UK M- 1971 THE MOVE MESSAGE LYNNE WOOD PSYCH BEATLES

$

80

 1971 POST PSYCH-POP GEM ~ ORIGINAL BRITISH COLLECTIBLE!                                           

                THE  MOVE

 MESSAGE FROM THE COUNTRY

\                                                            UK - Harvest - SHSP 4013

Very rare original 1971 British first pressing with the UK sixties production 'flipback' cover.

Recorded in 1970-71 at the same time that The Move was also laying down tracks for the first Electric Light Orchestra album (and even during some of the same sessions), there are inevitably some similarities in style between the two albums, especially the heavy use of "tracking up" (overdubbing) to capture all of the instruments being played by Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne. Nevertheless, Wood and Lynne were determined to maintain some differentiation between the sound of their two groups.

"Message from the Country" shows them carrying their sound, within the context of who they were, about as far as they could. One can hear them hit the limits of what guitars, bass, drums, and keyboards, with lots of harmony overdubs and ornate singing, could do.

Indeed, parts of this record sound almost like a dry run from the first Electric Light Orchestra album, which was in the planning stages at the time. The influence of the Beatles runs through most of the songs stylistically. In Jeff Lynne's case, it was as though someone had programmed "Paperback Writer" and other chronologically related pop-psychedelic songs by the Beatles into their songwriting and arranging, but the album also shot for a range of sound akin to The White Album across the ten songs on this album -- except that the members of the Move are obviously working much more closely together.

Reduced to a trio and all but wiped out as a live act, they went ahead and generated what was, song for song, their most complex and challenging album. Heard today, it seems charmingly ornate in execution yet also simple in the listening, very basic rock & roll dressed up in the finest raiment that affordable studio time could provide. Despite the obvious jump from the post-psychedelic "Message from the Country" to the driving, delightful "Ella James" and the leap into airy pop-psychedelia on "No Time", not to mention the novelty interlude of "Don't Mess Me Up", there's a sense of unity here, the entire album somehow holding together as something powerful, bracing, and visceral, yet cheerfully trippy. In that sense, it goes "White Album" one better. Based on its musical merits, it all should have sold the way some Electric Light Orchestra albums later did, instead of getting lost in the transition between the histories of the two groups.

• "Message From The Country"  – 4:45
• "Ella James"  – 3:11
• "No Time" (Lynne) – 3:38
• "Don’t Mess Me Up"  – 3:07
• "Until Your Mama’s Gone"  – 5:03
• "It Wasn’t My Idea to Dance"  – 5:28
• "The Minister"  – 4:27
• "Ben Crawley Steel Company"  – 3:02
• "The Words of Aaron"  – 5:25
• "My Marge"  – 1:59

CONDITION: The cover with grainy texture & flip back cover seams is "EX" (excellent) ... nice clean sharp vibrant colors ... no problem

The vinyl is clean, all glossy smooth M-

      A cool addition to anyone's music library!

SEE: SELLERS OTher items for similar cool sounds for "head" people...

EFFICIENT/CAREFUL GRADING

All imperfections are noted both cover & record