THE THOUGHTS OF EMERLIST DAVJACK

An uneven and flawed effort in some ways, but also pretty ambitious and fun as long as one doesn't expect this to be extremely similar to ELP. David O'List is an underrated guitarist, much in the vein of Syd Barrett (and apparently nearly as eccentric, personality- wise) and his guitar textures and effects help to enhance and elevate the material. This is essentially a UK psych lp with some proto-prog moves on tracks like "America" and "Rondo". I am not a huge Emerson fan so for my money, the more outre' psych tracks work the best for me. Lee Jackson's vox are pretty naff, but the sheer strangeness of cuts like "Dawn" (everyone that I know that is a prog purist hates this track, but if it was a single by a less well-known band, drooling psych heads would be paying megabucks for it, as it is a truly menacing freakout ala Floyd's "Scream Thy Last Scream") and the zoned beauty of "The Cry of Eugene" should fill your headspace quite nicely. The charming toytown psych title track features Immediate Records singer/songwriter Billy Nicholls on backing vox as well. One could do worse than pick up the 3CD "Here Come The Nice" box set that includes this lp in excellent fidelity, remixed and remastered, along with their other material released on Immediate (Ars Longa...), plus a cd of bonus tracks, outtakes, and remixes, some taken from the "Autumn to Spring" release that Charisma put out in the 70's to cash in on ELP's popularity. Well worth it and a surprisingly fresh listen even today.