Time - 1968 - Before There Was (Shadoks Music)
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Artist: Time
Album: Before There Was ...
Released: 1968
Shadoks Music (054)
Genre: Canadian Psych Acid Rock
This album adds a "chapter zero" to Time's story, as the demos included here predate the material released on Dog Days. These 35 minutes of music were recorded in January 1968, when Tom McFaul, Lynn David Newton, Richard Stanley, and David Rosenboom drove twice from Buffalo to a recording studio in Toronto. Their original brand of psychedelic music had already gelled, as songs like "Introductory Lines" and "Sad Benjamin" illustrate. The 11 tracks included here go back and forth between post-Sgt. Pepper's psychedelic pop and acid folk with medieval leanings. The inclusion of Stanley's solo rendition of "Kemp's Jig" is somewhat surprising -- the same traditional tune would become one of medieval progressive icon Gryphon's early live staples. "A Song for You," "Introductory Lines," and "Elin Experience" are the most interesting tracks. Quite experimental for 1967, they feature odd meters and shifting sections of straight pop songwriting and abstract developments. "Dover Beach" is a straightforward pop song in the Kinks/Turtles vein, while "Waking" and "Lily Has a Rose" fall back to delicate folk, with Stanley playing the lute. Despite the obscurity of the band and the imperfect sound quality (the tapes were discovered over 30 years after they were recorded), Before There Was... Time makes a very decent listen. This band had stumbled upon something good early on. It is a shame that.
Track List:
01 - A Song For You
02 - Kemp´s Gig
03 - Introductory Lines
04 - Sad Benjamin
05 - Lily Has A Rose
06 - Art Shadow´s Eye
07 - Green Fields
08 - Waking
09 - Ma´s Pan
10 - Dover Beach
11 - Elin Experience
Lynn David Newton (Vocal, Bass)
Tom McFaul (Vocal, Keyboards)
Richard Stanley (Guitar, Luth, Dulcimer)
David Rosenboom (Drums)
Unreleased US pioneer masterpiece from 1965 experimental, eastern influenced acid folk/garage/psych. Reminiscent of early Floyd, Velvet Underground, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. A wide spectrum with avant-garde sound collages.
Before There Was..., never before released, was recorded in 1968 in Toronto, Canada. Lynn David Newton, the founding member of Time studied in the same class as Jim Cuomo from The Spoils Of War in Urbana, Illinois. Along with David Rosenboom and two other musicians, Before There Was... is a well-composed, well-played musical masterpiece that is both touching and twisted. Heavily influenced by the British Underground, these are all original songs, replete with harpsichord, flutes, percussion, horns, many effects and lots of heavy fuzz guitar and a singer who sounds like Robert Wyatt in the early '70s. A year later, Time moved to New York and became Think Dog (also released by Shadoks Music). Imagine Mia Farrow in the movie Rosemary's Baby sitting in her window and watching the New York streets below while it's raining outside -- that's what this music feels like.
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