Subway - Subway (1972)

Subway was a LP project by an American/English duo consisting of singer-songwriter Irv Mowrey, guitar, vocals and composer/violinist Malcolm Watson. They travelled from San Fransisco towards the UK, France and Germany. In France they appeared on radio and TV and played in official places, resulting in this album, from which only 200 were printed. A lack of immediate success resulted in the unsold albums being destroyed. Most of the time the duo seemed to have travelled and even busked on the streets. I guess that’s how they chose the title for their project of “Subway” to give it that underground feel and to remind them of where they were destined to disappear once more into the unknown. The songs on this album are really strong and the arrangements, which are violin picking and improvisations and orchestrations, with some vocal and some percussion effects on the first couple of tracks make them sound even better. With each track the songs get more hand percussion & drums added and some electric bass, progressing the inner evolution and energy inside them. By the fourth track, “All the good things” the music has some true acid folk psychedelic tension. The most progressive track is “Enturbulaton-free form” on side B, which uses this improvisation energy and adds even organ and mellotron, electric guitar and a couple of echo effects to this jam. This is followed by two more folk-rock singer-songwriting tracks. Worth mentioning are the fine drumming with bass and violin improvisations on "Rosanna Of The Roses". Last track, "Can I trade with you my mind" is a beautiful song with some depth in emotions in the words. Also this track builds up its own progressive arrangements, making a perfect conclusion for a classic album and unique moment of a short time to arrange well a couple of songs made on the road during their touring. PSYCHE VAN HET FOLK

Subway was a duo, consisting of an American and an UK-guy, who released their only album in France as 200 vinyls in 1972. There they lived and played both for some time as street musicians, who played their compositons even at Parisien subway, hence the bandname. Unfortunately the album fell through, so the unsold vinyls were melted, as usual in France at this time.The band presented a phantastic psych-folk music with prog-rock-elements. An absolutely top-album, which hopefully now will reach a bigger audience, as the original LP is very rare. Since the master-tapes were lost for a long time, we recorded our old original-LP and did remaster it by means of NoNoise of Cedar, so master-tape-quality is nearly reached again. This reissue was made as 180-gram quality pressing and includes an very interesting insert. Thanks to Irv Movrey and Malcolm Watson for their aid to realize this project. Amber Soundroom

Great album & one of my first uploads ;)

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