RAY RUSSELL — Secret Asylum (review)

RAY RUSSELL — Secret Asylum album cover Album · 1973 · Avant-Garde Jazz Buy this album from MMA partners
1/5 ·
Sean Trane
While featuring a somewhat similar line-up to the previous year’s R&R album, Secret asylum is a quite different beast, partly because of the appearance of Gary Windo in lieu of Tony Roberts, and Nick Evans’s absence. But despite the always strange Windo presence, this doesn’t explain the full-on weirdness of SA, which wears and bears its name rather well. Actually I gather this album is a posthumous release of a 73 session kept in tapes and sitting in a cupboard for over 30 years, and to be honest I’m not sure it ripened yet to be opened or maybe it’s turned into vinegar.

The absolutely insane album actually opens on a peaceful and accessible Stained Angel Morning, but dissonant (or atonal) endeavours like Spinetree, All Through Over You, Sweet Cauldron (this one being less extreme), Through The Sky and Dance Is and more. Russell’s guitar could at times be compared to a shredder’s style, but an even gutsier (and crazier) kind than most puppets of nowadays, as heard by the astounding (but not necessarily in a positive manner) These That I Am

Well if you were not into Russell’s early exploits, there is not much chance that you’ll “get” this even-more “out there” album, so don’t bother trying to “dig” it out from the back catalogues, unless you’re ready to listen to it all on your own, because it’s the type of album that clears a room in less time that it takes to write, even if you’re a fast typer.
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