Voiceprint Music - Release

Release

£10.99

Stock coming soon

Catalogue number

VP432CD

Release date

14/04/2008

Format

2CD

Label

Voiceprint

Anthony Phillips

The Geese and the Ghost

Disc 1

1. Wind – Tales 2. Which Way The Wind Blows 3. Henry: Portraits from Tudor Times(i) Fanfare (ii) Lutes’ Chorus (iii) Misty Battlements (iv) Lutes’ Chorus Reprise 4. (v) Henry Goes to War (vi) Death of a Knight (vii) Triumphant Return 5. God if I Saw Her Now 6. Chinese Mushroom Cloud 7. The Geese and the Ghost - Part i, Part ii 8. Collections 9. Sleepfall: The Geese Fly West

Disc 2

1. Master of Time (demo) 2. Title Inspiration 3. The Geese and the Ghost - Part One (basic track) 4. Collections link 5. Which Way the Wind Blows 6. Silver Song (basic track) 7. Henry: Portraits From Tudor Times (basic track)(i) Fanfare (ii) Lute’s Chorus(iii) Lute’s Chorus Reprise (iv) Misty Battlements 8. Collections (demo) 9. The Geese & The Ghost - Part Two(basic track) 10. 10 God If I Saw Her Now (basic track) 11. 11 Sleepfall (basic track) 12. 12 Silver Song (unreleased single version, 1973)

Anthony Phillips was a founder member of the British Rock band Genesis.

The band recorded two singles and the album From Genesis To Revelation before leaving Decca and signing with Charisma to record the Trespass album. Anthony recorded the albums From Genesis To Revelation and Trespass and also performed a great many gigs before deciding to leave the band following a particularly bad bout of stage fright and also suffering a debilitating bout of bronchial pneumonia.

It was between the years 1970 and the release of his debut album The Geese And The Ghost in 1977 that many fans lost sight of Anthony Phillips. In actual fact much of the material that would make up the Geese And The Ghost would be written during this time.

The Geese and the Ghost was originally released in 1977 and features performances from Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins alongside Anthony.

The 30th anniversary of the original release of Ant's solo debut album is marked with the re-issue of the album as an expanded 2 CD version. The album itself has been expertly re-mastered from the original master tapes by recording engineer and co-producer of the original album Simon Heyworth. The location of the original master tapes brought to light the previously unheard Lute’s Chorus Reprise section of Henry: Portraits From Tudor Times which was excised from track at the final stage of completing the album as it was felt at the time that the track was a little too long. This has now been restored to its rightful place on the album in order that the track can be heard for the first time in the originally intended form.

The extra CD features a fascinating "behind the scenes" view of the initial stages of the recording of the album with the basic tracks of Ant and Mike Rutherford's original acoustic guitar parts for The Geese & The Ghost (Parts One & Two), Which Way The Wind Blows and Henry: Portraits From Tudor Times being mixed for the first time in isolation from the later overdubs that were added to the album. Complimenting these unique versions of the original tracks is the only unreleased track from the original sessions (a planned new version of the co-written Silver Song that never progressed beyond this initial recording), Ant's original demo of Collections (which was recorded for Charisma Records boss Tony Stratton-Smith in the Spring of 1974) and the original basic instrumental tracks of God If I Saw Her Now and Sleepfall. Last but by no means least the final track is the unreleased single version of Silver Song, recorded in November 1973 by Ant together with Mike Rutherford and Phil Collins which receives it's first official release.

The re-issue will also feature new liner notes with a detailed account of the making of the album including contributions from John Hackett, co-producer Simon Heyworth and cover artist Peter Cross together with Ant's own memories of the album. Rosanna Arquette also shares her memories of one of her favourite tracks on the album.

Reviews

One single sentence to describe it? The right record at the wrong time. While Johnny Rotten outraged the Queen and made fun of the BBC TV host, the former Genesis member, already deemed a “dinosaur” (though, at 25, younger than many who were recycling themselves through the punk movement), had to suffer a lot before finding a record label willing to listen to his acoustic water-colours, his soft orchestrations, his soft melodies.
Just like casting pearls before swine, in 1977, the era of the iconoclasts. But if only this record had seen the light at the time of its first recordings ('73/'74), who knows which effect it might have caused... Maybe today everybody would put it where it actually deserves to be, i.e. among the ten greatest prog albums of all time. Or maybe not. Too acoustic. Too little rhythm. Too few parts with vocals, and no real guitar solos. No odd time signatures, not even a mellotron. But this record is still a gem of bucolic sensibility, an anthology of sad fragility, as can be understood just looking at the lovely cover art, drawn by Peter Cross.
The tracks, many of which were composed with Mike Rutherford during Phillips' stay with Genesis, are generally built by weaving layers of 12-string guitars, with the valued contribution of flutes, oboe and a small orchestra. Only three are the songs: Which Way the Wind Blows is, to this day, the most intense vocal performance recorded by Phil Collins, who is then also featured in the melancholy God If I Saw Her Now, a duet with female singer Viv MacAuliffe.
Ant's voice can be heard once, at the end of the record, in the sorrowful Collections, whose epilogue, Sleepfall, is so beautiful you need to listen to it repeatedly. In the middle, two splendid instrumental suites: Henry, and the title track.
And if all this was not enough, this new edition comes with a bonus CD that, after some 10 demos and alternate takes, ends with Silver Song, one more track recorded with Rutherford and Collins (vocals and drums), which had to be released as a Phil Collins single in 1973, but was then shelved (for reasons not very clear even today) for some 35 years.
It would be a crime not to buy this new edition!

Mario Giammetti (Genesis Fanclub, Italy)

www.dusk.it

"This vastly overlooked solo release from original Genesis guitarist Anthony Phillips was something of a revelation to fans of Peter Gabriel and Co. when it was first released in 1977 (years after parts of it were recorded, then shelved).
Those drawn to the softer acoustic and classical sides of early Genesis were treated to lush 12-string guitar duets and piano-driven epics more inspired by Vaughan Williams than the Beatles or Crimson. Now, some three decades later, the CD has been remastered and released with a bonus CD that provides an even deeper glimpse into the classical leanings that inspired the band's early works.
Genesis fans will no doubt relish the pieces here that feature old bandmates Phil Collins and Mike Rutherford (including the silken title track, epic "Henry: Portraits of Tudor Times" and dreamy "Which Way the Wind Blows"). But the extra CD is the real draw here, featuring a fascinating behind-the-music look into creation of the album's tracks, demos and never-before-released rarities."
Nick Tate, Progression

"There's some excellent music here well worth investigating...!"

BL, Classic Rock Society, Aug/Sept 08

"It is about time the marvellous album was rescued from being a mere curio for Genesis completists as it is a remarkable album full of beauty and remarkable musicianship fully deserving a prominent place in any discerning music lovers collection."

Henri Strik, Background, Feb 2009

..."For fans of the music Genesis recorded from up until Track of the Tail in 1976, The Geese and the Ghost is an album they will feel pleasantly, warmly familiar with."

Paul Henderson, Classic Rock Magazine