Roy Harper - Flat Baroque and Berserk - Believe Digital - ???

Seeing Harper live in the Eighties, it seemed astonishing to us that the venerable sixties troubadour still breathed. This Mancunian Methuselah would, of course, have been all of forty-five years old.
Now, Harper's seventieth birthday sees digital re-releases for his twenty-three albums. 1970's Flat Baroque and Berserk, a marinaded acoustic set, only partially spoiled by stoned spoken interruptions, was overshadowed by its acclaimed successor Stormcock, but sold Harper to post-punks when This Mortal Coil covered the airily undulating Another Day.

Today, the album's period details seem oddly timeless, and it's inspired the Joanna Newsome generation of diaphanous folkies.

(23/10/11)