OLIAS OF SUNHILLOW

Oh dear! I find myself surrounded and wholly outnumbered here by fellow reviewers who clearly share a common percipience as regards "Olias of Sunhillow" and agree that it delivers music that is, variously, complex, sophisticated, a masterpiece even, and altogether from another sphere. Tripe. I acknowledge Jon's undoubted artistry and skilled musicianship - a genuinely rare case of a record being all the artist's own work - but that isn't enough to salvage what is, for the most part, a mixed bag of the impenetrable, the pretentious and the self-indulgent. There are a couple of nice musical interludes, I grant you, but these are more than outweighed by a morass of pseudo-spiritualist offerings travelling under the label "Songs Going Nowhere". I'm not sure what planet Jon was on when he was working on "Olias of Sunhillow" but I'm glad he eventually jumped ship and got down to business again. And if that's put the cat amongst the pigeons, don't just shake a stick at me - get it yourself and have an(other) honest listen. Am I right or am I right? But, yes, the LP cover was really nice.