A one-off project released on Virgin’s offshoot, Caroline, in 1974, this idiosyncratic mix of poetry, music and soundscape is a rare, minor masterpiece from one of England’s most enigmatic and unsung female performers.
In collaboration with many members of the blossoming Canterbury underground, including Pip Pyle, Brian Eno and, most significantly, Kevin Ayers, this is a microcosmic snapshot of many ideas that later found homes in the music of Gong, Caravan, Robert Wyatt and Henry Cow. Lady June was ostensibly a poet, but her inventiveness with the spoken word in relationship to other sounds took her far beyond simple readings. Everythingisnothing is an ambient tone poem that predates the likes of Boards Of Canada by roughly 25 years. As it evolves into the Gong-like Tunion you can’t help but think just how progressive she was; in short, you wonder why you aren’t already acquainted. Ayers’ expansive musical palette provides most of the music proper, although Optimism has Eno gifting a short, delightfully tinkling backdrop to June’s words.
By turns ridiculous, haunting, whimsical and profound (sometimes all in the same song), this is not an album easily understood or positioned. That, of course, is its charm.
