It seemed like a dream, a complete out of the blue experience, but most of all, this was the ultimate trip that’ll take your breath away. When you look at the work of Nektar’s catalog, you get a sense that they were Pink Floyd’s kid brother. You can’t deny the genius this band have left a huge impact and scored champions ranging from Captain Sensible of the Damned, Iron Maiden, Frank Zappa, and of course Steven Wilson.
Their music has reached a big impact in the progressive rock community in the underground scenery. Yet, often under the radar, it’s quite the accomplishment this band found success in Germany and finding success later on in the States. For Roye Albrighton, Allan “Taff” Freeman, Derek “Mo” Moore, and Ron Howden, they were often the real deal.
That and the two Esoteric reissues they put out for this year; Journey to the Centre of the Eye and A Tab in the Ocean, their first two studio albums originally released on Bacillus Records, a sub-label for the German record label Bellaphon Records, which had been home to My Solid Ground, Omega, Karthago, Epsilon, and Pell Mell.
Listening to these two albums again, it was almost as if you were in the record store between those time periods, finding them under the import label, checking out this new band that were taking the elements of hard rock, space rock, ambient, and out of this world adventures that they were bringing to the table. And for Esoteric, who had handled the previous Nektar albums between Recycled, Remember the Future, and Sounds Like This, this was a big leap forward to handle these two 4-CD / 1 Blu-Ray boxes for their first two albums.
Not only it includes the original mix, but also live recordings they did in 1971 and 1973 in Germany, the 1970 Boston Tapes, the original 1972 mix, followed by the 1976 U.S. mix of A Tab in the Ocean, and a new stereo mix done by Ben Wiseman. Even though the big names like Yes, Genesis, ELP, and Pink Floyd were riding high in the 1970s, Nektar were very much this band that didn’t need all that massive flash.
Given how surreal and dark their first album was, it’s quite the challenge that it’s a story that is almost straight out of Heavy Metal magazine. While they’re others who would prefer the original mix, which is quite understandable, because Ben himself doesn’t want to try and re-write history, he wants to make sure to stay close and honour the original mix as it was back then.
Both Journey to the Centre of the Eye and A Tab in the Ocean are albums that refuses to die. And for Ben, while he may not be in the same league with Richard Whittaker, Steven Wilson and Stephen W. Tayler, he captures the visual context of how good it sounds. You can hear the mellotrons come through the open air between ‘Countenance’ and ‘It’s All in the Mind’ sparkling through the new planet the astronaut himself has witnessed.
There are moments that it nearly reminded me of Tangerine Dream’s time with the Ohr label and the Ummagumma album from Pink Floyd when it comes to the acoustic turned watery aspects with a freak-out momentum behind ‘Burn Out My Eyes’. The Leslie speaker vocals add in the momentary lapse of questioning the man’s sanity. Whether or not he’s gone mad or stuck in this new planet forever, he will never come back home.
The remix is quite startling, yet quite interesting to provide a detailing effect that has never been heard before. There’s this eerie yet waves splashing moment before the band kick into gear on the title-track ‘A Tab in the Ocean’. The organ plays the loop-like intro in the background that gets the band ready for countdown to ignite engines and head upwards into our solar system.
You almost want to play this track with a synchronisation during the Fleischer’s 1936 short classic, The Cobweb Hotel in the background and see if it works or not. The acoustic guitars come marching out of the blue in Wiseman’s mix, followed by the tidal-waving drumming, and its Kubrick-like Infinite voyage in the last 23 minutes in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
The 1971 live version in Bessunger Turnhalle, despite its quality, would have given audiences a big wake-up call as the band are having a ball with this track to send audiences in their rocket ship with unbelievable results followed by their own approach of the glam rock genre, mixed in with the Hendrix-like wah-wah attack with a foot-stompin groove on the 13-minute improv ‘1-2-3-4’.
Meanwhile, across the tab, there’s a bonus track that didn’t make it on the album and that’s ‘We Are the Ocean’. It has a bit more of a pre-Boston approach in which in a parallel universe Tom Scholz had recorded the debut in a different time frame in the underground scene before making it big in ’77.
The rare recording of the band performing in 1973 in Erbach on April 22nd, who not only they were promoting A Tab in the Ocean, but getting ready to unearth their follow-up Sounds Like This two months later in June of that year, not to mention being championed by Elton John. You feel the presence, the vibes, and quality in which Nektar give out another mind-blowing performance in the live show.
They go through a throttling take of ‘Crying in the Dark / King of Twlight’ with its fast-paced throttle in which the band make the jump to light speed with wah-wah’s erupting out of the volcanic textures, then into the watery landscapes on ‘Good Day’ then an excerpt from a preparation with ‘Let it Grow’ on Remember the Future which would be released the same year on November 23rd.
Also, featured in the 1970 Boston Sessions that they recorded at the gig is ‘Do You Believe in Magic’. While there’s an acoustic single version with its sermon to the mountain, the sessions put you right in the middle of the band’s recording of what they were doing and the direction they were going to take. With the romantic love letter by ‘Sealed with a Kiss’, the blaring hard rocker on ‘The Life I’ve Been Leading’, the rising road to nowhere and into somewhere for a ‘New Day Dawning’, and a mournful Hammond organ saying ‘Good Day’ as the next chapter in your life begins with its militant tone turned sky-rocketing guitar attack. You can’t go wrong with that.
At this moment, as I’m writing this down, Wiseman himself has captured the beauty and wonder in his remixes to invite fans to witness and explore a different take of Nektar’s landscape. It’s okay for the fans to either prefer the original mixes or the new mixes, but that’s for another time. While Nektar can do no wrong in my book, Journey to the Centre of the Eye and A Tab in the Ocean are worth exploring if you’re stepping in to the band’s music for the first time.
It stands the test of time and it’ll inspire the next generation to pick up a guitar, keyboard, singing, or drums and go beyond where no other prog head has gone before.
