Tintern Abbey Beeside - The Anthology (2-LP, farbiges Vinyl, Ltd.)

(Real Gone Music) 24 tracks, gatefold cover, colored vinyl in purple, incl. 4-page insert, limited edition to 1500 copies.

The greatest British psych find of the century! You think this is an exaggeration? Well, of the 24 tracks on this collection, the only two previously released on vinyl, Beeside and Vacuum Cleaner, are probably the rarest and most valuable single (Deram DM 164) in '60s British rock, of which an original copy (And for good reason.... the guitar solo on Vacuum Cleaner set a new standard for mod-psych feedback freakout).

In fact, that single was the only recording officially released by Tintern Abbey, and only a small handful of demos have leaked since; yet its legend still endures 55 years later. Now, after two decades of planning, research, tape transfer and sound restoration, the full story of Tintern Abbey can finally be told.

Tintern Abbey between the summer of 1967 (when they spent a month in a cottage in Cornwall rehearsing and recording their performances before hitting London) and the end of 1968. Along with the genre-defining Deram single and these demos, there are some amazing treasures to be found. Among the highlights: the planned late 1967 45 follow-up Snowman (a confusing melange of gloomy mellotron, disembodied voices, and voices and tapes running backwards, abandoned when original guitarist Don Smith left the group); the Arabic-sounding My Prayer and the SF Sorrow-anticipating Let The Wind Blow, as well as late 1968 creations like Raspberry Ripple, Life Goes By, and My House, suggesting that Tintern Abbey remained a vital, living entity even at the point of their Tintern Abbey collapse.