Blodwyn Pig

Ahead Rings Out/ Getting To This CHRYSALIS

Tull guitarist pigs out. When Ian Anderson reconfigured Jethro Tull to gain complete control after their first album, independently minded R&Bloving guitarist Mick Abrahams was never going to make the cut. Instead, he moved swiftly to form Blodwyn Pig and scored two Top Ten albums.

1969’s Ahead Rings Out is a genre-hopping romp that only the late 60s could produce. The band rock out with infectious enthusiasm on It’s Only Love and Sing Me A Song That I Know, pick their way carefully through tightly controlled rhythms and inventive chord sequences on Dear Jill, throw some jazz into the mix on The Modern Alchemist and get plaintively acoustic on The Change Song.

Multi-instrumentalist

Jack Lancaster jousts with Abrahams on sax and flute (which makes for a few eerie

Tull comparisons) and bassist

Andy Pyle copes admirably with all the mood swings.

Getting To This the following year adds psychedelia to the mix, most notably on the four-part San Francisco Sketches which is by turns mellow, enlightened and dark – a bit of a trip, in other words.

The package is rounded off with various singles plus a couple of unreleased tracks, although how far you’ll get through the 10-minute McGregor Muckabout is anyone’s guess. Like we said, only in the late 60s.

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hugh Fielder