The method to the madness: four discs of alternative movement including live inroads.
With such an immense diversity of THE MOVE's output and each of their album a kaleidoscope of sounds and images, any compilation is bound to fail when it comes to putting it all in a context, but this 4CD box more than succeeds in doing exactly so. A regular, if extensive, overview of the Birmingham heroes' oeuvre for the uninitiated, it's a treasure trove for the fan presenting, alongside real rarities like the unfinished "Simple Simon", both singles and album tracks mostly in rarely, if ever, heard form. Some might be nothing special music-wise, yet the historic value of 1966's slice of rambunctious, call-and-response rhythm-and-blues that's Roy Wood's "You're The One I Need" and the same year's three soul covers laid down for radio is impossible to underestimate as they're the ensemble's first recordings ever. And if artificially enhanced stereo versions of well-known tracks such as the debut album's "Cherry Blossom Clinic" often sound dull compared to the mono originals, the unplugged, just Wood and Carl Wayne, run-through of "Flowers In The Rain" seems more stunning in its sparseness, whereas "I Can Hear The Grass Grow" taped in Fillmore West in 1969 has to be heard to believe this early song might be spread over 10 gorgeously easy-riding minutes incorporating the Tchaikovsky bone of "Night Of Fear" that graces Disc 1 in a significantly different, less fierce shape to THE MOVE's first '45.
The concert recordings take up the whole of Disc 2 here, all from Marquee but committed to tape on two separate occasions, in February and May 1968, with the quintet losing Ace Kefford and shrinking into fearsome foursome in the interim. Salvaged from the aural mess that bugged the multitracks and newly mixed into stereo, the twelve songs not only represent the band in their natural habitat much better than two tracks from "Something Else From The Move" EP but include live takes on hit singles "Fire Brigade" and, again, "Flowers In The Rain" as well as the drummer Bev Bevan's old friend's Danny Laine's driving "Too Much In Love" and the EVERLY BROTHERS' psyched-up "The Price Of Love". But while the London's soil had the group throw Erma Franklin's heartbreaking "Piece Of My Heart" West Coast-ward, the Fillmore document at the end of Disc 3 finds the Englishmen harmoniously tearing up the Anglophiles NAZZ's "Open My Eyes". Of no less interest are two 1968's instrumental attempts to cut "Second Class (She's Too Good For Me)" which had been abandoned until five years later Roy used the song for his debut solo LP, and his vocals lifted off Tony Visconti's lush strings on "Beautiful Daughter" underlining each one's contribution to the track.
But it's also a sign of the band's self-confidence that there's only three pieces from 1970's "Shazam" of which only "Hello, Susie", shortened for the U.S. compilation may be considered a rarity; with scarcity of material for their second album, THE MOVE didn't produce many out-takes and rather went for the listener's throat. This heaviness accumulated even more once Jeff Lynne came onboard right after that record was released, and the edited version of "Brontosaurus", his first work with the group, packs a stronger punch here than on "Looking On" that emerged six months later. The rough mix of social commentary "Turkish Tram Conductor Blues" reveals a fantastic rapport between Wood and Lynne - that eventually proved to be the ensemble's undoing as ELO outshone THE MOVE - it's a pity Salvo failed to get their saving hands on the Birmingham savages' last album, "Message From The Country", as it would have been great to peek beyond the polished veneer of irresistible smashes "California Man", "Tonight" and "Chinatown" appearing on "Anthology" in their familiar form... yet perfectly in the context of one of the best British rock band's real history. Once the albums are collected, it's time to have them anthologized. But this box, enhanced with a 72-page book, is as good a start to investigate further into the actual albums.
*****
