COLD CUTS

Thanks to my buddy Gildas, I am finally able to enjoy this album that was one of the Isles' rarest, but has become rather common (all things considered) in the new millennium. Greenwood was an ex-Crazy World, and will also be the bassist on the great and sole album of Khan in the same year of release of his only solo album. This album came after Space Shanty, but sonically speaking, Cold Cuts is more related to the Crazy World than Khan, although it almost stands halfway between the two. Hillage leaving Khan for GonG, Steward heading for Hatfield, this left Greenwood (and drummer Peachy) to record his only solo effort, but he wrote the tracks with keyboardman Dick Heningway. Graced with an absolutely disgusting artwork, which only Krautrockers could surpass in terms of bad taste, this album is a very joyful explosion of Hammond-driven hard rock, with touches of brass jazz-rock, and a whole ton of wavy gravy psychedelic.

Starting off with the absolutely delightful and pastoral (at least at first) Sea Of Holy Pleasure (divided into three segments), where Heninghem's organ parts are definitely reminiscent of Crane, Stewart and even Emerson, and Bunk Gardner's (ex-Zappa and just having done some of the most incredible wind instrument playing on Tim Buckley's Starsailor) interventions on various brass instruments add incredible depth to an enormously progressive track. Throughout the album, you'll get bits of pure soulful brass- rock, some early influences of Egg, Arzachel, Khan (obviously), a touch of reedy blues-rock, and some more alert Oblivion Express and Affinity. Although the organ dominates, there is a good balance between brasses, flutes, guitars, piano and the odd string section and

Greenwood's voice is particularly well suited to this kind of music, which also uses the help of an inventive string section in Tudor- era music and an orgasmic flute of Hope/Ambitions. The succession of short organ-driven tracks is particularly enjoyable, because each develops its own ambiances: hear the flute making love to the organ in Corruption or Images or the superb backing vocals upping the ante over an Auger-like Hammond part in Big Machine. The aptly-titled Melancholy track even give the guitars a chance to dominate the underlying organ. The album closes on another superb track, Realisation And Death with plenty of dramatics and excellent interplay.

Over the last two decades many forgotten albums have been unearthed and called gems, but not many carry the same amounts of carats as this one. Actually this album is just as good as its closest two cousins (Crazy World of and Space Shanty), but it might lack a bit the historical importance of these two and therefore might not be so essential.