Dotoar

Somwhere around 1967 after the Wilde Flowers had withered, half of the crew proceeded to invent a soft machine in order to explore the depths of the London underground. When the other half heard about their venture they decided to scrap together yet another band and dub it Caravan, and listening to this debut sure makes you feel that the very name is sensed in the music. It's nothing short of a caravan of massive sounds stately and steadily proceeding through your speakers and into your subconsciousness. That statement may seem somewhat exaggerated now but consider that this was 1968, before all the crimson kings and armadillo tanks and ready suppers and all that. The closest equivalent I can think of at this point is Procol Harum, but they were still sporting a more soulish brand of baroque-tinged rock whereas Caravan went down the majestic route as well as spicing it up with playful folk-jazz passages, like in "Love song with flute", one of the best tracks on here.

You might as well already get adjusted to the weak singing voice of Pye Hastings (very weak actually, in places sounding like on the verge of cracking, carefully balancing on the right note) which would get better over the ensuing albums, but personally I don't really mind (I've heard much worse, especially considering the swedish indie scene) as it suits the songs well. He's occasionally assisted by Richard Sinclair who technically has got a better voice but there's something about it that ever so slightly annoys me. It's a bit meek and syrupy, but I'm not really complaining as it works as a good counterpart to Pye's whiney falsetto.

The songs cook however, and it starts off with a true highlight in "Place on my own" where the aforementioned grandness, emphasized by the echoey production and the somewhat foreboding intro/verse parts and the organ-led interlude make for a great contrast with the uplifting chorus. "Love song" is, like I said, another favourite with its wonderfully sharp transition into the chorus, as well as the closing "Where but for Caravan would I" showing the first signs of true prog dexterity, not least in its multi-part structure. "Magic man" is also a highlight, effectively working its way through three looping chords on which they weave several different melodies.

Out of the rest of the tracks I feel "Grandma's lawn" and "Policeman" to be a bit iffy even if the latter sports an obvious nod to Beatles in its McCartneyesque melody. (And it's always fun to bash the law enforcements every now and then). "Cecil Rons" is a lot of fun though, with a faux-scary organ arrangement underpinning a nursery rhyme not unlike The Who's "Silas Stingy". Finally there's the conga-driven mantra "Ride" that surely conjures the feeling of a caravan making its way out from Canterbury to wherever they ended up. Or more figuratively, from the humble beginnings of artrock into the vast and yet unknown terrain of progressive rock. Groovy!

__________________