Home |
||||||
The Curator, The Auditor, The Sports Commentator and The Bank Manager |
||||||
1977 |
||||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The songs on this album were first recorded in Basingstoke in February 1977 on a Revox B77 reel-to-reel which allowed for a rudimentary form of multi tracking (in mono). It was released on a C45 tape with homemade labels. Later in 1977 the band played their one and only gig and broke up. Over lockdown I used the time to digitise all of my existing recordings. I attempted to demix the mono 1/4 inch tape and remix it but later decided instead to rerecord the five songs from scratch. I contacted the other members of the band. Mark and I first started playing togther about 50 years ago. We would meet up at my house after school and play songs we knew. Soon after we started writing original material. Ian then joined and for a couple of years we wrote and recorded primitive songs together using the Revox that belonged to Mark's brother. Not long after the hot summer of 1976 and when we had done our O levels at school we began working on the material that became this album. In late 1976 Mike joined and added a harder edge to the music. In February 1977 we recorded the five songs and looked to play live. This followed later in the year. Due (mostly) to issues beyong our control (including an inadequte sound sysytem) the gig was close to a total disaster. We managed to play one song through (City 9am) and then the lights and curtain went down forever on the band. I always felt a sense of unfinished business in relation to these songs. Not only did our falling out at our one and only gig put an end to our aspirations but also the musical changes that were happening at that very moment in 1977 were not, let us say, sympathetic to the cause. The songs on this album are as they were in 1977, better played, better arranged, better sung, but the same songs. An odd lyric has being changed (occasionally with the benefit of hindsight) and a new ending added here, a section repeated there. We all agree that our teenage selves would be overjoyed to know that their music has finally been recorded the way they would have wanted. The Curator |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
Video of TMS (single edit) |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
The Curator Alistair |
||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
The Auditor Mark |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
The Sports Commentator Ian |
||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
 |
The Bank Manager Mike |
||||||||||||||||||||||
1977 is The Curator's seventh album, following Sometime Soon (2010), Inside The Whale And Other Stories (2013), Where The Stars Will Give Way To The Morning (2018), Twenty-Six / 12 (2019), All Lombard Street to a China Orange (2021) and Living Space (2024).
He co-produced and co-wrote Talking With Strangers by Judy Dyble (2009) as well as producing a further four albums for her, which included many songs co-written by him. He also arranged and produced two albums by Third World War’s Terry Stamp
A missing link between Harry Nilsson, Robert Wyatt and Peter Hammill Darryl Easlea, Mojo I love, love, love this album (All Lombard Street to a China Orange). Alistair Murphy and co have a rich flowing musicality that is both redolent of so much beloved while a very much stand alone sound. This is the natural product of a music where a sense of nostalgia and renewal walk side by side. Such a voice too: English everyday entwined with Celtic Mystic, wanderlust and gentle awe. An event that invites YOUR participation. Get on the train… Gavin Martin The Winter Sun, the de facto title track is a beautifully orchestrated piece that richly evokes Robert Kirby's work with Nick Drake. The jazzy overtones of It Crackles (And it Spits) sound like Harold McNair. Where the Stars Will Give Way To The Moming is a grown up record for infantilized times **** Record Collector Nothing can be second guessed with sharp compositional turns and stylistic back flips keep the listener engaged througout. Hi-Fi Choice His music is hard to categorise. Some songs introduce themselves as keyboard based balladry – Murphy’s dry, reserved voice evokes early Bowie and Peter Skellern – but all develop structurally with imaginative combinations of winds, strings and synths. Mike Barnes, Hi Fi news. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|