Sunday, May 22, 2011

Body - The Body Album. 1981 England

I seem rate this album higher than most of my peers, and I'm not entirely sure why. Body are a really good space rock band that is completely incongruous with anything else coming from England in 1981 (other than maybe the first Twelfth Night album). There are very few references to the early 80's UK synth pop scene though a couple of tunes are musically relevant 'Brave New World' being the most obvious whereas 'Lights Out' could have easily been a hit single during that era. Overall I hear elements of You era Gong as well as the obscure Italian group St. Tropez here. The near 15 minute spaced out 'Andromeda' is the song Pink Floyd never made after Ummagumma and is the standout track on the entire album. The bonus tracks are uniformly excellent except for maybe the goofy Falkland Islands political rant - but no matter - it was, after all, an important topic in the mid 1980's!

CD: 1997 Ozit
CD: 1992 World Wide Records (Germany)

My introduction to this album came via the SPM/World Wide CD that I purchased upon release (1992 or so). The Ozit release (scan above) comes with 4 bonus tracks, a full history, photos, and is overall a great reissue. Definitely a marked improvement on the bare bones SPM version.

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