Lullabies For Catatonics: Journey Through British Lullabies For Catatonics: Journey Through British CD

Three CD set. Lullabies For Catatonics charts the journey without maps that was fearlessly undertaken in the late '60s and early '70s 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 ing?nues 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).

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 18. Egyptian Tomb - Mighty Baby 19. Banquet - Audience 20. To Play Your Little Game - Cressida 21. Parachute - Pretty Things 22. Crystallised Petard - Rustic Hinge 23. Vivaldi - Curved Air 24. World of Ice - Sweet Slag 25. Mockingbird - Barclay James Harvest 26. The Prisoner - Comus 27. Home (Reconstruction) - Nirvana 28. Death May Be Your Santa Claus - Second Hand 29. The Prisoner (Eight By Ten) - Spring 30. Don Alfonso - the Coxhill-Bedford Duo 31. Grande Piano - Stackridge 32. Saving It Up for So Long - Samurai 33. No. 2 Psychological Decontamination Unit - Blonde on Blonde 34. Me and My Kite - Fuchsia 35. Welcome for a Soldier - Deep Feeling 36. Can I See You? - Open Road 37. O Caroline - Matching Mole 38. Unhinged - 9.30 Fly 39. The Machine Grinds on - Gnome Sweet Gnome 40. No More Sunshine Till May - As You Like It 41. A Winter's Tale - Jade Warrior 42. C. F. D. T. (Colonel Frights' Dancing Terrapins) - Bond ; Brown 43. Ship - Gnidrolog 44. Anvils in Five - Rupert Hine 45. Upon Composition - Ron Geesin 46. Growing Up and I'm Fine - Mick Ronson 47. Adventures in a Yorkshire Landscape - Be-Bop Deluxe 48. Somewhere in Hollywood - 10CC 49. Mother Russia - Renaissance