Lullabies For Catatonics: A Journey Through The British Avant-Pop/Art Rock Scene 1967-74, Various Artists, 3CD Clamshell Boxset
Various Artists

• Previous Grapefruit genre anthologies have shown how the various strands of British psychedelia developed tangentially in subsequent years: I’m A Freak Baby observed how the blues-based, harder-edged element of the genre gradually morphed into hard rock/proto-metal, Dust On The Nettles examined the countercultural psychedelic folk movement, while Come Join My Orchestra looked at the post-“Penny Lane” baroque pop sound.

• Our latest attempt to document the British psychedelic scene’s subsequent family tree, Lullabies For Catatonics charts the journey without maps that was fearlessly undertaken in the late Sixties and early Seventies by the more cerebral elements of the underground, inspired by everyone from Bartok, Bach and The Beatles to Dada, Dali and the Pop Art movement. Suddenly pop music was no longer restricted to moon-in-June lyrics and traditional song structures.  Instead, it embraced the abstract, the discordant and the surreal as pop became rock, and rock became Art.

• A new, post-Dylan emphasis on lyrics led to self-proclaimed poets like Keith Reid, Pete Brown, Pete Sinfield and Adrian Henri aligning themselves with rock bands, while the free jazz and classical influences embraced by the underground scene resulted in a new musical hybrid. While Soft Machine’s mordant wit and musical complexity established them as progenitors of the so-called Canterbury Scene, the likes of Procol Harum instigated a more portentous, symphonic style that was subsequently classified as Art Rock, a sub-division of a wide-ranging scene that would be codified by the one-size-fits-all term Progressive Rock.

• Those two complementary strands are at the heart of Lullabies For Catatonics, with the more challenging American bands of the era also an influence: The Velvet Underground impacted on everyone from a young David Bowie to teenage ingénues The Velvet Frogs, while Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band would inform Arthur Brown’s equally uncompromising playmates Rustic Hinge.

• A fascinating window on a movement that stands as one of the most creative, challenging and esoteric in British music history, Lullabies For Catatonics incorporates the hugely successful (Yes, Genesis, 10cc) cheek-by-jowl alongside the unsigned (both Gnome Sweet Gnome and As You Like It now gain their first-ever commercial release), together with the art-rock collectables (Gnidrolog, Spring) and the unclassifiable avant-garde iconoclasts (Third Ear Band, Pink Floyd collaborator Ron Geesin). Housed in an attractive clamshell box, this essential set features suitably sympathetic artwork as well as a heavily illustrated 40-page booklet that includes the story behind each track.

TRACKLIST 

DISC ONE
SPONTANEOUS UNDERGROUND

1. I SHOULD’VE KNOWN –
The Soft Machine
2. I’M WAITING FOR THE MAN – The Riot Squad featuring David Bowie
3. CONQUISTADOR – Procol Harum
4. BYPASS THE BY-PASS – The End
5. WORLD WAR THREE – Dantalian’s Chariot
6. BUTCHER’S TALE (WESTERN FRONT 1914) – The Zombies
7. I TALK TO THE WIND –
Giles, Giles & Fripp
8. TRAMCAR TO FRANKENSTEIN – The Liverpool Scene
9. THE BATTLE – The Strawbs
10. XOANON BAY – Woody Kern
11. IN THE BEGINNING – Genesis
12. WASTED GROUND (MEMENTO MORI) – The Velvet Frogs
13. BEYOND AND BEFORE – Yes
14. DRUID ONE – Third Ear Band
15. THROUGH THE EYES OF A CHILD – Bachdenkel
16. ALL OVER THE COUNTRY – The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown
17. MERRY GO ROUND –
Eyes Of Blue

DISC TWO
TEA ON THE LAWN

1. EGYPTIAN TOMB – Mighty Baby
2. BANQUET – Audience
3. TO PLAY YOUR LITTLE GAME – Cressida
4. PARACHUTE – Pretty Things
5. CRYSTALLISED PETARD –
Rustic Hinge
6. VIVALDI – Curved Air
7. WORLD OF ICE – Sweet Slag
8. MOCKINGBIRD –
Barclay James Harvest
9. THE PRISONER – Comus
10. HOME (RECONSTRUCTION) – Nirvana
11. DEATH MAY BE YOUR SANTA CLAUS – Second Hand
12. THE PRISONER (EIGHT BY TEN) – Spring
13. DON ALFONSO –
The Coxhill-Bedford Duo
14. GRANDE PIANO – Stackridge
15. SAVING IT UP FOR SO LONG – Samurai
16. NO. 2 PSYCHOLOGICAL DECONTAMINATION UNIT – Blonde On Blonde
17. ME AND MY KITE – Fuchsia

DISC THREE
THE WIND SINGS WINTER SONGS

1. WELCOME FOR A SOLDIER –
Deep Feeling
2. CAN I SEE YOU? * – Open Road
3. O CAROLINE – Matching Mole
4. UNHINGED – 9.30 Fly
5. THE MACHINE GRINDS ON * –
Gnome Sweet Gnome
6. NO MORE SUNSHINE TILL MAY * –
As You Like It
7. A WINTER’S TALE – Jade Warrior
8. C. F. D. T. (COLONEL FRIGHTS’ DANCING TERRAPINS) –
Bond & Brown
9. SHIP – Gnidrolog
10. ANVILS IN FIVE – Rupert Hine
11. UPON COMPOSITION – Ron Geesin
12. GROWING UP AND I’M FINE –
Mick Ronson
13. ADVENTURES IN A YORKSHIRE LANDSCAPE – Be-Bop Deluxe
14. SOMEWHERE IN HOLLYWOOD – 10cc
15. MOTHER RUSSIA – Renaissance

* PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED