Burning Red Ivanhoe — W.W.W

W.W.W was the firth album from this highly creative Danish collective, who mixed together elements of :jazz-rock, R&B, blues, psychedelic rock, early prog rock, and pop rock into an often memorable & rewarding whole. The album originally appeared back in 1971 on John Peels label Dandelion Records- this CD reissue appeared in 2015, and found the album getting an remastering.

The five piece band got together back in 1967, and were one of the  first prog bands to come out of Scandinavian. They simmered up a rich & varied sound that utilized standard 60’s ‘rock’  instrumentation of guitar, bass, drums & organ. Along with the addition of Alto & tenor sax, bassoon, violin,  flute, trombone, flute, harmonica, mellotron & keyboards. The band  sang in both English & their native tongue, but on this album is all in English.

Between the years 1969 & 1974 the band released seven albums: 1969’s M 144 (one of the first double albums released), 1970’s Burning Red Ivanhoe, 1971’s 6 Elefantskovcikadeviser (which was a collaboration with respected Danish  folk & blues singer/ songwriter Povl Dissing), 1971’s W. W. W. , 1972’s Miley Smile/Stage Recall, 1974’s Still Fresh, and also from 1974 Right On.

This reissue takes in the original album’s seven tracks, and really it’s a highly varied, charming, and creative collection of tracks which sees the band covering a fair bit of sonic ground going from : more tuneful & groovy organ heavy moments, onto more jazz rock jams, through to more creative pop  rock, and beyond.  With the tracks moving from the pop rock meets mellow jazzy sax tipped tunefull-ness of “All About All”. Onto the more moody & slightly angular feel of “ Kaske-Vous Karsemose” that mixed together organ, horns, guitar, bass and violin into thick jazz rock grind.

The reissue does’nt have any extra tracks- but really it’s nice to have the album just as it originally was. The whole album gets a remastering, and as you’d expect from Esoteric it’s a great job- with the whole album having a great feeling of new charity about it.  You also get 15 page inlay booklet, which takes in original album notes, and a new four page write-up about the band/ album from Malcolm Dome.

This is the second Burning Red Ivanhoe release to appear on Esoteric Recordings/Cherry Red- the first been the excellent double CD An Anthology 1969–1974 which appeared in 2013, and brought together a great selection of tracks from the bands classic creative period. Lets hope the label plans to reissue more of this great projects back catalogue. So if you enjoy the place were 1970’s Jazz rock, meets prog & pop rock W.W.W is worth checking out