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Spirit of Unicorn Music [Release date 12.04.24]
Emerson Lake & Palmer had imploded by the mid-eighties and the age of prog and pomp ceremony was seemingly over. In the late seventies there had been a last flourish of excess with ELP playing several dates with an orchestra. 1978′s ‘Love Beach’ was a more accessible offering with less of the bombast of the original band but dismayed hardcore fans. A few more years ensued before Keith Emerson and Greg Lake enlisted Cozy Powell, reinstating the ELP moniker although in different guise. (Carl Palmer was now with Asia and had enjoyed a best selling debut album in 1982).
The new configuration only released one self-titled album which appears here as part of a three-CD box set boosted by two B-sides – the fun ‘The Loco-Motion’ and ‘Vacant Possession’ (previously available on some CD versions) – and a single edit of ‘The Score’ the album’s opening piece.
The album is interesting for Powell’s contribution and includes ‘Touch And Go’ and the poppy ‘Love Blind’ with Lake sounding very like John Wetton. It features more of the ELP vibe of old and the more so with Gustav Holst’s ‘Mars, The Bringer Of War’, although I couldn’t stop thinking about Dr.Who. On the live set this merges with the ubiquitous “drum solo”…
The other two discs include’The Sprocket Sessions’ which circulated for many years as a bootleg and consists of rehearsal versions of most album tracks with the addition of several from the classic back catalogue.
The live set was recorded in November 1986 in Florida and includes a mixture of the album and selected older pieces such as ‘Lucky Man’, the perhaps inevitable ‘Fanfare For The Common Man’ and ‘Karn Evil’ plus a nod to Emerson’s early incarnation with The Nice (‘America’ and ‘Rondo’).
Collectors should be aware that a two-CD set was released in 2012 which featured the material on the two additional discs whilst ‘The Sprocket Sessions’ was released as a standalone disc in 2006.
Prog magazine editor Jerry Ewing’s liner places the band and the album in context but perhaps surprisingly much of his information can be gleaned from Wikipedia, and almost verbatim. There is scant detail about the additional discs. Half a star docked for this unless of course Ewing is a closet Wikipedia editor. ***1/2
Review by David Randall
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