R.S.V.P.

3.5 stars. A really enjoyable album with Richard Sinclair's warm and whimsical vocals on several tracks. Richard mostly plays bass or acoustic guitar here and has Didier Malherbe from both GONG and CLEARLIGHT adding clarinet, soprano sax and bamboo flute. Jimmy Hastings adds flute and sax while HAPPY THE MAN's Kit Watkins adds synths and piano. I guess Kit would play in CAMEL too which leads us to Andy Ward from that same band adding drums along with Pip Pyle.

A warm and mellow record overall that sees Richard often in a reflective mood and this was released in 1994. It's like he's looking back at times to those heady Canterbury days. Imagine Richard being in both CARAVAN and HATFIELD AND THE NORTH. Pip actually nails this sentiment with his lyrics on the opener "What's Rattlin'?" which must be a British phrase. Love the name dropping on this one and humour. A top three track for me along with "Out Of The Shadows" and the closer "What In The World". Worst song easily is "Videos" and were talking VHS right? Just a bad commercial sounding track which I started skipping after 3 spins or so.

It's hard to believe that most wouldn't get something out of this record even if your not into Canterbury. I also like how it has a uniform sound to it for the most part.