Middle Earth 1967-1969 (Strawberry)

[T.D.]

Middle Earth 1967-1969, Various Artists 3CD Box Set

 

This has potential, but I can't tell whether the tracks are live from the club (vs. existing recordings).

A lot of the usual suspects, which could be boring, but some more off-beat and potentially interesting selections, e.g. Chris McGregor Septet (!).

[clifford_thornton]

Nice. The Soft Machine CD on Cuneiform from that club ("The Middle Earth Masters") is pretty intense as I recall.

[felser]

I'm pretty sure this release would be existing recordings.  The Cherry Red labels do beautiful box sets (I generally consider them definitive) and price them very kindly.  I'll be picking this one up along with the dozens (hundreds?) of other releases I have by that family of labels.

[T.D.]

I actually preordered this out of nostalgia. Only a handful of the tunes (including, surprisingly, Amalgam's Prayer for Peace) are on recordings I currently own. It does promise to be a nice package.

[barnaba.siegel]

Any idea if those tracks are actual recordings from Middle Earth, or rather studio music "from the era"?

[T.D.]

I strongly suspect studio music "from the era," as felser suggested above.

I originally hoped for live recordings from Middle Earth, but consider that highly unlikely.

With 21, 20 and 23 tracks on CDs 1-3 respectively I'm starting to have doubts that the cuts are complete tracks (which would seriously piss me off, having preordered 😟). The recording of Amalgam's "Prayer for Peace" is 7:33, for instance.