2007 was a good year to be a fan of the man named Robyn Hitchcock. We got a documentary, we got a box set, we got a tour, and we got a glimpse into what next year should look like in terms of releases.

I’ve spent two weeks with the box set, and there are some nice surprises:

– On I Often Dream Of Trains we get a beautiful raw take of “Heart Full Of Leaves”

– On Eye there is a lovely song I’d never heard before called “The Beauty Of Earl’s Court”

– When Thatcher Mauled Britian Part One is perfect. I had my doubts about track choices, tinkerings, replacements and omissions for this set, but Part One feels like a uniform body of work. And it should, as I think it was all recorded at the same location.

– “Point It At Gran” and “The Abandoned Brain” on WTMB Part One are actually demos. They are NOT the versions from Invisible Hitchcock.

– “Birdshead” (also on WTMB Part One) was UN-tinkered with. This song was originally released on the You And Oblivion compilation, and featured distracting background vocals. They have been removed for this release, and the result is pleasing.

My friend Mitchell made some discoveries of his own by A/B’ing the discs:

“Queen Elvis (demo)” and “Surgery” on _Thatcher_ add a countdown at the
beginning that wasn’t on the Rhino versions.

“Ye Sleeping Knights Of Jesus (demo)” seems to be better left/right balanced
than the Rhino version.

“If I Could Look” has added reverb and is properly trimmed on _Thatcher_ (it
has 27 seconds of silence at the end on _Oblivion_).

“Take Your Knife” has a longer fade on _Thatcher_ and definitely sounds like
it has extra bass.

Here’s one of the previously-unreleased tracks from the box. “Melting Arthur” is pretty representative of both the calibre of material and the era that the box encapsulates.

Robyn Hitchcock - Melting Arthur

Before I leave you to the rest of your blog-reading, there’s an excellent blog post that discusses and features some of material that Robyn has chosen to omit when compiling I Wanna Go Backwards.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 27th, 2007 at 9:53 am and is filed under acoustic, box set, demos, music, outtakes, raw, robyn hitchcock, surprises. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.