ANTHONY PHILLIPS

It must be remembered that this was music written for an event which was actually taking place after everything had been recorded, which meant that Ant had to provide different styles of music at different lengths, not knowing how it would all fit together and whether it would all work. Also, originally there was not supposed to be an album, and it was only due to Rob Ayling's persuasion that it could all be done in time that everything was pulled together. Apart from percussion by Joji Hirota on two tracks, everything is played by Anthony, with electric guitar being the main melodic lead. The album is instrumental, as one might expect, and one can tell it was written to accompany a visual element as there is often the feeling there is something missing, as this was designed to provide finesse and additional elements to what people were watching as opposed to a piece of music which was to be played in isolation. The result is something which is fun and interesting, but this is probably more for diehard Anthony Phillips fans who want to hear everything he has produced as opposed to an album which will be played time again for pure listening pleasure.

That is not to say there are not some fine moments on here, there are, but there are other albums of his which I will probably turn to first. However, this is yet another extremely fine reissue by Esoteric and long may they continue doing this style of work.

Apparently the original session over-ran by three minutes, so to get it into the 55-minute slot which it was destined for, varispeed was applied which resulted in the pitch of Ant's performance being raised by just over a semitone. This was something I did not previously know, but the essay by Jonathan Dann in the booklet is incredibly informative. The original master tapes were not maintained, but in 1999 a copy of a cassette was found in Ant's archives which led to the release of the original album in 2003, but it has long been out of print, and now it has been sound corrected and two additional tracks added from a Pennine Radio interview Ant undertook at the same time. There is no doubt that Ant is highly regarded as one of our finest 12-string guitarists, but his vocals are also perfectly suited to his songs, and it is a shame he is not more widely recognised in that area. He may never have really enjoyed baring his soul in a live environment, but there is no sign at all of nerves as this is a confident performance throughout. We also get to hear some of his Monty Python influenced style of humour in some of his introductions which certainly made me smile.

It is a very long time since I last played this, and now I find myself questioning just why that is as this album is an absolute delight, and any fans of 12-string acoustic guitars, great songs, Anthony Phillips or indeed Genesis as this features a version of the famous 'lost' Genesis single 'Silver Song', which was initially written by Phillips in 1969, with help from Genesis bandmate Mike Rutherford, to say goodbye drummer John Silver.

It was interesting to read the Mike Oldfield comparisons as I too felt there was some similar ideas. Two side long tracks although apparently conceived as one long 50 minute piece. This is fancy music with oboe, flute, clarinet, harp and trumpet being involved plus a string quartet. Like the two collaborators who reviewed before me this just isn't my kind of music and also feel it's a 3 star record. Part one is 24 minutes long with plenty of tempo shifts while Part two is more about repeating themes and it's over 26 minutes long.

The highlights for me are those rich, lush moments that I just wish would linger longer but no. It opens that way as it ebbs and flows for around 4 minutes before changing. And on part two we get that same lush atmosphere after 12 minutes but not as long this time. The tempo really speeds up just after this rich section which will return after 19 minutes briefly. I do like those oboe led sections early on Part two but I'm not big on the electronics before 10 minutes. I felt that Oldfield connection on Part one after 12 minutes. A yikes moment with that dancing flute after 8 minutes. A lot of sparse moments during Part one.

I'm in the minority here but I "get" the love for this one believe me.

As we all know, Phillips left Genesis in 1970 and released his debut album The Geese and the Ghost in 1977. Much of the material dates from the years in between and thus helps the listener to form a picture of his initial years and the development as a solo musician. Those Genesis afficionados who have a sweet tooth for the pastoral nature of the band's music (up to, say, 1977) will be delighted by a great deal of what's heard here. It's evident that Anthony Phillips was a crucial original member in shaping the sound and style of Genesis. [In his career he's often questioned about sounding so much like Genesis, and that must have been extremely frustrating for him!] Ant's music is most often instrumental solo pieces for either guitar or piano or other keyboards. These pieces often have the same pastoral feel as one can hear embedded in Genesis' more complex prog compositions. By the way, 'F Sharp' demo from 1969 that Ant recorded on 12-string with Mike Rutherford on bass and Richard Macphail on tambourine contains elements later used in 'The Musical Box'.

Volume One originally had just one full-length disc and only four tracks on the second disc. Here the second disc is expanded to 70 minutes. There are both completely unheard pieces and alternative mixes or demos of album tracks (from The Geese and the Ghost, Wise After the Event, Sides). For example: guitars only mix of 'Henry Goes to War', initial orchestral run-through of 'Regrets' and an instrumental mix of 'Greenhouse'. These moments of familiar stuff are happily in minority after all. The disc ends with a real surprise: a rock'n'roll song 'Pennsylvania Flickhouse' demoed by Ant's pre-Genesis Charterhouse group The Anon in 1966. Five pages of the booklet deal with The Anon. A rare history lesson!

Volume Two was a full 127-minute 2-disc set originally. The fifth disc on this box set is devoted to a previously unreleased project, titled "The Masquerade Tapes", and textwise this is by far the lengthiest part in the booklet. In 1979 Kit Williams released Masquerade, using the picture book format in a new innovative way. In the wake of the book's success there was an idea of a musical adaptation. Rupert Hine started working on it, helped by Ant, but soon Hine was too busy as a producer and Ant continued making music on his own. The 15-part suite recorded mainly in 1980-81 is all composed and played by Ant. Musically it's a very nice addition to the box set. Instrumental, apart from a beautiful song sung by Lindsey Moore.

In short, this finely edited box set is a cornucopia that really deepens the picture of this fascinating musician. I personally would have enjoyed a chronological order too, but that's not a big deal.

There has always been a debate about what the word "progressive" means in "progressive rock". Some have said it was about breaking boundaries between music, to be experimental, to usher on the development of rock as an artform, and in all this "progressive rock" is in juxtaposition to an imaginary "regressive rock". Genesis - the hive from which Anthony Phillips as a solo artist emerges - have mostly used another kind of definition, one less grand, and more descriptive of the thing that actually occurs within the music, that made it different, at least from Genesis' point of view. It's this: progressive rock is music that progresses, that goes from one thing to the next, and doesn't - or at least tries not to - go back and forth between repeating verses and choruses. Genesis has always sought to maximize contrast in going from one sequence to the next. Tony Banks always gives the famous example of the 'A Flower?' moment in 'Supper's Ready', in between the softly romantic 'How Dare I Be So Beautiful?' and the ugly vaudeville 'Willow Farm'. Peter Gabriel described the form Genesis found on Trespass as 'journey songs'.

'Slow Waves, Soft Stars' doesn't leave it's listener in one place, no, it takes the listener on a journey. The playing is sparse. It is not just 'beautiful', as the synth sounds Phillips do have a kind of - for lack of a better word - cheap quality about them. Anthony Phillips clearly is no Klaus Schulze, no Vangelis, no Florian Fricke, no Tony Banks even (although Tony has lost his way soundwise - not compositionally - with the advent of digital synths) and the synths he uses probably sound cheap because they are: as his former bandmates were raking in millions, Phillips was merely trying to survive in the 80s. But as happens on that other Phillips synth-album '1984', his utter quality as a composer shines through in what he DOES with these cheap synths. With them, and by composing great music, Phillips is able to weave a web in which the listener can go on a journey, going from one bit to the next. Contrasts are not stark as in Genesis music, but smooth, small, sometimes hardly noticable, but they are there. It's like Peter Gabriel sings in 'it': 'it never stays in one place, but it's not a passing phase'. You're there, and you remain there - yes, that's the new age thing - but then at the same time you're taken to all kinds of other places.

Is there no contrast? Yes, there is! Because right in the middle, just when you've gotten used to the mechanical coldness of the synth sounds (this is also a contrast: the beautiful warm chords played with the cold synths), Phillips puts them aside completely and plays some utterly beautiful acoustic guitar pieces. This is the warm core of this album, right in the middle, as he leaves this section again at the end to return to where he started to round the album off, making this one one of Phillips' most consistent compositions from his career.

So yeah, safe to say this is one of my favourite Anthony Phillips albums, and I love a lot of his output. It's an acquired taste, as it won't necessarily please Genesis fans, nor will it please the electronic music-aficionado's, nor New Age lovers, nor acoustic guitar-lovers. But whomever is able to dive into it, accept it for what it is, and give oneself over to it, will count it among the great masterpieces from the fringes of the progressive movement.

There's a bit of influence from his recent collaboraton with CAMEL, as he featured on their worst album, "The Single Factor". At least this album hasMorris Pert, a Scottish composer and multi-instrumentist who worked for almost the whole British prog scene, from Caravan to the Oldfields, Brand X, Arthur Brown and so on.

Back to the album, it has some goods. In the same years we have seen vary failed attempts to commercial, disco, new wave from the monsters of the previous decade: The first part of the 80s has seen the worst efforts from EL&P, Renaissance, Caravan, Genesis to say some. Phillips, instead, is partially successful and there's at least one good track: "The Women Were Watching" that's catchy and not trivially commercial.

So, it's not a total waste. Forget The Geese and the Ghost or the Private Part and Pieces serie. If you have time for something light to listen to as background music in an office or inside an elevator, it's fine enough.

Fully Genesis inspired, instead, is the 3rd track: "Suite in D Minor" on which Quique plays a nice clean electric guitar with some bluesy vibes. Unfortunately, Anthony can't avoid inserting tapes played reverted which I honestly find annoying. There's not even a Satanic message inside... Back to the pastoral version of Genesis and we are already in the B side (excuse me, but I have the vynil). Esperansa first, and Elegy have the pastoral mood that Genesis have quite lost after Trespass. In particular, Elegy features Ant at the 12-strings and again Quique at the electric. I think Ennio Morricone would have liked it.

The album proceeds with the happier "Otto's Face" and "Sand Dunes", another mini-suite very typical of Ant's sound of these times but a bit boring. The closer "Old Wives Tales" arrives too late. It's a good track, but after Sand Dunes I'm usually too tired to fully appreciate it.

So, not a bad album and very interesting for who likes classical and acoustic guitars. You have to, as it's almost everything you can find here. Good inside its genre.

The B side song 'Souvenir' wasn't on the album but it's been included on the reissues of Sides as a bonus track. This is a tender and romantic ballad, slightly comparable to some AP Project ballads, although the production is not quite as sophisticated. The vocals are by Dan Owen who also sang some album tracks. I like his clean voice, which is not very far from Noel McCalla (the vocalist on Smallcreep's Day by Mike Rutherford), or a not-as-high version of Colin Blunstone. In fact this is a surprisingly good B side song.

2 stars for 'Um & Aargh' and 3+ stars for 'Souvenir'.

Given the extended gestation of their debut studio work "The Geese And The Ghost", it's somewhat surprising that barely six months later he was back into the studio to record tracks for his second studio release "Wise After The Event". His record label and his manager convinced Anthony Phillips that it was in the best interests of his career that his next future album should feature more songs and less instrumental tracks than his debut had. With very little music written between 1973 and 1975, when Phillips was studying music and the time after that was spent almost completing his debut album, tracks for his second album had to be written during the rehearsal and the recording sessions of it.

So, "Wise After The Event" is the second solo studio album of Anthony Phillips and was released in 1978. Phillips invited to participate on this album a very extensive list of musicians including some names very well known. So, the line up on the album is Anthony Phillips (vocals, guitar and harmonica), Michael Giles (drums), Mel Collins (soprano saxophone and flutes), Rupert Hine (backing vocals, percussion, locks, probs, modes and vibes), John G. Perry (bass), The Vicar (guitars, keyboards and sundries), Jeremy Gilbert (keyboards and harp), Robin Phillips (oboe), Perkin Alanbeck (synthesizer), Rodent Rabble (clicks, claps and crampons), Humbert Ruse (drums and bass), Vic Stench (bass) and an orchestra conducted by Gilbert Biberian.

"Wise After The Event" has nine tracks. All songs were written by Phillips except "Greenhouse" which was written by Phillips and Jeremy Gilbert. The first track "We're All As We Lie" is a near perfect opener to the album. Here, he blends the acoustic folk, the high pitch 12 strings guitar, adds a special folk touch to the song, with dreamy vocals followed by Giles' pulsating backbeats and an enduring melody line. The second track "Birdsong" is in the same vein as "The Geese And The Ghost". It benefits from Phillips' reflective vocal and soaring electric guitar coda which tellingly exhibits some similarities between his and Steve Hackett's technique at the time. It was originally written just after Phillips left Genesis and has echoes of Genesis' "Trespass" album. The third track "Moonshooter" is one of the best songs to showcase Phillips' unique acoustic guitar style and reserved vocals. It's a slow song, very sweet and very acoustic, not very different from Phillips' standard songs. The fourth track is the title track. It's an eerie and lengthy piece with a strange other worldly feel. It demonstrates the subtle and perfectly judged drumming of Michael Giles, and such is the unusual nature of this song that in some ways it brings to my mind, King Crimson. The fifth track "Pulling Faces" has a range that perhaps uncovers some of the limitations in Phillips' singing, but on the whole he handles vocal duties with charm and sincerity. It has some rare energy, more in the rock Genesis' vein that settles down when the vocals arrive. The sixth track "Regrets" is a mournful song of lost love, and most clearly features Phillips' distinctive wistful cracking voice, conveying heartbreaking emotion on the only song on the album with orchestration. Written in 1975, it shows the slow burning nature of his song writing. The seventh track "Greenhouse" brings us back to a more familiar melodic territory with lyrical, musical and vocal hints of The Beatles in their psychedelic phase. It's a short piece that has something to do with the early Genesis' drama. The eighth track "Paperchase" has a trippy feel that is continued by the gossamer thin, floating opening as the song seems to focus positively and supportively on the memory of beautiful summer days from the depths of winter. It's more meandering and less detailed in their arrangement. Still, it remains engaging and contains enough depth to keep you thoroughly hooked. The ninth track "Now What (Are They Doing To My Little Friends)?", Phillips' plaintive voice perfectly glides over the sad and emotive music, soaring with emotion and restrained anger in the choruses. It drifts away elegantly before appropriately fading into dark ominous sounds.

Conclusion: "Wise After The Event" is an album totally different from "The Geese And The Ghost". So, it gave him a chance to select some early material. He was able to release the album in a record time. As Phillips said, this was really his first album, because "The Geese And The Ghost", despite being released under his name solely, was very much written closely with Mike Rutherford. "Wise After The Event" marks also the only album where Phillips sings as a lead vocalist on the entire album, like Tony Banks did on his second solo studio album "The Fugitive", released in 1983. In my humble opinion, and as Banks, Phillips, despite having a nice voice he isn't properly a vocalist. However, he composed all the songs with his voice and I think he made really very decent vocal work. So, all in all, "Wise After The Event" is a very good album and it's, in a certain way, more cohesive and more uniform than its predecessor is. Still, I sincerely think that it lacks some magic. Still, it's an excellent effort of his and deserves to be listened by all Genesis' fans and by all that simply love the symphonic classic rock music. It's a great addition to any prog decent collection.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

-- First review for this single -- For his second solo album, following the very pastoral debut The Geese & the Ghost (1977), ANTHONY PHILLIPS, an essential founding member of Genesis as we know, had a change in style which is rather similar to one that Genesis was having simultaneously on their first trio album ...And Then There Were Three... (1978). Wise After the Event (1978) contains tighter songs and a dynamic band sound balanced between accessible poprock and progressive rock. This time Phillips himself sings on each track, with his warm and intimate but technically weak voice.

'We're All As We Lie' is the album's playful opening song and it features a lot of guitars. As on the album in general, there is a notable emphasis of chorus in the song structure but at the same time a richness in details. A nice, suitably catchy song with an atmosphere and sounds comparable to the more upbeat songs of ...And Then There Were Three.

I've had the album on vinyl since my youth, and naturally have noticed that the inner sleeve contains lyrics also for one song NOT included on it, 'Squirrel'. At the time there weren't YouTubes or anything like that, and funnily I never came to hear the song -- until now. This is a mellow, moody, slow-tempo song featuring only vocals and piano. Comparable to 'Regrets' on Wise After the Event, but in my opinion more beautiful as a composition. [ On the release info there's another B side track 'Sitars and Nebulous' which I can't find any trace of, nor is it mentioned on the single's cover design. ]