Section 25 - Jams From The Bardo - CD/DD - Klang Galerie
The demand for official rehearsal, demo and unreleased cassette jams has increased in recent years. The quality varies from artist to artist with some bands and singers expecting true diehard fans to part with three figures for a bespoke box filled with unwanted old studio bollocks, put together for pennies and sold for sovereigns and wrapped in tweed, plastic or feathers.
Praise be then for Germany's Klanggalerie who have tastefully gathered up over a dozen rare overlooked Section 25 jams from previously unreleased sources for Jams From The Bardo. Culled from recordings cut during studio time rehearsing for the band's debut Factory album Always Now and follow-up The Key Of Dreams, this somewhat niche digital release fills in a few gaps left after the superb Always Now box-set issued by Factory Benelux last year. There's only so many unreleased tracks you can cram into a box-set, right? If there was a definitive Section 25 almanac, it would take up about half of your house.
Here we have 14 tracks that cover the Blackpool trio's musical field at the turn of the late '70s, early '80s - bass-heavy explorations, psychedelic riffs, dubbed-up drum layers and vocal improvisations that suggest a skipload of weed was on hand to carry the sessions through to a (il)logical conclusion.
The true highlights here are the lengthy extended tracks when Section 25 slowly click into gear and drive themselves home via a few enlightened narcotically-enhanced avenues. Rose Apple Island follows on from Always Now's hypnotic Babies From The Bardo by way of Amon Duul, Pretty Peculiar is Human Puppets' distant cousin mixed with copious gallons of Thunderbird, ice and a paper umbrella while You is Metal Box-era PiL drawing hard on a Wobble-endorsed bong, waiting for 'the man'.
OK so Jams From The Bardo isn't Friendly Fires, Be Brave, New Horizons or The Wheel. But it is a fascinating trip into the minds of a band who worked bloody hard to get to the levels of those Factory releases so revered to this day and serves as an important musical document for a band that continues to explore and indulge.
Pubs, Clubs, and Drugs has rarely sounded so inviting.