THE WIDTH OF A CIRCLE

The first CD consists entirely of a live set recorded for John Peel's The Sunday Show in February 1970. It was apparently his first performance with Mick Ronson. The set draws mostly on the Space Oddity album, but also includes embryonic versions of songs he would record later, notably an unfinished version of The Width Of a Circle.

The second CD opens with songs recorded during a live performance of Lindsay Kemp's pantomime "Pierrot In Turquoise or The Looking Glass Murders. A throwback to an older Bowie period, the set is bookended by his 1967 song When I Live My Dream, with short songs written for the show (in some cases using musical material he would develop into other songs eg Threepenny Pierrot which would become London Bye Ta-ta.

Later on the CD, there is a live set recorded for Sounds Of The 70s, featuring the band then known as Hype, with Ronson now much more integrated into the sound. They perform one reimagined track from the Space Oddity album, embryonic versions of two songs from The Man Who Sold The World, and a heavy rock cover of Lou Reed's Waiting For The Man.

The balance of the CD consists of his 1970 singles, both in their original versions, and in recent remixes by Tony Visconti (including an unsplit version of Memory Of A Free Festival). (I'm honestly not sure how much the remixes add to the listening experience.)

It's interesting listening for how it captures a transitional period in Bowie's career, as he moved from a singer-songwriter-ish phase to developing a rockier sound with Ronson. There's the tension between on the one hand attempting to produce catchy pop singles (in an unsuccessful attempt to get him back into in the pop charts he'd briefly topped the previous year), while also creating longer more exploratory pieces. Hearing the older songs from the Space Oddity album played in this way gave me a new appreciation for some of those songs.

I'd love to rate it higher, but it's really only an album for committed fans and collectors.

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