MORNING WAY

This sole record is of interest mostly to progheads for two reasons: the first being that the record presents a rather pleasant folk rock with enough strange twist and some odd instrumentations that it can be classified as progressive (all things being relative, here). The second reason is that if you are a late 60's buff, you know that Judy Dyble was the first Fairport Convention singer and she tried out for Giles, Giles And Fripp and almost made the cut for King Crimson's first line-up - this is documented in GG&F's Brondesburry Tapes album. For years, I associated this album closely with another folk-rock album Tudor Lodge.

However, this group was mostly the project of Jacquie McAuley - of THEM fame (Van Morrison's group who made two excellent psych albums after Van left them) and the main songwriter here - and Judy handles only part of the vocals. The music is rather naïve (but it is part of the charm of such a record) folk rock that even back in 1970 was largely outdated except to a few unconditional folk purists that have kept the value of that vinyl high enough to guarantee a few counterfeits and now a Cd release on "iffy" label Akarma (the Italian copyright laws not being very strict to say the least) but of late, this label seem to have commercialised widely some early 70's rare UK records on a very luxurious vinyl versions and vinyl-replicas Cds of many groups. So I suppose some agreement has been reached and Author's Rights and royalties are respected. One of the main gripe I have with Akarma is that those mini-Lp Cds are not quite up to par with their Japanese competition, but the superb, yet-weird original artwork is fully respected here - however the quality of the foldouts covers is not perfect.

A very pastoral mood, dominated by an acoustic guitars and some flute (not always well played), and the tracks glides smoothly but rather unremarkably until the sixth one: right from the first notes, the Mixed-Up Kind (the longest of the album clocking in at 6.5 minutes) stands out a bit with a fuller ensemble of instruments including drums and harpsichord. On the second side, one of the highlights is The Mutant, but one of the rare Dyble-written track (the title track) also holds much interest. The two bonus tracks come from a separate single and the two non-album track fit quite nicely the rest of the album.

Certainly one of the lost interesting album in the plethora of late 60's-early 70's period but of limited interest to progheads.