Rating: *** (3 stars)
Title: A Time Before This
Company: Decca
Catalog: DL
Year: 1969
Grade (cover/record): VG+/VG+
Comments: minor corner wear; gatefold sleeve; original inner sleeve
Available: 1
Price: $100.00
Originally known as a poet and writer (Lemmus, A Time Trilogy), 1969 found Julian Jay Savarin eager to join the rock revolution. following a solo LP ("Waiters of the Dance"), he decided to put together a band with bassist Jack Dover, drummer Jack Drummond, singer (we use the term loosely) Cathy Pruden and guitarist Del Watkins. Savarin and company somehow acquired a recording contract with the small English Youngblood label (Decca inexplicably acquiring American distribution rights). Note that the UK and US albums feature different are work and radically different track listings. The UK original was a double LP, while the domestic Decca release was a solo LP.
Produced by Miki Dallon, 1970's "A Time Before
This" was definitely different. Given his literary background it probably won't come as a major surprise to learn that Savarin wasn't content to churn out conventional pop. Instead what you got was a complex concept piece with a rather vague plot line . As far as we can tell, the story had something to do with earth's last surviving human stumbling on to the new planet Alkon ... (you can wade through the liner notes if you're interested). Starting off with "First Oracle" (for a minute we thought we'd mistakenly plopped a soundtrack to a cheapy Vincent Price horror film on the turntable), musically the collection served up a weird mixture of science fiction, mythology and cocktail jazz-cum-progressive moves ("The Black Tower"). In addition to lead vocals Pruden added odd dramatic spoken word segments ("Second Oracle"). This may sound odd, but on tracks such as "Alkon, Planet of Centauri",
Pruden recalled English pop singer Lulu !! In addition to writing and arranging all the material, Savarin also contributed dramatic and
occasionally overwhelming keyboards to tracks such as "A Time Before This" and the sickly ballad "Altarra, Princess of the Blue Women". Like we said, it's definitely different, and to our ears the majority of the set sounds like a cross between Brian Auger/Julie Driscoll and a hung over ELP. That may not sound like a rousing recommendation, but tracks such as "The Coming of the Mule" and the English single "Phantom City" were actually kind of intriguing. (The album was originally released with a gatefold sleeve.) (The See For Miles label reissued the collection in vinyl and CD formats in 1990.)
"A Time Before This" track listing:
1.) First Oracle (Julian Jay Savarin) -
2.) The Coming of the Mule (Julian Jay Savarin) -
3.) Phantom City (Julian Jay Savarin) -
4.) The Black Tower (Julian Jay Savarin) -
5.) Alda, Lady of the Outer Worlds (Julian Jay Savarin) -
6.) Altarra, Princess of the Blue Women (Julian Jay Savarin) -
7.) Second Oracle (Julian Jay Savarin) -
8.) Twins of the Centauri (Julian Jay Savarin) -
9.) Alkon, Planet of Centauri (Julian Jay Savarin) -
10.) The Terran (Julian Jay Savarin) -
11.) Fourth from the Sun (Julian Jay Savarin) -
12.) Strange Things (Julian Jay Savarin) -
13.) A Time Before This (Julian Jay Savarin) -