Album title: Space Shanty
Artist: Khan
Nationality: English
Sub-genre: Canterbury Scene
Year: 1972
Position on list for that year: 10
Chronology: 1 of 1
Familiarity with artist: 2
Familiarity with album: 2
Gold Rated track(s): Stranded, Driving to Amsterdam, Hollow Stone
Silver Rated track(s): Stargazers
Wooden Rated track(s): None
Comments: This album looks familiar. I didn’t get to 1972 yet in my History of Prog journal, but I think I may be about to get there, and have seen it in the list of albums released that year. Actually, it looks like I’m still mired in 1971 but I’m sure I’ve seen this album. I can tell you that Gong legend Steve Hillage was in Khan, along with some other Canterbury folk (sorry) and that this was their one and only album. It’s relatively short, which may be a good thing for me - just over the three-quarters-of-an-hour mark, with a total of six tracks, some of them obviously quite long. Now, those of you who know me will already know that the Canterbury Scene is not, well, my scene. I’ve listened to Caravan, Soft Machine, Gong and others and I really did not like what I heard. Goes back to the hippy/psychedelic thing I guess; Hawkwind once wrote that if you want to get into it, you gotta get out of it, and I’ve never been out of it in my life. In fact, I think it might be hard to find someone who is more consistently
in it, so trippy albums don’t have the same effect on me that they might have on, for example, you. Doesn’t mean I’ll pan it, but my expectations are a little lower than were I going to review, say, a prog folk or a progressive metal or neo-prog album (no, not in 1972, I know, smartass!) so I’m sort of ready for the worst.
Let’s see how bad it is.
It’s certainly a product of the seventies, with that staggered guitar that comes through so much in hard rock and early metal, and of course psych; the main vocal melody reminds me of something but I can’t place it. Uriah Heep maybe? Not sure. Nice slow organ run is pretty cool and this is of course the opener and title track (with an additional “includes the Cobalt Sequence and the March of the Sine Squadrons”) and runs for nine minutes. It’s pretty okay actually when the vocals drop out; instrumental work is indeed quite progressive in tone. I have to say, of the Canterbury albums I’ve listened to (and there have not been that many, but a few certainly) this is far and away the best. “Stranded” is really nice with a sprinkly piano and - oh, it’s just broke out into hard guitar and warbling organ. Picking up speed but still nice. Even the vocal doesn’t bother me on this. I see Hillage and Nick Greenwood seem to share vocal duties, so maybe I’m listening to a different singer? Anyway it’s good and the instrumental passages are glorious. Much better than I had expected. That piano from Dave Stewart really makes the song.
That guitar bit there presages the big hit for the Alan Parsons Project, “Eye in the Sky”, or to be more accurate, its instrumental intro, “Sirius”. Wonder if Parsons listened to this album, or maybe David Paton did? “Mixed Up Man of the Mountains” has an odd kind of tra-la-la vocal with some truly exceptional guitar, and really, other than the somewhat stuttering start this album has not put a foot wrong since. That sounds like some Cat Stevens in there too, in the guitar riff? Some pretty rocky stuff going on now, as the track acquires teeth whereas up to now it’s just been more or less lazily chewing the cud. To carry the analogy, such as it is, further, the song has been up to now cows in a field, until a bull charges in and takes control of the herd. It’s heavier, is what I’m saying. And really good. One of the longer tracks, “Driving to Amsterdam” has a quite jazzy peppy uptempo organ running the melody, very breezy with some fine guitar from Hillage, and the vocal is lovely and relaxed, again reminding me of something, or I guess as whatever that something is, it comes well after ‘72, I should say that something reminds me of this. Well, you know what I mean.
Yeah I know what it is: ELO’s “The Whale” and also parts of “Echoes”, which in the case of the latter is in fact before this album, if only by a year. Certainly enjoying this. “Stargazers” has a very Van der Graaf Generator vibe to it, could imagine Hammill singing on this one, then the closer is another nine-minuter, with “Hollow Stone (Including Escape of the Space Pirates)” having a very stately kind of marching, almost triumphant feel to it, a low-key vocal and a sonorous organ arrangement. It’s no surprise this album is in the top ten, the only surprise really being that it’s that low. But then, when you look at the others in that list - Genesis, Tull, Yes - two Bancos? - quite a lot of RPI in fact, like four albums or something - maybe it’s not that it’s not good enough to get higher, just that other, better-known albums are preventing it from doing so by being voted for more. Does deserve to be a few places up though.
Personal Rating: 10