You can trust Louder Our experienced team has worked for some of the biggest brands in music. From testing headphones to reviewing albums, our experts aim to create reviews you can trust. Find out more about how we review.
If life was lived in reverse, the Wilde Flowers would surely be the great supergroup of the Canterbury scene. Their line-up comprised core future members of Soft Machine, Caravan and Kevin Ayers And The Whole Wide World, and their repertoire prefigured an entire sub-genre of progressive rock: the English-lyrical side that combined jazz, blues, whimsy and wit to produce strangely dreamy and simultaneously biting music.
The 34 tracks here range from 1962’s Wilde Flower demos (there’s a cover of, bizarrely, That’s Alright Mama) to 2003’s Zobe re-recordings (Robert Wyatt and Brian Hopper doing a moody The Pieman Cometh).
Some songs resurface in future incarnations (Slow Walkin’ Talk), and some don’t. And while the quality is largely, well, demo-ish, it’s effective, being intimate, unforced and at times extraordinary. It’s unlikely these tracks will replace the artists’ later work in anyone’s affections, but this collection is more than a fan curio.
