Just saw a mention of this in Bob Stanley's latest Record Collector column so looked it up. Out 27th January, looks very Peter Eden I think. Rather than wistfully looking forward to bright Summer days in cold old January, it looks at damp, cold England in January itself, perfect!
PM
Bob Stanley & Pete Wiggs Present: English Weather (Ace CD / 2xLP)
The latest project from two-thirds of Saint Etienne is a compact disc and deluxe double LP of music that represented the transition from psychedelia to prog as the 60s moved into the 70s. Most of it is not an easy listen, but it's always interesting, melodic, melancholy, with jazz and folk touches. While America may have licked its wounds at the turn of the seventies by turning to singer-songwriters, purveyors of homilies like teach your children well, Britain wasn't so ready to give up the trappings of psychedelia. And while the UK counterculture may have shed its faith in something bigger, it wasn't about to chuck out the mellotron. This is how the day after the sixties felt: damp, fuzzy-headed, neither optimistic nor pessimistic but more than a little lost. British bands would mirror the ennui of the new decade with a new kind of music. Lavishly put together, with two of Peter Mitchell's iconic photographs of 1970's Leeds.
1. Love Song With Flute - Caravan
2. Moon Bird - The Roger Webb Sound
3. Early Morning Eyes - The Parlour Band
4. Pamela - Scotch Mist
5. The Prisoner (Eight By Ten) - Spring
6. Last Cloud Home - The Orange Bicycle
7. JLT - T2
8. Til The Christ Come Back - Bill Fay
9. Refugees - Van Der Graaf Generator
10. Very Nice Of You To Call - Aardvark
11. Big White Cloud - John Cale
12. Bottles - Belle Gonzalez
13. Watching White Stars - The Way We Live
14. Windfall - Offspring
15. Never Let Go - Camel
16. Wise Man In Your Heart - Daevid Allen
17. O Caroline - Matching Mole
18. Edge Of The Sea - Prelude
19. Evening Shade - Alan Parker & Alan Hawkshaw