McDonald & Giles: McDonald & Giles (200g) [PANEGYRIC]

Why you'll love it

This 200g super-heavyweight pressing is the first official vinyl in decades, cut from a new transfer of the original masters, mastered by Jason Mitchell and pressed by The Vinyl Factory in the UK.

This edition

• 200g vinyl
• Cut from a new transfer of the original masters
• Pressed by The Vinyl Factory in the UK

About the album

Ian McDonald and Michael Giles left King Crimson after the band's first American tour, just months after In the Court of the Crimson King had made them famous. Rather than vanish, they went straight into Island Studios between May and July 1970 and made this lovely, pastoral record, bringing along Michael's brother Peter Giles on bass and Crimson lyricist Peter Sinfield on one song.

McDonald plays almost everything that isn't drums: guitar, piano, organ, saxophones, flute, clarinet and zither. Side one opens with the multi-part "Suite in C," where Steve Winwood, recording with Traffic down the hall, drops in an organ and piano solo, and moves through the delicate "Flight of the Ibis" and a tender McDonald miniature to Giles's "Tomorrow's People - The Children of Today." Side two is given over entirely to "Birdman," a 21-minute suite with words by Sinfield and string and brass arrangements by Mike Gray.

Hi-Fi News gave it a perfect score at the time, and decades later the Beastie Boys sampled Giles's drum break on "Body Movin'." Giles is credited with milk bottle, handsaw and nutbox, which is the kind of percussion section we dream of fitting behind the counter.

Also at Kops: more McDonald & Giles on vinyl · browse Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Panegyric, a reissue of the 1970 album.