which was a spontaneous impromptu appellation designed to sound esoteric but in reality carries no actually meaning behind it at all. SORCERERS is the exact opposite of their following paragon of progressive folk. While 'Mice' had three sprawling tracks that swallowed up the entire album allowing ample time for excursions into the most lysergic experimentation of any folk album in history, SORCERERS on the other hand is a collection of 18 tracks that hover around the three minute mark with only a couple even breaking over four. Despite performing as a mere duo with only a couple extras providing a few extra sound effects, JAN DUKE DE GREY sounds like a full band as Bairstow weaves his musical magic on clarinet, flute, tenor sax, bongos, congas and various other percussion as well as lending his vocal harmonic counterpoints. Noy on the other hand handled all the guitars, bass, celesta, piano, more percussion as well as being the other vocal half that belted out the most confident lyrical tales.

If the sheer amount of instrumentation on board isn't impressive enough, so too are the musical influences creeping in at every corner. While the main sources of inspiration at this early stage reside in bands like T. Rex and The Incredible String Band, Noy and Bairstow were far too talented to simply copy their idols and employ a range of extracurricular musical ideas that mix and meld confidently including Donovan inspired psychedelic flute patterns, classical and flamenco guitar as well as the rich melodic tradition of English folk music. Every single track on SORCERERS distinguishes itself from the next conveying everything from dark and sinister moods on tracks like 'MSS' to the more benign little joys of life as heard on tracks like 'Butterfly.' While some are more straight forward melodic developments like the rich melody heard on 'High Priced Room,' some such as 'Cheering Crowd' have a bombastic progressive time signature barrage of off-kilter guitar riffs that give a glimpse to where the music would lead them.

For me, SORCERERS is an instant classic and addictive on every level as the instrumentation is delicately forceful while the melodic harmonic lyrical prose delivers a totally new style of the era that somewhat reminds me of what Gnidrolog would advance a few years later. Also unusual for the day was the use of a heavy percussive drive adding tribal elements to melodic folk guitar which can range from the usual contemporary acts as heard from Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs to the more unusually experimentally psychedelic as heard on 'Yorkshire Indian Sitting In The Sun' with adventurous classical riffing with glissando guitar slides. Also experienced on SORCERERS is a variety of ethnic influences experienced by the Indo-raga sounding percussion to the mondo exotica oriental touch in 'Turkish Time.' SORCERERS should not be overlooked in the least and is a majorly satisfying counterpart to the one two punch that JAN DUKES DE GREY conjured up in a short timespan before disappearing into the musical ethers and allowing their acid folk creations to simmer for vast oceans of time before finally emerging as buried treasures several decades later. While the progressive compositions are nearly nonexistent at this stage, the experimental features are firing on full pistons and i cannot think of any acid folk album released before that is as unique and all-encompassing in scope as SORCERERS.

In 1968, Jan Dukes De Grey was formed in Leeds as a duo consisting of a wind player Michael Bairstow and a guitarist and vocalist Derek Noy. The two quickly made a name for themselves in the English folk underground. By the end of 1969, their debut album Sorcerers was released and they were soon joined by a drummer Denis Conlan. The band got a chance to open for acts such as Pink Floyd and The Who. In 1971, the trio recorded Mice And Rats In The Loft, released on the Transatlantic label.

The band's second release, Mice And Rats In The Loft consists of three tracks. The album starts out with the side-long epic "Sun Symphonica", which highlights all basic ingredients that contribute to the album's unique sound. The feel of the track is very ominous and every instrument has its very own part there. Side B features two pieces: "Call Of The Wild" and the title track "Mice And Rats In The Loft". The songs are very diverse without becoming inconsistent.

The music of Jan Dukes De Grey comprises influences of English folk music, root blues, and contemporary acid folk with psychedelic coloring. One can also notice Indian music influences, which give the release a trippy, trance-like feel. The mood of Mice And Rats In The Loft is dark and sinister. Common comparisons to Comus' First Utterance are very much justified, as both albums share stylistic similarities. However, Jan Dukes De Grey's sound is less structured and relies heavily on free-form improvisation. In fact, strong emphasis put on lengthy improvisational passages gives this album a very distinct quality.

Michael Bairstow handles all wind instruments, including a flute, a clarinet, a saxophone, a trumpet, a mouth harp as well as keyboards and some percussion. He proves to be a very proficient and a versatile musician with stylistic abilities ranging from the pagan-sounding flute to the jazzy trumpet to the middle-east-influenced clarinet. Derek Noy plays all guitars. These mainly include an electric 12-string guitar, but acoustic guitars are not uncommon, either. His performance is very experimental, the guitarist is capable of wild, dissonant, exotic-sounding solos as well as more traditional folk guitar play. Where needed, he also provides bass parts, again very proficiently. His vocals possess a dark timbre, which fits for the band's musical nature well. Denis Conlan's drumming keeps up with the band's lively and dynamic style. Jan Dukes De Grey were definitely very competent, accomplished, and experienced mavericks. The lyrical aspect of the album is really hair-rising, often giving the impression of being written by a madman. Although not noted in the liner notes, the album also features violins, whose sound owes a great deal to traditional folk music.

Jan Dukes De Grey's Mice And Rats In The Loft, did not enjoy much success. For many years, the group remained a fairly obscure act. It wasn't until many years later that the album was recognized as a masterpiece. The overall feel of the album is very eccentric and unconventional, the band's sound unique and distinct. Highly recommended! Five stars!

Well hello! The first time I listened to this record I swear I was freaked, you know this thing is strange, challenging and complex. After some listens I could really see what it was. Most people compare this one to Comus' First Utterance, but the only reason they do that is because neither Mice And Rats nor First Utterance can be compared to any record. They are completely unique, there is not even an exact genre or label that could describe them (apart form prog folk, many people call them "acid folk"). Man they cannot be even compared with the other albums of the same band. But hey we are talking about Jan Dukes de Grey isn't it? I adore this album. I simply love the way this album is made. I mean, we get to experience and know the band in three different styles, and the three of them are amazing! Sun Symphonica is the more symphonic side of the band. Just see the instruments they use on it: flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, I could swear I also hear a bassoon and a cello. Derek Noy's voice is dreadful, but I think this spices the record up, just like Comus vocals (could Noy sing as he does on purpose?). I love the last part with vocals, is like an intense reprise of the first instrumental part. This 19 minute suite predates Supper's Ready, Close To The Edge and Thick As a Brick, so we get a plus! And so we move on. Call Of The Wild is their folky song, and what a song this is! Acoustic guitar is at the top, there are not so many voices and drums arrive late, but still this is another mindblow, such playing skills, and there is nice flute at the end. This could be my favorite song on the album. The title track is the last one, and it is their "heavy" psych side. We get more electric guitar on this one, the song repeats a theme on and on, but this is really good! Vocals arrive periodically, and some different parts arrive to cut the theme for a while, but still returns, mand I could listen to this all day! This is something you have to get now.

There's the progressive folk that largely grew out of 1960s folk rock and incorporated symphonic and psychedelic influences, and then there's the twisted, psychotic and voyeuristically mesmerizing "Mice and Rats in the Loft". As part of my personal project to finally familiarize myself with a few obscure classics of the sub genre, it has been an education in itself, so eclectically proportioned as to recall, at various times, sometimes momentarily and sometimes insistently, the works of such seemingly orthogonal artists as CARAVAN, AMON DUUL 2, MOODY BLUES, ARTHUR BROWN, KING CRIMSON, and others not yet familiar to these ears.

Comparisons have been drawn to COMUS' contemporaneous "First Utterance", which is valid per the morbid subject matter and general disrespect for structure, but Comus was a conventional English folk group by comparison. The first two tracks reinvent themselves many times over from folk to jazz to chamber to symphonic and back around through tight and improvised passages. The title track is more minimalist, but seems indebted to Kraut rock more than anything, with stabs of rhythm guitar throughout this depiction of a satanic ceremony of sorts.

While I highly recommend this and do consider it an underrated classic, it's not a slam dunk in the likability department. It has that "je ne sais quoi" which can possess you to listen again and again until you have absorbed as much as you can without having to ring up the exterminator. 4.5 stars.

I discovered this album 5 years ago and it completely didn't catch my attention back then. If you compare this stuff to famous prog albums of that era you'll know why Jan Dukes de Grey didn't make it. It's a half professional musicianship plus not very good production. The guys were ambitious but they didn't practice a lot I guess or just the recording studio wasn't the place they felt good working in. The best thing about this record is that the compositions aren't that bad. Especially 19 minutes long Sun Symphonica with interesting ostinatos somewhere in the end of the song. But don't expect this can replace your Genesis or Jethro Tull albums on the turntable. For collectors only.

The success of this album on this site is, in my opinion, largely attributable to its obscure nature. People who are into non-mainstream music seem to delight in "quality" favorites that no one else has heard of and thus exaggerate their quality. The 4.25 star rating seems entirely unjustified to me, although I could certainly see how someone would rate this album 2 stars. At its worst, it is repetitive, unpolished, wandering, and it has overly abrupt transitions between musical ideas (i.e. a lack of flow). It is not an album that I am especially eager to put on. I agree with other reviewers that the lead vocals are often sub-par. My least favorite track is actually the first one, which others seem to like the best. On the other hand, there are some interesting musical ideas and stylistic contrasts that are often well-executed, and the musicianship seems very good. I like the female vocals and flute on the second track, Call of the Wild. Some of the woodwind passages in that track (as well as others) remind me of 21st Century Schizoid Man by King Crimson.

Overall, this is an idiosyncratic, unpolished piece of music which, to me, demonstrates the creative and technical talent of these artists, but also shows and suffers from their lack of compositional experience.

Mice and rats in the loft issued in 1971 with an intresting art work is considered one of the most aplaused and unique albums of it's era, partialy agree, but not entirely. 3 pieces grace the album with a total running around 41 min. What we have here is a trip in a odd/dissonant acid folk with jazzy interplays and some prog elements added. While I do like the instrumental orchestration, has enough great moments to really like here, I'm not attached at all by the vocal abilities of Derek Noy, he sounds like a joke to my ears. Partialy considered similar with bands such as Comus or The Incredible String Band, Jan Dukes de Grey manage to pull a pleasent album , but to me is nothing groundbreaking here, only good towards great pieces, typicaly for that period bith in sound and in manner of composing. My vinyl is a re issue with a great white disc and a perfect sound. 3 rounded to 3.5 for some parts specially from the opening track Sun Symphonica, to me the best tune of the album.