Description

2022 re-issue with OBI-strip

Crystalline (also known as Axe) hailed form Northhampton and they were responsible for one of the holy grails of UK heavy psych: a demo acetate of which only 12 copies were pressed back in 1970. Long tracks full of raw, fuzzed out guitars courtesy of Tony Barford, one of the most underrated underground guitar-heroes from the UK and dreamy,ethereal female vocals by Vivienne Jones. Four original songs plus a psyched out cover of Love’s A House Is Not A Motel. So Axe did not make a lot of music, but they made some phenomenal music. Some of the best ever to emerge from the swamp of heavy British psychedelia, certainly some of the rarest. The story behind the acetate is that it was recorded at Beck Studios, Lister Road, Wellingborough and Derek Tompkins was the engineer. The session only lasted for one afternoon, mostly done in one take with no tracking and surprisingly without the aid of any mind altering substances, not even a beer, but we seemed to have conjured up an atmosphere from somewhere. Only twelve acetate copies were made for demo purposes so no title was given to it. One copy was sent to John Peel.(RIP). To his credit he did listen to it (he must have received hundreds of demos daily), but declined to play it or endorse it because he did not like the west coast influence and felt that Vivs voice was too pure. This was a pity because if he had done, the Axe story could have been very different.

Track list:
1. Another Sunset, Another Dawn
2. Peace Of Mind
3. A House Is Not A Motel-Love cover
4. Here From There
5. Crimson Nights