SCRAPING THE BARREL

Being a long time fan of Gentle Giant, I finally got to the point where I was scraping my wallet and bought this beautifully packaged box. It contains 3 audio cd's, 1 cd- rom and a book. In total it is over 12 hours over music. The cd-rom contains, next to all sorts of mp3's, GG videos, tourbooks, promo material, manuscripts, etcetera. The book has all the information you want to know about the recordings. The whole project is in the same vain as the Anthology series from The Beatles. There are a lot of demos, studio noodeling, alternative takes, rehearsals. What you must not expect are unreleased or unfinished songs by GG. If you are looking for that, you better purchase "Under Construction". And if you already have that, this box compares to the second disc of that one. The sonic quality of the music is good. A part from the strange "FBI tapes" and some live material.

The first disc covers material from "Gentle Giant" (1970) to "Free Hand" (1975). Highlights include the beautiful "Think of Me With Kindness", the instrumental "Playing the Game" and "The Power and the Glory" parts. The second disc continues with "Free Hand" and ends with "Civilian" (1979). Great parts are the studio outtakes of "Mobile" and "Empty City". The third disc is devoted to solo material of GG members plus two tracks by Simon Dupree and the Big Sound. This I find the least interesting disc of the foursome. There are some nice tunes (like "Moog Fugue" from Kerry Minnear) but overall it is rather standard pop music. Disc number four (the data disc) contains hours of material both by GG and solo members. Again there is lots of stuff to explore. There is almost an hour of GG live in Torino, 1973 and over an hour of rehearsals in Pinewood, 1977 with good sound quality and excellent performance. There is a 24 minute file with the recording of "So Sincere". There is also an excellent rehearsal of "Octopus" in 1975, and a good guitar-duet rehearsal. This data disc may be the best disc of the set. The mp3's, by the way, are all 128kb/sec.

And now over to the ratings. If it was about the music then it would definitely be 5 stars, because Gentle Giant is an excellent band, who wrote truly progressive music. Many examples of this music can be found on this box. On the other hand, if you just want to listen to their music, you better listen to a studio release or to the excellent live album "Playing the Fool". In the end this box is mainly for the true GG fan who already has all their albums and still has a hunger for more GG material. Not all the stuff on this box is worthwhile, but there are many good performances and alternative versions to be found. And even listening to the vocal mix of "Three Friends" you can hear GG's brilliance.

I bought this set about a year ago and am still exploring its riches. Since it contains "over twelve hours of enchanting Gentle Giant musical entertainment", mostly in embryonic form or in the shape of demos and live performances, you will understand I do not intend to enjoy all four discs non-stop from start to finish .

I've never been a particularly ardent GG fan; I first discovered the band's best music in the late 1990s when I was approaching my 40th birthday, so they never left the same mark as bands I got to know much earlier. But I love anthologies of all kinds, and I love the idea of a huge set full of (almost) countless snippets from a band's workbench. Hearing dozens of familiar passages from GG's classic albums performed on guitar and Fender Rhodes only, or by vocalists only (to give just two examples) is a fascinating experience, which only increases my admiration for this most endearing of bands.

The SCRAPING THE BARREL tracks list provided by Progarchives is highly detailed (I wonder which brave soul typed it all out?) and the single review the set has so far received (by Agemo) gives you an excellent impression of what the four disc set is like. All I will add is that the sound quality of most of the music is excellent, so if you're a true GG fan, don't worry, you're going to L-O-V-E this. A lot!

I was originally inclined to rate SCRAPING THE BARREL two stars (collectors/fans only), but since such a rating is usually interpreted as meaning: "so bad only dedicated fans will enjoy this", I'll give the set three stars instead, meaning: "good (provided you're fan of this kind of music) but non-essential".

I've decided to post this review even though I've not yet heard a single note from the third disc (which includes post-GG material by various ex-members of the band), because all the tracks I HAVE heard were highly enjoyable, life-enhancing even, and I felt SCRAPING THE BARREL finally deserved a recommendation from one of Progarchives' regular reviewers. I solemnly promise I will expand my review as soon as I have heard all 12 hours in their entirety...

Scraping the Barrel, 12 hours of music, compiled, cleaned and edited by dedicated Gentle Giant fan & friend Dan Bornemark between 1998 and 2004. As the title indicates, this is it, the best of the rest. The box-set contains 3 CD's and a data disc, a good solution even so my personal choice which tracks to put on the data disc (128 K/bit for the majority) would have been slightly different. Both, the 3 CD's and the data disc follow in chronological manner the Gentle Giant history with some miscellaneous tracks at the end (Kerry Minear, Gary Green Ray Shulman, John Weathers solo tracks & Shout (R.Shulman, Gary Green) and a sample archive (320 K/bit) of classic tracks. First remark, the high quality of the material, throughout their history Gentle Giant has released a great number of high quality compositions. With this boxset (and his predecessor 2CD set Under Construction ) you get the occasion to follow the evolution of the tracks. While Under Construction concentrated on unreleased and live tracks, STB presents the demo and composition sessions. My favourite tracks are on the data disc and at 128 K/bit only I would have preferred to have them in better quality on the CD part, seen the excellent source material, but that's a matter of taste. On the data disc, following the original record sessions you have long and elaborated composing / impro sessions which give an inside of the genesis of the tracks featuring strongly the compositional capacities of Kerry Minear. Some of the sessions are quite long for example 35 minutes for I lost my Head from Interview and as a non GG fan this might be boring, but then it's great music in progress. To hear Kerry Minear pass from renaissance madrigal moods to French impressionist music is awesome. Some of the early tracks are breathtaking like the vocal mixes of Three Friends and Pantagruel's Nativity, another highlight two guitar rehearsals for Memories Of Old Days by Gary Green. The overall sound quality is excellent as most of the material comes from the original recording sessions. There are a couple of live recordings among them two entire concert recordings, the first one from Torino in 1973 (medium sound board quality) and a public press rehearsal in the Pinewood studios from 1977 (good quality with some dropouts), containing hilarious comments from Derek in front of a half asleep bunch of journalists. The non Gentle Giant tracks present in majority Kerry Minear's works from 1964 to 1990. Dan Bornemark liked so much two of the demos that he initiated a 2000 minor Gentle Giant recording reunion with John Weathers, Gary Green and Phil Shulman furnishing the lyrics to one track. Gary Green's outtakes are fewer but among my personal favourites, among them two beautiful sketches he wrote after the death of his brother. A couple of tracks come from the short lived band Shout that Ray and Gary created in the beginning of he 80's in pure new wave style. On the visual part of the data disc some funny clips featuring John Weathers, a couple of promo films with John W. as The Giant in a miniature village, press kits photos and promo material. A well made 40 page booklet with interesting liner notes and pics comes along with the box-set. All in all, a must have for Gentle Giant fans, the others should try out the Gentle Giant discography and come back later eventually.