A Superb album for all you Canterbury Scene fans out there. Archival recordings here from the likes of Robert Wyatt, Brian & Hugh Hopper, Mike Ratledge, Caravan, and combinations of all the above. There's 12 tracks in all, and whilst a bit of the material is a little derivative of the period, there's some interesting stuff. The Wilde Flowers, a kind of early Soft Machine weren't quite as inspirational as Soft Machine, tending to sing more bluesier and typical early sixties type songs. There's one or two on here that are like that, but the odd diamond (no matter how rough) shines through and even here you can hear the genesis of what they all eventually ended up playing. The quirkiness of some of the later Soft's titles are evident here, such as Belsize Parked, and Man In A Deaf Corner. However, it's Wyatt that steals the show, yep! even here, this far back, the man was a very unique individual. Early and a little rough round the edges, (there's even hints of sepia), but it's like a fly in amber!

Whether or not you're aware that Phillips was one of the original founding members of Genesis can be either a bad thing, or a good thing. It has to be said that the early Genesis were, and always will, remain a fave with the hard core of Genesis fans. The latter, and unofficially renamed the Phil Collins Band seem now to have become hardly a passing phase. Phillips quit to stage fright, allegedly, although listening to this album it's a good thing he did! (we might not have had such a catalogue of Phillips' solo albums). As you may well have gathered, Anthology is an album that has a selection of songs, or pieces from either existing or to-be-released albums on Blueprint. And, as such, it's a very eclectic mix of material. One or two pieces are firmly entrenched in the 70s (down to the instruments rather than the songs), whereas others are simply timeless. Not only is this a great album to play any time, it's also a good way of checking out his work - very overlooked, if I might say. Correct it now.