 |
Uriel | |
|---|---|
| Origin | London, England |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1968–1969 |
| Past members | |
Uriel were an English psychedelic blues-rock band formed in 1968, consisting of Steve Hillage (guitar/vocals), Dave Stewart (organ), Clive Brooks (drums) and Mont Campbell (bass/vocals). The band produced their sole album under the name Arzachel in June 1969.
Formed while Hillage, Campbell and Stewart were at the City of London School, they initially played covers of Cream, Jimi Hendrix, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and the Nice. After Hillage left in mid-1968 to attend university, the remaining trio began playing original material written by Campbell and Stewart. Bowing to pressure from their managers, they changed their name to Egg in early 1969. Shortly after Egg signed to Decca, a tiny company named Zackariya Enterprises gave the musicians an opportunity to record a psychedelic session for the burgeoning market. Since this was not "Egg material" (and besides, they were under contract now to Decca), Uriel re-united to produce their sole album in June 1969, a one-off psychedelic project under an assumed name Arzachel (named after a crater on the moon, itself named after a medieval Spanish astronomer). The musicians also used pseudonyms on the album, although their biographies each contain some measure of truth:
The album Arzachel was recorded and mixed in a single session in London. The 'A' side has four songs, while the 'B' side consists of only two mind-bending psychedelic tracks, the longer of which is a 17-minute jam entitled 'Metempsychosis'. It was issued on the short-lived Evolution label (also home to the debut by Raw Material) and quickly became a collectors' item. A pirate version is thought to have circulated in the late 1970s, and it has been much bootlegged in more recent years. It was eventually released on CD by Demon Records in 1994.
| No. | Title | Writer(s) | Length |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Garden of Earthly Delights" | Philip Rosseter, Martin Shaw (arranged by Mont Campbell) | 2:45 |
| 2. | "Azathoth" | Campbell, Dave Stewart | 4:21 |
| 3. | "Soul Thing (Queen Street Gang Theme)" (sometimes listed as "Queen St. Gang") | Keith Mansfield (arranged by Campbell) | 4:25 |
| 4. | "Leg" | Steve Hillage, Antony Vinall | 5:40 |
| 5. | "Clean Innocent Fun" | Hillage, Vinall | 10:23 |
| 6. | "Metempsychosis" | Clive Brooks, Campbell, Hillage, Stewart | 16:38 |
The album was re-released on 7 December 2007 as Arzachel Collectors Edition by Uriel (2007, Egg Archive CD69-7201). This official band release features a re-mastered version of the original album plus four unreleased Uriel studio demos, a spoken-word message from the past and a live snippet recorded in 1968. Steve Hillage plays on two of these bonus tracks. The CD also contains a 20-page booklet telling the group's history in the musicians' own words, along with period photos and artwork.
Also available is a 26,000-word, 60-page companion booklet Copious Notes. Written by Dave Stewart, Mont Campbell and their close friend Antony Vinall, it tells the inside story of Uriel, Egg, Arzachel and the Ottawa Company from the formation of Uriel in early 1968 to the making of Egg's final album The Civil Surface in 1974. The text includes personal memoirs, anecdotes, short stories, random recollections, social observation, period details, musical analysis and song lyrics, as well as a collection of archive photos taken by Terry Yetton and the musicians.
| Authority control databases: Artists |
|---|
Gong are a psychedelic rock band that incorporates elements of jazz and space rock into their musical style. The group was formed in Paris in 1967 by Australian musician Daevid Allen and English vocalist Gilli Smyth. Band members have included Didier Malherbe, Pip Pyle, Steve Hillage, Mike Howlett, Tim Blake, Pierre Moerlen, Bill Laswell and Theo Travis. Others who have played on stage with Gong include Don Cherry, Chris Cutler, Bill Bruford, Brian Davison, Dave Stewart and Tatsuya Yoshida.
Stephen Simpson Hillage is an English musician, best known as a guitarist. He is associated with the Canterbury scene and has worked in experimental domains since the late 1960s. Besides his solo recordings he has been a member of Khan, Gong and System 7.
Trapeze is the debut studio album by British rock band Trapeze. Recorded in 1969 at Morgan Studios and Decca Studios, it was produced by the Moody Blues bassist John Lodge and released in May 1970 as the second album on Threshold Records, a record label founded by Lodge's band. Trapeze is the band's only album to feature founding member John Jones ; both he and Terry Rowley left shortly after its release.
David Lloyd Stewart is an English keyboardist and composer known for his work with the progressive rock bands Uriel, Egg, Khan, Hatfield and the North, National Health, and Bruford. Stewart is the author of two books on music theory and wrote a music column for Keyboard magazine (USA) for thirteen years. He has also composed music for TV, film and radio, much of it for Victor Lewis-Smith's ARTV production company. He has worked with singer Barbara Gaskin since 1981.
Barbara Gaskin is a British singer formerly associated with the UK Canterbury scene.
Egg were an English progressive rock band formed in July 1968. Remembered for their strange, experimental sound, the band produced three studio albums before disbanding in 1974.
Giles, Giles and Fripp were an English rock group, formed in Bournemouth, Dorset in August 1967. It featured brothers Michael Giles on drums and vocals and Peter Giles on bass guitar and vocals, and Robert Fripp on guitar. The band's music showed an eclectic mix of pop, psychedelic rock, folk, jazz, and classical influences. The group eventually evolved into pioneering progressive rock band King Crimson.
The Civil Surface is the third and final studio album by the English progressive rock band Egg, originally released in 1974 on Caroline Records. The band had broken up in 1972, leaving some of their favourite stage pieces unrecorded. At organist Dave Stewart's suggestion, the trio re-united solely to record these final numbers. Among the guest musicians on the album are Steve Hillage (guitar), Lindsay Cooper and vocalists Amanda Parsons, Ann Rosenthal and Barbara Gaskin.
Hugo Martin Montgomery "Dirk" Campbell is a British multi-instrumentalist, composer and energy company executive. Campbell was born in the British military hospital in Ismailia, Egypt, and lived in Kenya until 1962. He studied Stravinsky and formed the progressive rock band Egg in 1968 with Dave Stewart and Clive Brooks. In 1972 he studied composition at the Royal College of Music, gaining an ARCM diploma in 1974. He composed the score to David Anderson's BAFTA-winning animated film Dreamland Express in 1983 and began a full-time career as composer in 1989 with film and commercials commissions from Redwing Films. He has since written scores for film, television, advertising, radio and stage. He is adept on a wide range of ethnic folk instruments which have led to recording work in film, television and computer games. He has created or contributed to several instrumental sound libraries distributed by ILIO Entertainments, World Winds, Origins, Music House, SOHO, Production Music Online, and others.
The Choir was a garage rock band largely active in the greater Cleveland area from the mid-1960s into the early 1970s. Originally called The Mods, their largest commercial success came with the release of their first single "It's Cold Outside" in December 1966. The song, considered to be a classic of the garage rock era, was featured on Pebbles, Volume 2, one of the earlier garage rock compilation LPs. The flipside, "I'm Going Home" was included as a bonus track when the Pebbles album was reissued as a CD, and it can also be found on a garage rock compilation LP on Ohio bands, Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volume 9. The Choir is well known for containing three of the four original members of Raspberries.
Michael Waller was an English drummer, who played with many of the biggest names on the UK rock and blues scene, after he became a professional musician in 1960. In addition to being a member, albeit sometimes briefly, of some of the seminal bands of the 1960s, Waller played as a session musician with a host of UK and US artists.
Clive Colin Brooks was a drummer, best known for his work in the English progressive rock band Egg.
Khan were an English progressive rock band of the Canterbury Scene during 1971-1972.
Tinkerbells Fairydust were a British pop group in the late 1960s, who hailed from east London. They recorded three singles and one album for the Decca label.
Fish Rising is the debut solo album by English guitarist Steve Hillage, recorded and released in 1975.
Green is the fourth studio album by British progressive rock musician Steve Hillage. Written in spring 1977 at the same time as his previous album, the funk-inflected Motivation Radio (1977), Green was originally going to be released as The Green Album as a companion to The Red Album. However, this plan was dropped and after a US tour in late 1977, Green was recorded alone, primarily in Dorking, Surrey, and in London.
Jerald Edward Kolbrak, known professionally as Jerry Cole, was an American guitarist who recorded under his own name, under various budget album pseudonyms and as an uncredited session musician.
Romantic Warriors III: Canterbury Tales (2015) is the third in a series of feature-length documentaries about Progressive rock written and directed by Adele Schmidt and José Zegarra Holder. This one focuses on the music of the Canterbury scene.
"My Way of Giving" is a song written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane. Initially demoed by their band Small Faces in 1966, it was given to British singer Chris Farlowe, who released his version as a single in early 1967. It was Farlowe's first single not written by Jagger–Richards since 1965's "The Fool". The Small Faces themselves decided to go on and record a version which was released on two different albums on two different record labels.
