Art Supernatural Fairy Tales Island 76 nr mt mono rare

	£		38
	$		50

Jillchal Records

Welcome to Jillchal Records. All records listed have been listened to and graded according to the Record Collector’s 2006 Rare Record Price Guide grading system of which a summary is given below. Please check feedback for the quality of goods and the service offered :I do not generally sell records below ‘Very good’ quality unless they are particularly rare and then their condition will be highlighted  Discounted postage available  for multiple purchases

Mint:- Record is in brand new condition no surface marks or deterioration in sound quality. Cover and extra items are in perfect condition. Any sealed records are listed as mint.

Excellent:-Record shows some signs of being played, but very little lessening of sound quality. Cover may show slight wear and /or creasing.

Very good:-Record has obviously been played many times, but shows no major deterioration in sound quality, despite noticeable surface marks and light scratch. Normal

wear and tear on cover.

Good:-Record has been played so many times sound quality has noticeably deteriorated, perhaps some distortion and mild scratches. Cover has folding scuffing of edges, spine splits, etc.

You are bidding on a copy of the reare album by Art 'Supernatural Fairy tales' released on Island records this is the 76 reissue in near mint looks unplayed no spindle marks, or marks at all a classic!

It's a wonderful album in many respects, - maybe not exactly a 'forgotten gem' of the times like Odyssey And Oracle or Forever Changes or whatever, but then again that hierarchy is so damn fragile I'm afraid to pronounce a final judgement. The album possesses all that a good psychedelic album of the times should have possessed. A vague wavery shiny flowery Indian-influenced album cover; a pretentious trippy title

It could have been crap, but the songwriting is strong - it's a place where you can really tell the band could have gotten on with its own songs even without the assistance of Mr Wright. (That guy must have put a spell upon 'em or something). Many of the twelve songs on here sound seriously alike, with very similar hooks and melodies, but they're also short and never give the impression of a pointless show-off or stupid wanky experimentation. About the only 'questionable' moment in that department is the lengthy drum solo on 'African Thing', but it doesn't bother me much because it's an African solo - a crazy rave-up that I can't remember on ANY record at the time. Props, millions of props go to Mike Kellie if it's really him bashing out that crazy rhythm; unless I'm very much mistaken, this was actually one of the first such inclusions in the history of British rock - maybe in the history of all rock. Remember, it was still two years before Santana would make the big time and popularize Latin and African rhythms for rock audiences. Then again, maybe I'm just loony.

The actual songs are psycho-pop, or, actually, psycho-rock, I'd say, because many of them really rock: Luther Grosvenor doesn't go for half measures, and he puts just enough distortion and fuzz on his instrument so as to sound like a faithful follower of Hendrix, yet not actually overdo the trick. So for 1967, the album's pretty heavy, and pretty far out. 'Supernatural Fairy Tale' is a good example, although you could swear that there was just too much mixed inside that number. The otherworldly Mellotron in the background; Grosvenor's repetitive heavy riffage; constant phasing throughout; the rambling, 'swaying' mid-section where Mike Harrison almost sounds like a twin brother of Ian Anderson in Aqualung mood; the strange harpsichord notes that keep cropping up; the psychedelic guitar solo in the outro, and maybe I've forgotten something else. Best of all, though, might be the unnerving bass riff - the way it really pins the song down in its metronomic steed reminds me of Hawkwind, and I wish I had proof Hawkwind were influenced by this song...

Of course, it's not the only highlight. The very first number, 'I Think I'm Going Weird', announces the band's arrival with a bang, with Harrison's sneery-sounding '...think I'm going weeeeeeird' almost ridiculously overblown ('hey guys, we gotta make a song about weirdness now, or else it will be hard to pick up hip chicks on the streets'), but still a total gas. Remember, psychedelia is very much a theatrical genre, so you have to take it with all of its theatricality or leave it. 'Brothers, Dads And Mothers' is like SFT Part 2, with pretty much the same instrumentation but - the gods be blessed! - a different riff. No, definitely this is the heaviest British album of 1967 not counting the Hendrix ones. It's also pretty funny when they take fast jazzy tunes like 'Alive Not Dead' and make the listener forget the jazziness of the melody by adding a rumbling proto-metallic bass line and heavily sprinkling the song with whatever psychedelic trippings they have there in the background... Mellotron? electric piano? harpsichord? whatever.