TALES OF CANTERBURY - THE WILDE FLOWERS STORY

A historically important collection, but I'm afraid that's really all it is. The Wilde Flowers could easily be described as The Yardbirds of the Canterbury Scene. Most of the famous Canterbury musicians played here at one time or another; including Robert Wyatt, Hugh Hopper, and Kevin Ayers of Soft Machine fame as well as Richard Sinclair, Pye Hastings, and Richard Coughlan of Caravan. It is essentially the base of the tree that is the Canterbury Scene, this is where it all began.

Now on to the music. The Wilde Flowers never recorded an album during their career, this collection is a set of recordings that were made throughout their days as a band. Unfortunately most of the recording is poor quality that detracts greatly from potentially good songs. The songs are predominantly British Invasion-esque pop songs. There are not many progressive tendencies in this album if any. However, there was a lot of potential in these recordings. Some of the songs have the potential of being very good: songs like Those Words They Say and Parchman Farm are catchy.

I'd recommend this collection for anyone who is a fan of the Canterbury Scene who is intrigued by historical recordings like these. Though outside of that demographic, the collection isn't worth that much. Still, I don't find it completely worthless, I find myself listening to it every once in a while.