A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM / THE WINTER'S TALE

The biggest flaw with these two albums from Red Jasper wasn't anything to do with the content - it's that they came out through SI Music, which meant that distribution to the band's UK homeland was patchy and when that label collapsed entirely the albums were left in limbo for a bit.

In the early 2010s, Angel Air swooped in to the rescue, putting out a clutch of Red Jasper reissues which put the bulk of their material back into circulation, heralding their 2015 reunion. This release combines their first two SI Music studio albums, which found them abandoning the more punkish influences shown on debut album Sting In the Tale and the live release Action Replay in favour of a folk/neo-prog blend which was distinct to them.

They're an apt pair to bring together, because they both take a certain amount of thematic inspiration from Shakespeare (though both albums riff on the sort of ideas and concerns Shakespeare dealt with in his plays rather than adapting their plots in a narrative fashion), and because they're a seasonal pair, with Midsummer Night's Dream bringing the warmth whilst Winter's Tale offers colder, spookier material. Between that and the way the two albums are intertwined - The Night Visitor is Part 3 of Dreamscape, the first two parts of which are on Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Sonnet trilogy winds between the two as well, there's these nods to a mysterious "Jean" in some song titles - it makes absolute sense to reissue these as a package.

I could wish that the presentation were a bit less cheap and cheerful and that the original album art were given a bit more prominence, but this is a quibble when you're getting material this good in a bargain release. It's a crying shame that these albums were somewhat overlooked on their original release; Red Jasper had the misfortune of rising a bit too late to catch the original neo-prog wave, a bit too soon to get enthusiastically embraced by the Internet prog fandom. Angel Air deserve our gratitude for making their work available again.