Gryphon

Raindances: The Transatlantic Albums 1973-1975

First four folk-prog albums still gloriously curious.

They scored The Tempest for Sir Peter Hall and supported Yes in US arenas, but Gryphon’s singularly challenging soup of retro folk and ambitious prog isn’t well remembered. Seeking to rectify that is an ongoing re-formation (without founder Richard Harvey), their first new album in four decades and this two-CD remasters package. Without the melodic charm of, say, Caravan, they’re certainly an acquired taste, making Gentle Giant sound like chart pop.

So let the crumhorns, bassoons and mandolins confuse your cerebrum as this Royal College Of Musicformed outfit (you’d never have guessed) indulge their medieval and Renaissance inspirations.

The debut includes the arcane ballad The Unquiet Grave, later covered by everyone from Steeleye Span to Steven Wilson. Midnight Mushrumps was perhaps their pinnacle, the 19-minute title track (their aforementioned Shakespeare score) an unabashed quiet riot of prog switchbacks.

Indeed, their prog has aged better than their folk. Red Queen To Gryphon Three, a chessbased concept album veering from baroque to bombastic, is still a fairground of the unpredictable, while Raindance is so normal it even includes a Beatles cover (Mother Nature’s Son). We’re kidding, of course – it’s about as normal as a nine-legged zebra.

This line-up split in 1977, leaving everyone bewildered – for which respect is due.