Here in North America, it's Labour Day... traditionally viewed as the end of summer (the kids start another school year tomorrow, the leaves are beginning to change colour.... autumn is in the air). What better album to celebrate summers final daze then this stunner from still-a-teenager Billy Nicholls? With the help of half of The Small Faces and some of the UK's finest session musicians (John Paul Jones, Nicky Hopkins, Big Jim Sullivan) a perfect Pop-Sike album was created and then shelved due to Immediate's sorry financial state.
I have the 2CD Sanctuary release from 2006 and the anthology Forever's No Time At All, but for me it's the original album in stereo that is unbeatable. There's not a track that is a throwaway as far as I'm concerned... everything is perfect. A shimmering Beach Boys-esque slice of Summer Sunshine - great stuff!

Brilliant album Mark,it just so happens i played this tonight as well,hard to believe (no pun intended)this never got a widespread release at the time,what a beautiful album to lay collecting dust for many years but Bill Nicholls was just a teenager when this album was recorded and his writing can be found on fellow Immediate artists recordings by Twice as Much and PP Arnold too(whos cd i played tonight too).As you so rightly said Magic Stuff!!!

I think two of the songs from the album are covered by Dana Gillespie on her US only album "Foolish Seasons." I agree that "Would You Believe" is a fine sixties album. I have the 2LP release that came out a while back, and the Tenth Planet reissue. Can't say I've ever really considered trying to find an original. It's always fun to see one of the originals show up on eBay once in a blue moon. Not too many in existence, or so the story goes...definitely way out of my price range.

Great album, though I'm not sure it's great enough to justify anyone spending £8000 on an original! But even the Tenth Planet release has sold for £80, which seems way over the top for a reissue.

Yeah, rare or not £8,000 seems excessive for a record. And the one that sold for that had a visible tear on the cover as well. I agree the Tenth Planet reissues are pricey, but £80 at least is imaginable as a sum. It is a run of 1000, which means it's not overly available and I suppose qualifies as "rare." I like the 2LP version, but it switches around the number of songs per side to get in all the bonus tracks, so it's a bit more of a compilation than a straight reissue. Still, it's cool to have the cover with the Immediate label instead of Tenth Planet. It makes the reissue look pretty faithful to that mega-rare 1968 release, and a double album of Billy Nicholls' prime sixties output is a very nice thing.