Alan Parker / John Cameron (2) – Afro Rock

My grandad worked at the studio where this was recorded and he told me the man who played the bongos on this album left the bongos in a terrible state, he spilt his cup of tea all over the bongos on the last day and never told anyone before going home!!

This album is a Rolls Royce of a record. Top musicians, in the zone, playing sublime compositions with ultimate subtlety. If I ever want to know if an album is decent, I play this and then listen to the other one again. Not much stands up to it.

It's a shame that such a masterpiece gets the reissiue treatment in a way like that! It's cracking like hell and the sealed fresh copy came with gluey dirt on the vinyl! Not to Mention the loudwars kind of remastering! Hands off!!!!

Unfortunately the Tummy Touch reissue follows standard trends in "remastering", which means taking what appears to be a needledrop (why not get the tapes from KPM??) and mastering it with added compression and re-EQ'ing a perfectly fine sounding record so that the highs are too bright and the lower midrange is almost gone. The reissue may be cheaper, but the original sounds a lot better.

African rhythms, jazzy instrumentation, rock inspiration, and a motherlode of funky sound library grooves from two of the best British maestros working in the business! The album's an early 70s gem from the KPM catalog -- one of the most sought-after records ever issued by the label -- and like the rest, never really made for public sale back at the time! Despite that humble origin, though, the grooves here are right up there with the funkiest work coming out from that side of the Atlantic at the time -- a brilliant post-colonial blend of acoustic percussion, electric keyboards, and a fair bit of fuzzy guitar -- all presented with a stripped-down, no-nonsense approach to the rhythms that's often funkier than work by some of the bigger names in the genre. ("Swamp Fever" by John Cameron)