Although there is some debate as to what exactly defined the musical movement known as “The Canterbury Scene”, it seems to have originated with The Wilde Flowers, who later segmented into both Soft Machine and Caravan, two bands who were very prominent in, and founder members of the scene. Rather than being a particular type of music, the Canterbury Scene appears to have been a sort of fluid group of musicians who would migrate from bands to band (progressive rock gypsies?) and who began in, or played basically around the area of Canterbury in Kent, in the south of England. I may end up doing a full article on this later, but right now I mention them mostly because I'm about to listen to the debut album from one of those main driving influences in what became known as The Canterbury Scene.
Album title: Caravan
Artiste: Caravan
Nationality: English
Label: Decca
Year: 1968
Grade: A
Previous Experience of this Artiste: Zero
The Trollheart Factor: 0
Landmark value: Seen as one of the first and most important albums of The Canterbury Scene, fusing psychedelia, jazz and classical with the emerging prog rock.
Tracklisting: Place of my own/ Ride/ Policeman/ Love song with flute/ Cecil Rons/ Magic man/ Grandma's lawn/ Where but for Caravan would I?
Comments: You can hear the whimsicality spoken of in the piece on TCS as soon as the album opens, and I'm glad to say there are plenty of keys – never really consider a band totally prog without a few keyboards --- musicianship is excellent as demonstrated by the instrumental break that takes most of the latter part of “Place of my own”, vocals from Pye Hastings are very easy on the ear and you can hear where Supertramp were going to tread later. “Ride” begins in much the same vein, soft and gentle before the guitar crashes through and another extended instrumental kicks off. I like the mix of a very easy, relaxed vocal with harder guitars and crashing drums, though I hear little keyboard here. It's all over “Policeman” though, honking and trumpeting in a somewhat Beatles-style tune, some great organ pounding its way sonorously through the tune, which appears to be the first full instrumental.
“Love song with a flute” is a slow ballad, as you might expect, with warbling keys and, well, flute, a nice sort of echoey vocal on it. Ramps up a little, rather unexpectedly, halfway through, the organ coming in much more forcefully (yes, yes, tee-hee) then “Cecil Rons” is the first one that sounds not only psych but also sort of threatening, ominous with a staccato drumbeat and kind of warped keyboard line. Little unsettling, almost seems out of place beside the rest of the album so far. “Magic man” is a really nice laidback folky style song with acoustic guitar and some nice organ work, very relaxing. Man. “Grandma's lawn” is pretty trippy, with the vocal again buried deep in the mix so that it sounds like it's being sung at the bottom of a well or something; great keyboard line, and then the closer is a nine-minute monster.
A soft gentle guitar line opens “Where but for Caravan would I” with an equally gentle vocal in a slow ballad with rising organ then kicks up with a good instrumental break carried mostly by said organ. It finishes well but is I feel overlong.
Favourite track(s): Place of my own, Ride, Policeman, Love song with a flute, Magic man
Least favourite track(s): Grandma's garden, Cecil Rons
Overall impression: A very good album but I would venture to think they have better. Not a bad introduction though into this Canterbury Scene stuff.
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