Eclection - BBC Sessions (1968-1969)

Since I just posted something by the band Fotheringay yesterday, I suppose now is as good a time as any to post this BBC sessions album by the British folk-rock group Eclection. Chances are you've never heard of them, since they never made it big. But I'm not going to post anything on my blog if it's bad, and believe me, this band was good. 

If you like early Fairport Convention, this is VERY similar. Just like Fairport for their first couple of albums, this group was heavily influenced by American folk rock like the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas, and Gordon Lightfoot. Also like Fairport, there was an appealing mixture of female and male lead vocals.

Eclection only put out one album, in 1968, also called "Eclection." I'm sure the band would have gone on to be one of the top bands in their genre, along with Fairport Convention and Pentangle, except they fell apart after their first album. But if you like this, definitely get the band's sole album as well. It's very good. I considered posting it here to get more people to notice it, but I ultimately decided against it since I assume it's still in print. Although most people call the band British, that's a stretch. They were based in Britain, true, but only one band member was actually British, and the rest were from various countries around the world.

Here's the Wikipedia link for the band if you want to know more:

Eclection - Wikipedia

As for the Fotheringay connection, Australian singer-songwriter Trevor Lucas was in both bands (and in 1970s versions of Fairport Convention as well). But he didn't make much of an impact on Eclection, since apparently he hadn't developed his songwriting talent yet. Instead, the vast majority of the band's songs were written by a Norwegian named Georg Kajanus. He would have a VERY unexpected music career after Eclection. After a few years in obscurity, he reemerged in the mid-1970s as the lead singer and songwriter for the pop band Sailor, which had a couple hits with their songs that pretty much were exclusively focused on the lifestyles of sailors!

This album is a particularly important one because this band left behind such a small recorded legacy. As far as I can tell, their sole album (plus some extra singles and such added as bonus tracks to the album) and these BBC recordings is all there is. There aren't even lousy audience bootlegs of any concerts. 

The band tried to put together a second album, but fell apart before they recorded songs in the studio for it. However, a bunch of songs here presumably were intended for that second album. The first four songs appeared on their 1968 album, and "Please" was an A-side that has been included as a bonus track to that album. But all the rest only were done for the BBC. That's 34 minutes, enough for a studio album at the time. So it could be argued this is their de facto second album, with most of those songs recorded in 1969. Of those extra songs, "Both Sides Now" of course is a cover of the famous Joni Mitchell song, but I believe the rest are originals.

Sound quality has been an issue with these recordings. These BBC versions of first four songs plus "Please" were included as more bonus tracks to their sole album, and those all sound great. The rest were more of a mixed bag. But I discovered that if I used the X-Minus audio editing program to boost the lead vocals relative to the instruments, they sounded a lot better. So I did that for most of the songs. Then there were other songs were BBC DJs talked over the music (I used X-Minus to fix that too), and some had both problems. So the "[Edit]" in the titles could refer to either or both of those problems. 

Despite those problems, I think the songs sound much better now. A couple near the end are still a bit rough, but overall, I think the sound quality is pretty good, certainly good enough for official release.

This album is 51 minutes long.

01 Morning of Yesterday [Edit] (Eclection)
02 Nevertheless (Eclection)
03 Will Tomorrow Be the Same [Edit] (Eclection)
04 Violet Dew [Edit] (Eclection)
05 Days Left Behind [Edit] (Eclection)
06 Time for Love [Edit] (Eclection)
07 Please [Edit] (Eclection)
08 Earth [Edit] (Eclection)
09 Put Your Face On [Edit] (Eclection)
10 Both Sides Now [Edit] (Eclection)
11 Restitution [Edit] (Eclection)
12 Charity [Instrumental] (Eclection)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15111492/Eclectin_1968-1969_BBSessions_atse.zip.html

Since the band is so obscure, there are very few photos of them, period. Luckily, there was one good color one, used here, that was included as part of the artwork for a later release of the band's 1968 album. The band made kind of a logo out of the name, so I added that to the upper left corner.