Nirvana – Travelling on a Cloud (Island, 1967/69)

Nirvana
Travelling on a Cloud
CD Island Records 3D CID 1002 (UK, 1992)

01. Rainbow Chaser
02. Pentecost Hotel
03. Tiny Goddess
04. Girl in the Park
05. Melanie Blue
06. You Can Try It
07. Trapeze
08. Satelite Jockey
09. Wings of Love
10. The Show Must Go on
11. The Touchables (All of Us)
12. We Can Help You
13. Oh! What a Performance
14. Darling Darlene

Recorded between 1967 and 1969, this CD features 8 of the 12 tracks from their second Lp, four from the first, and both sides of a rare 1969 7-inch.

Nirvana was created as the performing arm of the London-based songwriting partnership of Irish musician Patrick Campbell-Lyons and Greek composer Alex Spyropoulos. On their recordings Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos supplied all the vocals. The instrumental work was primarily undertaken by top session musicians and orchestral musicians – with Campbell-Lyons providing a little guitar and Spyropoulos contributing some keyboards.
Musically, Campbell-Lyons and Spyropoulos blended myriad musical styles including rock, pop, folk, jazz, Latin rhythms and classical music, primarily augmented by baroque chamber-style arrangements to create a unique entity.
In October 1967, they released their first album: a concept album produced by Blackwell titled The Story of Simon Simopath. The album was arguably the first narrative concept album ever released, predating story-driven concept albums such as The Pretty Things’ S.F. Sorrow (December 1968), The Who’s Tommy (April 1969) and The Kinks’ Arthur (September 1969).
(…) The group were in the school of baroque-flavoured, melodic pop-rock music typified by the Beach Boys of Pet Sounds and God Only Knows, the Zombies of Odessey and Oracle and Time Of The Season, the Procol Harum of A Whiter Shade of Pale, the Moody Blues of Days of Future Passed and Nights in White Satin and the Kinks of Waterloo Sunset and Love Forever Changes. The majority of the tracks on Nirvana’s albums fell into that broad genre of contemporary popular music, not easily categorized but perhaps best described as the baroque or chamber strand of « progressive rock, soft rock or « orchestral pop » and  » Chamber Pop ».
The Nirvana song « Rainbow Chaser » is thought to be the first-ever British recording to feature the audio effect known as phasing or flanging throughout an entire track, as distinct from occasionally within a song such as the Small Faces in « Itchycoo Park ». Phasing was, by 1967, heavily identified with the musical style known from 1967 onwards as psychedelia, and as « Rainbow Chaser » was the only Nirvana single to achieve commercial success, peaking at number 34 in UK Singles Chart during May 1968, they were invariably tagged as a « psychedelic » band. However, despite their name, promotional photographs on the cover of their first album wearing « flower power » style clothes that implied associations with « druggy » music and distorted acid rock-style guitars, the band actually had no associations with that style of music. « Rainbow Chaser » was one of the few Nirvana recordings that had any connection with « psychedelic » music, although « Orange and Blue » (1970) was acknowledged to have been written under the influence of LSD according to the liner notes of the eponymous album.
(…) The original group had filed a lawsuit in California against the Seattle grunge band in 1992. The matter was settled out of court on undisclosed terms that apparently allowed both bands to continue using the Nirvana name and issuing new recordings without any packaging disclaimers or caveats to distinguish one Nirvana from the other. Music writer Everett True has claimed that Cobain’s record label paid $100,000 to the original Nirvana to permit Cobain’s band continued use of the name. (from Wikipedia)

FR Quelque chose de complètement différent, histoire de changer de tous ces trucs super-frais-super-récents qui encombrent inutilement nos disques durs. Je ne vous cacherai pas que ça reste quand même davantage une petite curiosité qu’un véritable trésor caché. (Et non, il n’y a pas Smells Like Teen Spirit sur cette compil.)
ENG Something completely different today. Why? Why not. I have so many pointless super-fresh-super-brand-new releases sleeping on my hard drive (did I really need to grab that James Blake album in FLAC?), sometimes it’s good to hear something else. More a curiosity than a real lost gem, hope you’ll like it anyway. (And no, there’s no Smells Like Teen Spirit here.)

http://www.myspace.com/nirvanaoriginal
nirvana-uk.com (and have a look at the ‘influenced by us’ and ‘our influences’ pages)