Canterbury Scene initiates are strongly advised to start here. In The Land Of Grey And Pink simultaneously created and crested a magical moment in which the drolly self-referencing, cordially bohemian and off-handedly intelligent imperatives of Caravan, Soft Machine and their affiliates suddenly seemed like a viably hip alternative to mainstream chart provender.
Forty years after its release, the album’s larkish, bucolic charm is wholly intact – with the earnest stipulation that you aren’t a choleric class warrior and can cope with whimsical pastorals wherein lovers talk in Morse on the golf course, knights in armour gold charge on horseback bold, and there are jigsaw puzzles on a tree. Richard Sinclair’s vocals are as obstinately unaffected as a rector rocking the mic at a church disco, while cousin Dave Sinclair’s fuzz-assisted Hammond – heard to best advantage on the 23-minute Nine Feet Underground – is the very definition of Cantuarian transcendence.
The DVD contains a startling and revelatory 5.1 Surround Sound mix of the album by Porcupine Tree fulcrum Steven Wilson, as well as footage from the band’s German TV appearance on Beat Club in June 1971: a peppery run-through of Golf Girl in front of a cataract-inducing kaleidoscopic backdrop, and a never-before-broadcast tilt at the autumnal Winter Wine.
