Various Artists — A Strange Light From The East( CD boxset)

Here we have a three-CD box set looking at the influence of Eastern sounds on Western music during the mid-60s and early 70s. The fifty-eight-track compilation brings together known/ notable projects such as the Incredible String Band, and Yes, with more obscure gems. The genres featured move between rock, prog, folk, jazz and classical music. The set appears on Cherry Red sublabel Strawberry, and as we come to expect from a Cherry Red compilation, there’s a lot of thought gone into the release to make a wholly consistent and varied collection.

The CDs, each with their card slips, come presented in a glossy mustard yellow flip-side card box. Inside, we have a glossy/ colourful thirty-page inlay booklet- this opens with a short write-up about the compilation, before jumping into a write-up/ pictures for each of the fifty-eight tracks featured over the three discs.

Each disc follows a chronological order- so on disc one we start in 1965, and disc three ends in 1972. Each CD has a runtime of seventy-minute runtime, so you get a lot of sonic bang for your buck.

Disc one features the most tracks of the collection: twenty-four. We move from The Byrds 1966 track “Eight Miles High”- which is often quoted as the first psychedelic rock track- with its sitar-like droning guitar and vocal tones, as well as its subtle nods towards the jazz of John Coltrane. On to the steady, strutting beat, twanging sitar tones, warbling wordless female vocals, mellow guitar strumming, and seashore sounds of Dantalian's chariot, “This Island”. Through to the jigging guitar ‘n’ sitar meet English to chanting Arabic vocals of West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band’s “Buddha”. Onto warbling pipes, simple/ galloping eastern rhythms, and hazy-sight- wavering male vocals of “Devendra” by Australian band The Twilights.

Onto disc two, and we begin with tracks from the year 1968, with a total of seventeen tracks on offer. We go from the steadily waltzing to the hip-shaking flow of East of Eden's “Waterways(Demo)” which moves from mixes of woodwind swoons, wordy vocals and electric violin bays. Onto guitar tone buzzing, crashing drums, and sitar twang- that at points turns decidedly jazz-rock bound. We have the folk strum meets eastern twang, shifting pace, and poetic/ cryptic lyrics of Incredible String Band’s “Koeeoaddi There”. Moving onto the steadily simmering tones of The Stoogers “We Will Fall” with its sparse tapping percussion, twanging/ droning hover, chanted backing vocals, and lightly wailing lead vocals.

Disc three offers up another seventeen tracks, and we begin in the year 1969. We go from the locked guitar strum, bumping eastern groove, & bounding jazz piano reaches of Clark-Hutchinson’s “Impromptu In ‘E’ Minor”. Through to Third Ear’s Band’s “Ghetto Raga” which marries awkwardly/ at points almost harmonically- baying ‘n’ droning eastern strings/ pipes with a steady-if-barren tabla beat. Onto the shambling American folk guitar meets eastern twang of Wizz Jones’s “American Land” which is topped with waving/ thin male vocals.

A Strange Light From The East - Eastern Influenced Western Music 1965-72, is another wonderful sequenced/ well-curated/ presented boxset from the Cherry Red family of labels. And if you're curious about when the East met the West sonically in the mid 60’s/ early 70’s- it’s a must!.