ARZACHEL

I recall when I bought this album on the day of its release. 2 pals of mine and myself used to meet late Friday afternoon with our new pay packets and descend on a little specialist prog shop we knew.

The shop ordered just 3 copies of this album and played us some of it. All of us bought it cleaning them out in one fell swoop.

Before it was released on CD a good vinyl copy could fetch £600 as Steve Hillage fans sought a copy for their hero's involvement. Was it his 1st recorded work?

First thing is the cover which claims the album is by a group of UK and African musicians living in London. Actually it's the Canterbury-sound band Egg with Steve Hillage added on guitar.

The first 3 of the 6 tracks could easily be Egg too. Track 1 is "Garden of Earthly Delights". It's a bouncy tune that could easily have been an Elizabethan folk song and a good opener. The prominent organ sound is a bit of an Egg giveaway.

Track 2 "Azathoth" sounds like a pseudo-religious piece (the organ enhances this feeling) and keeps the quality up before "Queen St Gang", an instrumental based on the theme tune of the childrens' series of the same name, completes the lighter side of the album.

Then the heavy non-Egg stuff takes off - the original Side 1 ends with the best thing here, a song strangely called "Leg". It builds from a tuneful organ intro before launching into a big romp with a thundering bass line. Love it!

Side 2 only has 2 tracks and continues with the heavier sound from track 4. "Clean Innocent Fun" is the better of the 2 songs here. It's 10minutes long and has some good prog heavy sounds but track 4 (Metempsychosis) is a bit self-indulgent at 17minutes though it has its moments. It's another instrumental with a dated psychedelic feel from the late 60s.

All said, a very good album with a well-known claim to fame as early Hillage.

However, I wonder if it has another claim to fame? Led Zeppelin had produced their first LP a bit earlier but Deep Purple had not yet recorded "In Rock" and were still in their pseudo-classical mode. Did the heavy organ-laden sound on this album influence Deep Purple's change of direction the following year?

4 stars as the last track is a bit overlong and a bit of a mishmash.

It's okay I guess.

This is basically Eggs first actual album and like I said it's alright. More hard rock spacey psych compared to the later classically driven Egg works but still sounding like the same band. My favourite songs on here are Azathoth and Queen St Gang which alongside Garden Of Earthly Delights/Metempsychosis remind me of Egg. The other songs are the bluesier ones. I think what one can expect from this album is something not unlike early Pink Floyd/Krautrock. If you enjoy that kind of atmospheric music then this album will surely delight. For me, songs like Metempsychosis and Legs are somewhat annoying due to an over abundance on "sounds".

Overall this is an acceptable debut of mostly average music. Canterbury Sound Score 2/5

The English band Arzachel (previously known as Uriel) had an excellent line-up. Their self-titled only album release featured legendary guitarist Steve Hillage and keyboard player Dave Stewart who later went on to achieve great success when he teamed up with Barbara Gaskin for "It's My Party (And I'll Cry If I Want To). Mont Campbell performed on vocals (also a vocalist with Egg and National Health) and the Impressive drummer on the album was Clive Brooks. They all appeared on this album under assumed names. Arzachel will appeal equally to fans of Psychedelic Rock, Progressive Rock and Space Rock.

The first track "Garden of Earthly Delights" is a very promising and impressive opening to the album and nicely sets the scene for the album as a whole. The track features a very pleasant rock organ playing in the background overlaid with electric guitar and fine vocals. The track ends with some appealingly far-out psychedelic guitar playing from Steve Hillage. Track 2 "Azathoth" has a very religious feel to it, opening with a resonant church organ and charming ethereal vocals. The middle section of the song features some powerfully heavy and freaky guitar riffs, before returning to the more sedate sound of the church organ towards the end. Track 3 "Queen St. Gang" is an instrumental and it's the stand-out track on the album for me. Again, it features the magnificent sound of the organ under-laying the music as a whole, together with some gently laid-back drumming. Track 4 "Leg" opens with an impressive organ solo before launching into heavy electric guitar riffs, twinned with powerful bass and drumming in the rhythm section. After the deceptively quiet beginning, this track turns into a real out-and-out rocking barnstormer of a song. Track 5 "Clean Innocent Fun", at over 10 minutes long, begins as a slow and heavy, full-on psychedelic jam which gathers in pace and dramatic intensity as the song progresses and should appeal to fans of Jimi Hendrix. The final track on the album "Metempsychosis" is the longest number at over 16 minutes in length. The track opens with some freaky sound effects before launching into some powerful and throbbing Space Rock which is very reminiscent of Hawkwind's early albums. This is by far the heaviest track on the album and features some wonderfully freaky psychedelic guitar licks. The song has a hauntingly reflective middle section before returning to the heavy pounding rhythm for the grand finale to the album.

Overall, this album deserves four stars, but would have deserved five stars if it wasn't for the poor production quality of the album.

One of the big bangs of Canterbury Scene talent began right here after three young students: Steve Hillage, Dave Stewart and Mont Campbell met in 1968 at the City of London School. They soon hooked up with another, Clive Brooks and formed a simple blues rock band called Uriel (named after one of the archangels in Hebrew tradition) playing covers of Cream, Hendrix, John Mayall and The Nice. Then it got a bit complicated. After visiting London's famous Middle Earth Club they were indoctrinating into the cult of 60s psychedelia which steered their musical interests into completely new arenas. The new Uriel quickly caught the attention of Decca records but because their name sounded too much like "urinal," were forced to changed their name to Egg, however the contracts were signed as a trio without Hillage who had planned to return to his education and due to legalities when the band wanted to release an album together they had to choose yet another name and settled for ARZACHEL which is the Latin truncation of the Arab Muslim astronomer Abū Ishāq Ibrāhīm al-Zarqālī who created all kinds of new gadgets but the name was inspired by the crater on the moon. While Egg would soon deliver their debut album ARZACHEL managed to record this one single album that was recorded in a single 8-hour session and released it before Hillage quit the band to return to school. As expected from the influences on board this Canterbury Scene related act delivered a healthy dose of psychedelic blues rock although nothing on ARZACHEL's eponymous album really displays where Hillage would go with Khan, Gong and solo and likewise displays little of what the rest of the members would conjure up with Egg and later National Health. The strange thing about this one is that not only did the band change their name at the last minute for this album but the members all adopted aliases as well.

Basil Dowling (Clive Brooks) / drums Njerogi Gategaka (Mont Campbell) / bass, vocals Sam Lee-Uff (Dave Stewart) / organ Simeon Sasparella (Steve Hillage) / guitar, vocals

ARZACHEL threw together two distinct sides on their LP. Side one consisted of four groovy psychedelic blues tracks mostly with vocals all quite distinct from one another whereas side two consisted of more extended jamming sessions that offered a couple very tripped out acid dripping experiences. "Garden Of Earthly Delights" is probably the most Canterbury sounding track on the album with the harmonizing vocal effect of Campbell and Hillage and apparently made enough of an impression that the title (which originated from the Hieronymus Bosch painting) inspired the beloved prog rock label of the same name. "Azathoth" is an organ based piece that has a rather trip hop sort of beat to it and i could easily see this appearing on a DJs set list. Another vocal track that continues the Canterbury vibe without emphasis on the blues. The instrumental "Queen St. Gang" has a more funky bass groove to it and has the ultimate chilled lounge lizard vibe with lots of organ gymnastics. "Leg" begins as a psychedelic stew of organ noodling but breaks into a Cream sounding heavy blues psych number.

"Clean Innocent Fun" begins as a call-and-response between a unified vocalist / blues guitar lick and the hard and heavy organ which reminds a lot of the very first Led Zeppelin album that came out the same year only drenched in intoxicating doses of Pink Floydian psychedelics with heavy organ attacks, blues guitar runs and atmospheric freak outs. The yummiest treat of the album is the closing 16 minute and 19 second instrumental "Metempsychosis" (a fancy term for reincarnation) which is the most psychedelic and free form track on the album. It is obviously inspired by early Pink Floyd and while having the same alienating effect as their "Saucerful Of Secrets" track however the guitar is clearly more derived from their "Astronomy Domine" track. This one goes into interstellar hyperdrive with a heavy rhythmic drive and sizzling guitar solos, psychotropic organ runs and very much incorporates the most detached aspects of Floyd while going on a huge meandering jamming tangent that adds some of the best musical chops the band has to offer ushering the album out with a big bang of cacophony.

ARZACHEL is clearly a mandatory listen for anyone interested in the development of progressive rock's Canterbury Scene branch as it is the antecedent of the much greater works of its members at an early stage. While not as accomplished or original as their respective works as solo members or with Egg, Gong and National Health, ARZACHEL does have its own appeal as a psychedelic blues rock album. While clearly steeped in the influences they wear on their sleeves with not quite enough time to simmer them down into their own cohesive sounds, it's still an interesting listen nonetheless. The musicianship is clearly of the highest quality and although i've heard that the production values of the earliest pressings were not the best, my 2014 Prog Temple remastered CD sounds like it could have come out in modern times. This is an album i teeter back and forth about rating. The first time i heard it i loved it and it was a 4 star album. The second time i was less enthralled and it dropped down to 3. The third time i loved it again and it was once again a 4. While being fully aware of the weaknesses of the album which mostly resides in the lack of creativity in the compositions, despite this i love to listen to this one as it not only has addictive bluesy hooks with psychedelic fixings but also resonates as an interesting historical artifact of the prog rock world. When all is said and done this is an essential album to be experienced.

Hard to hit this one for me. This is very well listed in the Psychedelic category, because what I really listen here is a rather immature band. And for the people involved here, some would hope to listen another pure Canterbury work, but that's not the case. Aside from "Metampsychosis" (which I cannot tell if is a strange improvisation or a great execution of a complex song) all the songs in here sound a little disastrous to me. Still this is a nice psych album, it is just that we expect too much after listening to the future works of these monsters. I give a low 3 stars, gotta admit it is great to listen to these guys so early in their careers. Hillage would result to be an awesome guitarist, a genius composer and a beautiful vocalist, and Stewart is for me the greatest Canterbury keyboardist, also one hell of a composer. As we know, Stewart, Campbell and Brooks went on to form Egg, Stewart and Hillage were involved in the excellent Space Shanty. Stewart was also obviosuly involved in Hatfield, National Health and Bruford's solo works, while our beloved Stevie also went on to Gong and has an awesome solo career (note that Stewart also appears in "Fish Rising"!), Cheers for all that!

Before the successful solo career, before Gong and way even before Khan, there was Arzachel. Yes, I'm talking about Steve Hillage, that legendary psychedelic guitarist who's forty-five year career has pretty much seen it all. And this is where it began. A deeply psychedelic excursion into early prog-rock territory laced with organs, spacey effects and neon dropped keyboards, underground psych-rock outfit Arzachel saw Hillage teamed with Canterbury keyboardist extraordinaire Dave Stewart and the multi-instrumentalist duo of Mont Campbell(bass) and Clive Brooks(drums), who would of course go on to form the quirky jazz-influenced group Egg. Nowadays, original vinyl copies of 'Arzachel' can fetch to upwards of £1,000, such is the rarity and reputation of an album steeped in Canterbury-lore. As an album it certainly has its moments, yet is let down by the two lengthy pieces that make up side 2, the shorter, more focused pieces such as the star-kissed opener 'Garden Of Earthly Delights' and the catchy r'n'b of the Stewart-led 'Queen St. Gang'. Elsewhere, the raucous acid blues of 'Leg' finds the group whirling deep into psychedelic territory, whilst the fuzzy 'Azazoth' exudes yet more of the album's deeply-lysergic ambience. Much more ambitious in their conception yet let down by incessant, unplesant jamming, overly-emphatic execution and an unpleasant, doomy feel, both the heavy and intense 'Clean Innocent Fun', which features yet more wild blues licks from Hillage, and the mind-melting cosmic madness of the aptly-titled 'Metampsychosis', simply fail to hold the attention. The low-budget production only adds to the slightly menacing atmosphere, though you have to give the group marks for pure intensity. Unlike Hillage's next album, the more polished and melodic 'Space Shanty', 'Arzachel' seems to lose focus just at the right moment, providing maybe just a touch too much far-out madness. That said, it's still a fasinating curio from the short-lived British psychedelic scene of the late-sixties, offering up intense underground thrills for all fans of darkly obscure progressive music. STEFAN TURNER, STOKE NEWINGTON, 2014

Cult, legendary name of the UK Psych scene, formed at the fall of 67' in London and featuring David L. Stewart on keyboards, Mont Campbell on bass/vocals, Steve Hillage on guitar and Clive Brooks on drums.During the summer of 68' Hillage left Uriel to attend university and the remaining trio, pressed by its managers, changed its name to Egg.A brief reunion of the original group took place in 1969 and the four friends recorded an album under the name Arzachel, using pseudonyms to avoid comparisons with Egg's music.This rare self-titled LP was released in November 69' on the short-lived London-based label Evolution.

The first side of the LP saws a band with a unique talent of mixing hypnotic, psychedelic grooves with Baroque-inspired Classical organ parts, thus producing a variety of atmospheres, ranging from haunting instrumental passages to more dreamy vocal-led textures.Great but a bit dated music with superb organ work by Stewart and excellent vocals by Campbell.The closing track of the side, ''Leg'', sees the band entering more Heavy/Psych Rock realms with angry vocals, powerful guitars and dynamic organ paces.The second side is a different story, containg two long psychedelic jams with a very rich sound and a rather free structure.The mood becomes really sinister with more abstract lines, characterized by endless guitar solos, nervous organ masturbations and groovy drumming, while vocal pars come not easy either, having a very dark delivery.Interesting music for what it is, but with little true value, regarding the composition level.

As a tightly connected part of pre-Egg's history, ''Arzachel'' has seen numerous reissues over the years and comes as a recommended release to all fans of improvised Psych/Prog as well as to collector's of prog history as a nice hostorical and archival album.Recommended as a whole.

I would start by saying that almost everything Prog produced before 1970 had many things in the psychedelic vein. If we add a good dose of drug (whatever that is) here is the excess! Arzachel is a really unique band in this sense, the daughter of a night of sex between music and drugs! If you do not know all this I think would be really hard to understand this album, confusing it with an album of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd! But, as Steve Hillage is not Syd Barrett, "Arzachel" respect to Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd albums is an album less sick but less rational, less psychedelic but initially, as a final composition (I can call it that?) Is even madder than Syd Barrett with Pink Floyd! Dave Stewart is another great organist in the vein of Keith Emerson or Vincent Crane and in this album is a great magician!

If you like the more sick Psychedelic Rock... Here is the album for you!

Arzachel is a crater on the moon and the music reflects the alienation and deep atmospheres of space. The opener announces the outlandish psychedelic style immediately, with a whirling dervish of sustained organ howls and spacey glissando guitar. It is little wonder the sound is hyper space intensity with the likes of Dave Stewart on keys and Steve Hillage on guitar. 'Garden of Earthly Delights' features Hillage's estranged vocals, and energetic pulses of organ, bass and drums.

'Azathoth' is driven by cathedral organ drones and slow vocalisations that seem sto come from the netherverse. 'Queen St. Gang' is a steady cadence of beautiful instrumentation, followed by 'Leg' which has a weird bluesy feel. The final lengthy jam sessions are provided to cap of this stunning curio. 'Clean Innocent Fun' and an epic Pink Floyd style classic 'Metempsychosis'. The tempo quickens as it progresses into a brain rattling time sig with organ distortion and high squealing guitar arpeggios.

Despite the poor production rough garage sound, Arzachel is a band that should be enjoyed by any space rock/ psychedelic prog addict.

This is a private pressing of their 1969 album, done by some surviving members and for the fans. It is a fans edition. In addition to the songs from the 1969 album, there is also six bonus tracks.

Let me start to say that the packaging is great. It is a pity that this is a limited edition album only sold by the band itself. The music itself is a collection of some of the strongest songs to come out of the Canterbury/the British Psychedelic/Space Rock scene ever. The musicians is Steve Hillage, Dave Stewart, Mont Campbell and Clive Brooks. The band split later on to form the likes of Egg + many other bands.

The music here is full of heavy guitars (Steve Hillage), thundering bass and drums plus Dave Stewart's rampant Hammond organ. This is heavy, noisy Canterbury influenced Psychedelic/Space Rock. The songs from the 1969 album is pure high quality with the opener Garden of Earthly Delights as the best song. It is one of the best songs to ever come out of this scene, period.

The bonus tracks is various oddities. But they are never bad and never boring. The sound is dirty and spacey. But there is no fall or improvement sound wise from the original 1969 album to the bonus tracks. Hence, this whole entity feels like one unity.

In my view, this is the ultimate Arzachel album and a great addition to any Canterbury collection. I would say; an essential addition to a well stocked Canterbury collection. But most of all; the music here is great and great fun. It has put a smile on my face.

4 stars