RAINBOW THEATRE,Fantasy Of Horses,Oz prog/psych'76,MINT

	A$		280
	$		186

This is just legendary. This is Rainbow Theatre's Fantasy of Horses, one of the most lauded prog records ever recorded and certainly one of the rarest and most sought after Australian ptog/classical rock releases. Here's a little about the band.

When in late 1969 King Crimson's IN THE COURT OF THE CRIMSON KING was released, it profoundly changed the course of rock music, becoming the unwitting progenitor of Progressive Rock, and setting in motion a variety of imitators, some of whom produced worthy music of their own.

The first several albums (those released in Britain by Harvest/EMI) by Barclay James Harvest are one example. Far from copies of King Crimson, they nonetheless drew upon the modal motifs, extended codas, and pseudo-symphonic aspects pioneered by Crimson. A variety of other bands over the years have drawn upon aspects of early King Crimson for their own inspiration. And Crimson's early music was so rich in variety, texture, and dynamics that one could distill from it the inspiration for many kinds of bands and music, all of them more ambitious than simple pop dance bands.

In 1976 an Australian band called Rainbow Theatre released an album called FANTASY OF HORSES on the Clear Light of Jupiter label. It was the work of guitarist and keyboardist Julian Browning, and it is one of the very best of the Crimson-inspired albums ever produced. Not a copy of King Crimson, it nevertheless clearly owes Crimson a profound debt.

Rainbow Theatre was a 14-piece band -- a small orchestra. In addition to Browning (whose keyboards included a Mellotron), it included bass and drums, plus organ, trumpet/flugelhorn, trombone, saxophone/clarinet, flute, oboe, three violins, viola, and cello. With this kind of instrumentation (which rivaled Barclay James Harvest's use of a student orchestra in addition to the band itself), Rainbow Theatre could cover a lot of musical ground -- from the most delicate to the most bombastic -- and certainly did.

But this is only one aspect of their similarity to Crimson. A more compelling aspect was the compositions, the melodies themselves, which are "Crimsoid" in the best sense, capturing the same wistful, minor-key, quasi-Elizabethian folk melodies that Ian McDonald introduced to Crimson with songs like "I Talk To The Wind." And these are contrasted with heavier excursions. Crimson's early models were Holst's "Mars" (from his "The Planets") and Ravel's "Bolero," out of which was fashioned such epics as "Epitaph" and "In The Court of the Crimson King." Rainbow Theatre draws directly upon Mussorksy's "Night on Bare Mountain" for its piece, "Caption for the City Night Life," although the quotes from "Bare Mountain" are used as riffs and submerged in the composition as a whole.

The original album had three pieces on its first side, and an extended suite, the 22-minute title track, took up all of side two. But it was a short album, at under 40 minutes long. The opening track, "Rebecca," opens with a burst of pure Mellotron, signaling what is to come. It's followed by "Dancer," a suite broken up into five separately titled tracks which segue into each other without pause. "Caption for the City Night Life" closes out the original side one, and offers a darker and more powerful music than that which preceded it. "Fantasy of Horses" has seven separately titled tracks, and tells a story which can be glimpsed through those titles: "Early Light," "Frolic," "Trappers," "Captives," "Frolic," "Escape," and "Cliff Edge." Wild horses have fueled more than one fantasy, and this is a good one. The use of the horns is reminiscent of their use on King Crimson's LIZARD, and the singing (by organist Keith Hoban) is very much like that of Crimson lyricist Pete Sinfield on his solo album, Still although in places it sounds too "straight" -- almost operatic -- for the music.

It is a truly remarkable record.

You can check out a photo on Popsike of the label here ...and see how much the last copy sold for - it's the equivalent of abt $265 Australian. Also check out the date of sale - 2004. That is an indication of how rare it is. It has increased in value further since then because of its rarity. The vinyl and the red RTM label are MINT - it is beautiful. CLOJ 783.

The cover is NEAR MINT - a few light creases but really it's lovely.

I couldn't find a copy of this anywhere else on the Net. It is truly extremely rare. Check out some of the Google-listed comments on it. Go for it - you may never get another chnace.