Spooky Tooth's 1969 album 'Ceremony: An Electronic Mass' must be one of the most divisive records ever released. Despite the project being instigated by Gary Wright, it is considered by him to have ended the band's career, and has been described by others as being "one of the great screw-ups in rock history". Spooky Tooth wrote and recorded six tracks, and then sent them over to Pierre Henry to add his music concrete contributions to them, which generally involved him hitting anvils with pipes, grunting over the music, or adding three minutes of cacophonous bells to the end of 'Prayer'. As Wright describes it, "...we did a project that wasn't our album. It was with this French electronic music composer named Pierre Henry. We just told the label, 'You know this is his album, not our album. We'll play on it just like musicians.' And then when the album was finished, they said, 'Oh no no — it's great. We're gonna release this as your next album.' We said, 'You can't do that. It doesn't have anything to do with the direction of 'Spooky Two' and it will ruin our career.' And that's exactly what happened". Wright was so unhappy with this decision that he left the band following the release of the album. Following a comment by Unknown on the 'Atom Heart Mother' post, I looked into removing Pierre Henry's contributions from the album, and although some of them were too deeply embedded to remove completely, you can now hear some really fine music from the band coming through, with great guitar work and strong arrangements. This could have been a great Christian rock album if it had been released as a purely Spooky Tooth record, and at the moment this is the closest that we'll get to hearing that concept.
Track listing
01 Have Mercy
02 Jubilation
03 Confession
03 Prayer
05 Offering
06 Hosanna
The Album I wish would exist was the one were there was More Pierre Henry and lee Spooky Tooth. Could you not do that, please.
ReplyDeleteI can't decide if you are joking or not, but if you are serious then here is 'Jubilation' by Pierre Henry with no Spooky Tooth, and if you get any pleasure from listening to this, then Mister, you're a better man than I. https://mega.nz/file/nyJxGCiR#LPAzLEFI7HVgU1iUzVZBxny4D37u9ggCeunx92cqWYM
DeleteDear pj, not joking, I love Spooky Tooth. And I love Pierre Henry's music. In fact in every genre there are treasures. And most of each genre is not to my taste.
DeleteYou are doing such a great job, cleaning up albums, getting rid of over-production. Thank you.
And listening to Jubilation now, I must confess. I never wanted the complete album more. One hears a solo-instrument and not a complete orchestration.
DeleteIf you want to play around with it yourself then here's the programme. https://mvsep.com/en You can create an account using your Google account and then run it through dialog/fx/music and see what comes out. If I have some spare time I might try another few tracks, but as I said, it's not really my thing.
DeleteHere's 'Prayer' to start you off as it was the easiest to do. https://mega.nz/file/q6JDxSBS#2iQhHwXBLI0702M6S-dbS62y7vcMxk3s4Dhku0Fgy2U
DeleteThank, you. You have much more experience than I have in working this program. But I will give it a go. And when you find spasre moments, you make me very happy with more Pierre Henry.
DeleteAgree
ReplyDeleteThank you for this! Been waiting a long time for a pue Spooky Tooth version of the record. Pierre H is fine on his own. This mix never worked.
ReplyDeleteI bought this album in the 70's from a deletion bin, and I was so disappointed when the needle touched down to reveal those infernal interruptions, after previously hearing the band's earlier wonderful LP's. I've prayed for a decent version of Ceremony these past six decades, and boy, what a sterling job you have made, making the previously unlistenable very much more palatable. Well done and a thousand thanks.
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ReplyDeleteI'm the anonymous commenter who expressed an interest in this - and thank you for delivering! I have no idea how this was done, but you've done a great job of minimising the electronics and maximising the rock. What a revelation! I had to adjust the amplification on some tracks to balance them all with each others volume-wise, and many tracks benefit from a bit of a high-end EQ cut (kinder on the ears in some parts). But thanks again for doing the work, I am loving this mix.
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