Pete Brown & Piblokto! - 1970 - Things May Come And Things May Go

Pete Brown & Piblokto!

1970

Things May Come And Things May Go, 

But The Art School Dance Goes On Forever

01. Things May Come And Things May Go But, The Art School Dance Goes On For Ever

02. High Flying Electric Bird

03. Someone Like You

04. Walk For Charity, Run For Money

05. Then I Must Go And Can I Keep

06. My Love's Gone Far Away

07. Golden Country Kingdom

08. Firesong

09. Country Morning

Bonus Tracks

10. High Sorrow

11. Raining Pins And Needles

Banjo – Paul Seeley

Bass, Bass Guitar, Tambourine – Roger Bunn

Drums, Percussion [Woodblocks] – Rob Tait

Guitar – Jim Mullen

Organ, Soprano Saxophone – Dave Thompson 

Trombone – John Mumford

Trumpet – Ray Crane

Vocals, Talking Drum – Pete Brown 

A radical change from the looseness of The Battered Ornaments. Piblokto plays it super-tight and focused all the way. The album sets off with the extreme up-tempo title track, driven along by Jim Mullen's power chords in a manner that should not be heard again until punk came along a decade after this.

Pete Brown himself is in great voice. He was never a great singer, in fact he has never been a singer at all, but he has a very personal voice, and a way of making lines stick with the listener that is purely his own.

Five stars means that there is not a duff track on the whole album, including the two cd-bonuses, "Flying Hero Sandwich" and "My Last Band", A- and B-side of the 1970 single, which happened to be Piblokto's last release ever.

Guitarist Jim Mullen really shines here, listen to his soloing on "Someone like you". And the other members of Piblokto shine as well.

Here’s a perfect example of the adventurous creative spirit that drove so much of popular culture in the 1960s. Best known as Jack Bruce’s collaborator on hit songs for Cream, Pete Brown was also well-known as an inventive poet in England’s Beat underground and also has been and important figure on the European music scene for many years. After he left his first group, The Battered Ornaments, by personal disagreements with Chris Spedding, Brown set up his next band in 1970, Piblokto!, whose debut album, presented here, has the longest title known to rock historians. His facility with language and hauntingly surreal, witty imagery is put to fine use on this diverse collection of songs containing Jazz tinged Rock alongside laid back Folk melodies, all augmented by Brown’s questioning and poetic lyrics.

An album that to this day is regarded as one of the finest of the Progressive era, Things May Come… is definitely a wonderful and highly affecting piece of prog-rock that stands as the best thing Piblokto! ever put on tape.

It has to hurt to be dumped from the band you lead, but that's what happened to Pete Brown with the Battered Ornaments -- and to add insult to injury, right on the eve of a prestigious support slot opening for the Rolling Stones at London's Hyde Park in 1969. But Brown, already an acclaimed poet who'd penned many of the lyrics for Cream, dusted himself off and founded Piblokto!. This, their first album, was actually far more accessible and commercial than his work with the Battered Ornaments. The inventive title track percolates, and "High Flying Electric Bird" (which was the B-side of the band's first single) features Brown on the highly unusual rock & roll slide whistle, mimicking a birdsong. But it's "Golden Country Kingdom" that's the highlight; long and involved, it's a wonderful and highly affecting piece of prog rock that stands as the best thing Piblokto! ever put on tape. It stands as a contrast to the more laid-back "Firesong," although "My Love's Gone Far Away" offers a more soulful organ sound.