V.A. "John Peel Presents Top Gear" 1969

Very rare, and very odd, compilation of performances broadcast by Peel on the BBC's Top Gear show in late 1969. Bridget St. John, the gentle-voiced folk singer who would record several albums for Peel's Dandelion label, has four tracks, including covers of John Martyn and Joni Mitchell songs. Experimental composer Ron Geesin has three items that, unsurprisingly, recall the most out-there passages of late-'60s Pink Floyd, whom Geesin worked with for Atom Heart Mother. The Welfare State's one offering is similarly avant-garde, and Sweet Marriage weigh in with a couple of pretty faceless progressive rock numbers; there's also an experimental treatment of "John Peel's Voice," and the "Top Gear Signature Tune." The juxtaposition of wildly different underground styles, as well as the rather unimpressive quality of the music itself, limits the record's appeal almost exclusively to hell-bent collectors. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide

Welfare State:
Art college freaks from Bradford, Yorkshire, represented by a single track on the John Peel Presents Top Gear album (BBC REC 52S) issued in 1969 and comprising selected sessions from his "Top Gear" radio show. The track in question is Silence Is Requested In The Ultimate Abyss and features backward vocals, hypnotic rhythms, psychedelic noise and a lyric, recited rather than sung, which seems to concern a body being seared and broken. The electronic treatment, under the direction of David Vorhaus, is by White Noise whose album An Electronic Storm (Island ILPS 9099) will be known to some. This mixture of "alchemists, an earth goddess, facts (?), monsters, perspex lutes, poets and freaks" - to quote Peel from the sleeve notes - is weird but interesting.

01. John Peel's Voice
02. Sweet Marriage - Mort
03. Bridget St. John - The River
04. Ron Geesin - Agitation in Anticipation of Offspring Part W
05. Bridget St. John - Song To Keep You Company
06. Welfare State - Silence Is Requested In The Ultimate Abyss
07. Bridget St. John - Night In The City
08. Sweet Marriage - Titania
09. Ron Geesin - Agitation In Anticipation Of Offspring Part X
10. Bridget St. John - Lazarus
11. Ron Geesin - Agitation in Anticipation of Offspring Part Y
12. John Peel - Top Gear Signature Tune

Sample pic: 1, 2

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