CLOCKS

This maxi-single contains two tracks from my favorite Steve Hackett album entitled Spectral Mornings. In those days The Steve Hackett band turned out to be the 'perfect symphonic progrock substitute' for the many Genesis fans who were deeply disappointed about The Phil Collins trio their new music approach since the popprog on And Then There Were Three.

Side one starts with the exciting song Clocks, in my opinoin one of his best ever compositions: there is a great tension and lots of dynamics because of the mellow parts with fat Moog Taurus bass pedals sounds, majestic violin-Mellotron waves and propulsive guitar work and the bombastic interludes with a powerful rhythm-section and howling electric guitar runs, halfway culminating in a spectacular solo with a distorted sound and in the end a short but heavy drum solo, Hackett's exciting version of prog and roll! Side two contains two live tracks, recorded in 1979 in Paris. It starts with the 'Acoustic set' in two parts. First both beautiful as virtuosic work on the classical/Spanish guitar, the audience reacts with a huge applause and roars of excitement when they recognize parts of Blood On The Rooftops and Horizons (with the distinctive flageolets), what a great atmosphere! The second part delivers the two Hackett broters, Steve on the classical guitar and John on flute, very warm and romantic. Finally the composition Tigermoth (derived from a British airplane that fought against the Germans in the Second World War), again Hackett succeeded to create lots of tension and dynamics between the mellow parts with flute, acoustic guitar and dreamy keyboards and the heavy parts with biting electric guitar and bombastic keyboards (Mellotron and church organ sound), topped by the fat Moog Taurus bass pedal sound, how exciting!

Great footage from Steve Hackett at his pinnacle!

A short time

I well remember buying this 12" single in the mistaken belief that I had come across a full Steve Hackett album consisting of just 3 tracks. The idea of a 20 minute epic from Hackett filling the entire side of an LP led to ever mounting excitement as the platter was placed on the record deck. It was only as I was preparing to lower the stylus onto the record that I noticed the large notation "45 RPM"!

That said, this was still a worthwhile, if more costly than planned, purchase. The A side is occupied by a new recording of "Clocks, the Angel of Mons", a track which originally appeared on Hackett's third album, "Spectral Mornings". Although this is the "12 inch" version, it is actually somewhat shorter than the album track, the editing arguably making it more commercially appealing.

Side two has two live tracks. The first of theses is an "Acoustic set" comprising of extracts from "Lost time in Colorado", a "Traditional guitar exercise", "Blood on the rooftops", "Horizons" and "Kim". Some of these are in blink and you'll miss it format, but we do get pretty much all of the wonderful "Horizons" (indeed the applause for that piece occupies the middle part of the track!).

The final track is a live rendition of "Tigermoth", also originally on "Spectral mornings". Once again, the version here is substantially shorter than the original album track. This version though is otherwise not substantially different to the album version.

In all, a great single release by Hackett, which can now be obtained quite easily as all the songs now feature as bonus tracks on the remastered version of "Spectral Mornings".

A real oddity

Clocks, originally from the Spectral Mornings album, is here presented in a slightly shorter single edit. This fairly experimental instrumental is a very unlikely choice for a single and probably did nothing in the charts. The two b-sides include an acoustic medley recorded live of various bits and pieces including the eternal Horizons. The other b-side (or the c-side, if you like) is a version of Tigermoth, also originally from Spectral Mornings. The latter is much shorter than the studio version and does not include the vocal section. This, in my opinion, is an improvement over the original. At any rate this track too is an odd choice for a single. All three tracks have since been included as bonus tracks on the remastered CD reissue of Spectral Mornings.