Arzachel - Arzachel (1969)

tate

Brown Sugar
Was listening to this today.

Hailed by many as a classic psyche record, it came out in 1969, and is a much sought after vinyl rarity. The only one released under the Arzachel name. Supposedly recorded in a day.

Dave Stewart and Steve Hillage formed the band in late '67, were originally called Uriel. 'Arzachel' is the latinized name of an arab mathematician and astronomer who lived in the 11th century, al-Zarqali.

Hillage would later hook up with Kevin Ayers, and Gong, and went solo. Also played in 1972 with Stewart in Khan.

The other three (Stewert, Mont Campell, Clive Brooks) later formed Egg. Stewart of course played in Hatfield and the North, also in National Health.

So, the album predates the all-important Canterbury prog scene, but is part of the history. It's quite the bluesy psyche affair. "Garden of Earthly Delights" is a short but tuneful chord cycle. I quite like this song. "Azazoth" is nice too, it's almost like downtempo prog. "Leg" (big sound on the verse) and "Clean Innocent Fun" (10:23) are too bluesy for my taste, and a bit boring, but the intro to "Metempyschosis" (16 mins 19 secs long) sounds as if it could have been recorded yesterday: ambient guitar noises from pressing and scraping the strings; disjointed, atonal application of a slide to the strings; noisy keyboard squall hovering in the background; quite contemporary sounding to be honest. Also, Hillage gets a nice tone from his guitar, not cheesy at all (a lot of his blues licks are, though).
 

Woebot

Well-known member
someone hipped me to this recently (maybe it was you tate)

looking fwd to checking it out....
 

Zekk

Member
One of my personal favourites. You should check Khan's Space Shanty, it also features Hillage and Stewart.
 

arcaNa

Snakes + Ladders
is this the one with "Queen St. Gang" (sp?) on it?
BTW, i reckon the Arzachel cover art "inspired" Nightmares On Wax' design for the Smokers Delight album... ;)
 
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