In The Land Of Grey And Pink

Brilliant album from start to finish.

Classic album that never sounded so good. Just about the best Caravan album IMHO.

I still remember the first time I heard this album, I was still quite young and the youngest in my group of friends so I tended to be influenced by them. We were at an older girl’s house and she put on side two first and when I heard Nine Feet Underground I was an instant convert. This was the sort of music I wanted to hear now. This was why I initially started my Canterbury Scene journey from the Caravan side although by the time I got to my early 20s I had cast my net very wide indeed. In pre-internet days the research into connection in music required a bit more legwork reading and discussion. I was, therefore, incredibly grateful to Pete Frame’s Rock Family Tree, that started out as part of the Soft Machine Triple Echo 3 LP compilation.This album is just such a perfectly constructed work. When I play this album it really upsets me that digital playback, streaming, etc, has all but done for the idea of writing and recording music in album form. Certainly the received “wisdom”, since the emergence of the MP3 player and all its relations, was that the album is dead, people just want the songs that they instantly like and everything else can just be skipped. Fortunately there has been a growing fight back of the album and the vinyl revival is a symbol of that.This vinyl edition is beautiful; with the cover art reproduced to perfection, it is certainly better quality than my original vinyl copy. The vinyl is an excellent pressing. I bought this Caravan album in HMV but getting it out today prompted me to order another three of the albums on vinyl from Amazon: If I Could Do It All Over Again, I'd Do It All Over You, For Girls Who Grow Plump in the Night and Waterloo Lily.It is a shame that so few Canterbury Scene bands have their albums available on vinyl, hopefully that will change. This album, its companions and my extensive Soft Machine collection will have to make do for now and I do still have everything else on CD but my evening winding down time is spent, almost exclusively, listening to music on vinyl.I love this album, if you don’t have it then get it on some format. If you are into vinyl and wondering if this is worth getting, stop hesitating and buy it, or put it on your list.

Nice album, fruity lyrics from olden times, ooh er!