The Honey Pot - Ascending Scales album review

A tapestry of delights

The Honey Pot Ascending Scales album cover

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The lucky winners of their label’s 100th album release, West Country psychedelic troupe The Honey Pot have been granted an extended two-CD magical mystery tour with as many guests – ancient and modern – as they can cram onto the bus.

There’s Electric Prune James Lowe, waking up from too much dreaming on 1969, Pretty Thing Dick Taylor on guitar swooping around the Bo Diddley rhythms on Solomon Deep – and that’s just for starters.

Nick Saloman and Ade Shaw of the Bevis Frond join the trip at the start of the second CD on Time Machine. But they kick out the jams, quite literally. Everything on this blend of originals and selected covers is kept neat and concise.

Hugh Fielder

Hugh Fielder has been writing about music for 47 years. Actually 58 if you include the essay he wrote about the Rolling Stones in exchange for taking time off school to see them at the Ipswich Gaumont in 1964. He was news editor of Sounds magazine from 1975 to 1992 and editor of Tower Records Top magazine from 1992 to 2001. Since then he has been freelance. He has interviewed the great, the good and the not so good and written books about some of them. His favourite possession is a piece of columnar basalt he brought back from Iceland.