Caedmon RARE 12@ vinyl album including 7@ single 202o release

	£		20
	$		26

Caedmon RARE 12@ vinyl album including 7@ single 2020 release.  Buy direct from the artists with this purchase.
7 new tracks and 7 remastered tracks from 1977/78
'70s psych folk band Caedmon from Edinburgh release a stunning new album of new and old songs, all new to the listener. With lyric insert it parallels the 1973 eponymous album containing a 7@ single as well as a 12" vinyl album.

Their new album is out….. is it still Acid Folk? 

‘It’s ten years since we’ve done something, shall we get together?’………..

Some milestones in Caedmon’s history:

1978 Caedmon’s farewell concert and first album.
1994 Kissing Spell contacts Caedmon asking for a 3 year licence to use the master tapes of that album for a CD.
1995 Caedmon ‘Live’ is out and collectors start phoning members of the band trying to get a hold of the original ’78 vinyl package.
2008 Caedmon spends quality time together writing, jamming and recording new album ‘A Chicken to Hug’.
2019 Sea Song hits 200,000 plays on YouTube. We mark this decade by searching out archive tapes for seven unreleased tracks …..

…. and stealing moments in kitchens, bedrooms and attics to write seven new songs….. 

…Mini documentaries are filmed in Edinburgh in special locations.

‘RARE’, the title track of the new album ‘RARE’ has a mellow spiritual vibe with Sam Wilson’s voice caressing the ears. The mandolin, ‘cello, keyboard, fugal horn, bass and acoustic guitars ease us along through a folk ballad, a story. 

It’s the tale of a one-off 1978 album being duplicated, then rereleased, pirated and becoming a collectors’ ‘Grail’. But it’s an allegorical tale following a potter at the wheel which keeps on turning.... x.

RARE features six ‘70s Archive Songs. Vintage, mostly acoustic, Caedmon

The excitement was palpable: we had hunted down early reel-to-reel tapes of Caedmon in Edinburgh. Singer song-writer David Heveanor’s basement harbours lots of past curiosities, and listening to the recordings on his reel to reel tape reveals that everything is in mono with differing levels of muffle and hum.

Soon, a digitising firm provided us with a USB stick of the tracks at best quality and we were left with six usable tracks with sufficient integrity for us to re-master and put on the new record. 

And the selection of songs all feature lyrics from other writers with music composed arranged by members of the band. Five are from a studio session in 1975, when the band was just consolidating its particular feel and sound. 

Only the studio version of fans’ favourite ‘London Psalm’ is driven by searing electric guitar. It juxtaposes with a 13/8 time signature sawn out on distorted ‘cello and acoustic guitar. 

The rest are more ‘hippy’ featuring acoustic guitars, ‘cello, bass, and Angela Naylor’s fragile female vocals. And the sixth track is from a live concert in Haddington near Edinburgh performed against an impressive natural reverb. The descant recorder and ‘cello work with the modality of the song ‘Now the Green Riseth’ to give it a medieval quality. 

RARE: features seven new songs …. It’s the same people but is the sound the same?

75’ –‘78 was an era when the four men Caedmon lived together in a Edinburgh tenement flat and Angela was just around the corner. We jammed, rehearsed and performed together regularly and recordings were elegantly simple, unsophisticated and immediate. Those were ‘moments captured in time’.  We belted out well-known material in one take in a simple analogue studio.

In contrast that to in 2019, the evolution of seven new songs has been unfolded at a distance. Ideas were developed in our different towns with wav files being exchanged by internet and recordings made mid domestic chaos with an Apple Mac, an M Audio digital interface and a few decent mics.

Ironically the resulting tracks bear up to comparison, there’s a freshness about the recordings that come from improvisations on the hoof, the fusion of quickly invented riffs and lyrics, speed necessitated by the brevity of visits to Edinburgh and Newcastle over a few weekends.

It’s a bonus that Simon Jaquet (mandolins, guitar and percussion) and Sam Wilson (guitar and bass) play together regularly as the rhythm unit of another band, ‘Dave’s New Bike’, and their well worn practice has led to a synchronisation and empathy that provides a fine foundation for the recordings.  

Jim Bisset provided the electric funk, jazz and flash elements in his home studio on the west coast of Scotland. Meanwhile multi instrumentalist Ken Patterson, the recordings’ engineer, had the time back at home in Newcastle to layer ‘cello, accordion, keyboards, brass and whistle on to the music giving sparkle and breadth to the sound palette.

Lead singer Angela Webb (as she is now) was gradually persuaded to participate, and to great effect. Furthermore the album includes collaborations from Caroline Brown and Sally Jaquet (Simon’s wife and daughter respectively) to provide a beautiful pad of female voices: e.g. listen to the first track ‘Dream of the Rood’ an 8m37s Prog-Folk epic. The story is from an ancient text once thought to have been by 7thcentury poet, Caedmon. 

Fundamentally, the instrumentation and playing styles of the members has remained true to the ‘70s music. 

Lillian Roxon is said to have coined the term Acid–Folk in 1969 to describe ‘Pearls before Swine’. But the term wasn’t commonly used. Caedmon became aware of the term, and definitions of the genre much later in the ‘90s, a time when they were not creating music together. 

In 2008/2009 when writing their second studio album, ‘A Chicken to Hug’, they vowed to be true only to their individual personal musical influences and tried not to be bound to the Acid-Folk genre. 

But the twelve tracks are clearly in the same tradition. Perhaps, it was the use of drum kit that made the biggest change to the feel on that album, along with lead vocals being shared between different band members.

Working on ‘Dream of the Rood’ in 2017 we were enjoying being mischievous within the milieu of acid-folk as we started the current round of writing. And Ken, in ‘Sky Song’, envious of the accelerating numbers of hits for Simon’s 1978 ‘Sea Song’ on You Tube, decided to write a parallel song. It’s in 3/4 time with a similar structure, exploring a similar theme the same musical feel, forty years on. Centred around geese migrating, Jim’s Strat guitar sound (he perhaps inspired the start of Jim Buckley’s version of Hallelujah on Sea Song), the harpsichord, and acoustic guitars reminding us of the original. 

Spirituality and Acid Folk

Rob Young says in his book ‘Electric Eden - Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music’: Caedmon: ‘these were not door stepping evangelicals, but they used the musical dialectic and atmosphere of folk-rock to engender a tine of devotional contemplation’. Jeanette Leech’s ‘Seasons they Change’ features a Jim Bisset where he says, ‘For me, the music was as much an articulation of what we felt as were the lyrics. And the music could be seen as Christian or non-Christian standing up in its own right’.

Young Finnish fan Kim Åke points to an innocence and a lack of cynicism in Caedmon’s music with rings a chord with his generation. So there’s certainly an element of spirituality to song of our songs which can inspire and uplift. 

Old Enough to Know Better?

But the later material reflects more broadly upon the human condition: growing older (Old Enough to Know Better), and challenges in life e.g. childlessness (Childless); colonialism (Bonnie Boy); bereavement (Old Kings);loss of faith (Elephant in the Chatroom) and leaving home (Go!).

The new album RARE give you a chance to hear a 40 year span of sporadic musical development that affirms the long-term friendships within the band. Hopefully the eclectic nature of Caedmon’s legacy expands and challenges categorisations placed upon it.