(ProgRock) Dark - Дискография 1972-2001 (5 альбомов), MP3 (tracks), 256 kbps

Dark - Artefacts From The Black Museum (1972)
Vinyl Rip - Rare trax by heavy UK psych band '70-'72 - (500 ONLY! STUDIO CUTS 1970-72)
There are so many variations on material by this esteemed British prog unit that it's sorta tough to figure out the exact status of the material on this LP. Suffice to say that some of it is different versions of stuff on their sole ($2000) LP Ð a kinda cool sorta non-bombastic Brit prog sound with many psych leftovers in terms of vocals, lyrics and guitars. Other stuff comes from the sessions of the same period ('70-72). This album gets a kinda rural flavor going w/o having to revert to the overt Band-isms that so many groups needed to achieve that vibe, and the guitar playing is a quiet monster of backwoods drug invention. Nice stuff in a long-gone numbered edition of 500.
Credits
Artwork By - Savage Leisurecentre
Bass - Carl Bush , Ron Johnson (6)
Drums - Charles Hiams , Clive Thorneycroft
Guitar, Vocals, Producer - Steve Giles
Guitar, Vovals, Bass - Bruce Duncan
Organ, Vocals - Martin Moloney
Producer - Alan Bowley
Notes
Recorded Sis Studios Northampton, 1970 - 1972

Personnel:
Colin Bush - bass
Steve Giles - guitar
Clive Thorneycroft - drums
Ronald Johnson - bass
(Martin Weaver - guitar)
Album:
Dark Round The Edges (SIS 0102) 1972
Reissued on Swank (250 copies only) in 1990 and on Swank/Darkside 001 (250 copies only) in 1991 with lyric sheet. Also reissued on CD (Kissing Spell KSCD 9204) 1992 with four bonus tracks: "In The Sky", "Wasting Your Time", "Could Have Sworn" and an old version of "Maypole" (which is unlisted). The bonus tracks only feature Steve Giles on lead and vocals, Clive Thorneycroft on drums and a bass player called Carl Bush. Neither Martin Weaver or Ron Johnson feature on these added tracks. Also reissued on vinyl in a repro of the original sleeve in 1998. There have been a number of additional retrospective releases: "Anonymous Days" (Darkedge Records DRCD 2371), is the twenty-five year follow-up to "Dark Round The Edges". Recorded between 1994 and 1996, it features the original band with tracks written both in the '70s and the '90s; "Dark/Tarsus" (Kissing Spell KSCD 9494) features a long jam which the band recorded for their own interest in 1975. It features Steve on lead, Clive on drums, Martin on lead, Ron on acoustic and electric guitars, and a couple of friends on bass and bongos. It is not one of their better jams. It also features a couple of tracks from Tarsus, a local band who disappeared in the early '70s. Their tracks are pretty poor. The Dark Jam has also been issued on CD as "The Jam". Another CD, "Teenage Angst" (Kissing Spell KSCD 9402), 1994, features only Steve of the Dark line-up, and was recorded on amateur equipment in a church hall. From all accounts, it is pretty poor. "Artefacts From A Black Museum (Acme)" is thought to only feature Steve and possibly Clive and is not very good. There is also an acetate single on the New York label in existence. It features Steve Giles on lead, Clive Thorneycroft on drums and Carl Bush on bass. The tracks are believed to be "RC8" and "In The Sky". There are only two copies in existence, and the band have one of them.
This legendary progressive rock band, which was responsible for the UK's most expensive album, was formed by Steve Giles whilst at school in Northampton in 1968. They met local entrepreneur Alan Bowley who'd recently converted a derelict house into a recording studio, and this led to four acetates of "RC8" and "In The Sky".
They performed at a few local gigs, and as their playing got tighter, decided to go into SIS Studios, Northampton, with engineer Alan Bowley, to record an album. The six tracks, written and arranged by the band were recorded over a weekend in 1972 and consist of melodic progressive rock laced with lots of fuzzy guitar riffs. Only a handful of copies were pressed, and Giles, who had a strong interest in photography, made the first twelve copies into full-colour gatefold sleeves, complete with booklets of photographs stapled together, augmented with handwritten notes. They were handed out to band members and their girlfriends! These are now valued at £1,500 by Record Collector who valued copies which came with a black and white gatefold sleeve at £1,350, and those which came in a single black and white sleeve - at £1,200 in their December 1993 issue. A total of 65 copies were reissued in all and each came with a lyric booklet and sold originally for £3!
The band then split with Clive and Martin going their own ways, and Steve and Ron continuing to record for their own pleasure until 1977 when Ron married and moved to Cornwall.
Kissing Spell traced the band in 1991 to tell them the original album was worth a small fortune, and offering to reissue it on vinyl and CD. A re-issue had been done on vinyl in the States, followed by Kissing Spell's efforts. The members then got back together and decided to see if they could still play. Previously unrecorded tracks were dusted off, more material written, and Dark re-entered the studio world in 1994 at Outrider Studios, Northampton, over twenty years after their first outing. A couple of tracks were laid down before the studio went bust, and Dark moved on to Far Heath Studios in Guilsborough, where the album, "Anonymous Days", was completed in 1996. It was issued on CD in a limited edition of 500, twenty-five years after "Dark Round The Edges". Word got around that the band were playing again and offers of live gigs started to come in. They decided to do just one hail/farewell gig, which turned out to be the Northampton Beer Festival, on May 31st, 1997. The local brewery, Frog Island, brewed a special limited edition bottled beer in the gig's honour, which sold for £2.50. The label being a copy of the CD cover of "Dark Round The Edges".
If you want to discover what their music was like, track down one of the relatively recent vinyl or CD reissues of the original "Dark Round The Edges" before investigating any of the plethora of retrospectives.
Kissing Spell, have also, incidentally, issued a CD by Martin Weaver's power trio Wicked Lady, entitled "The Axeman Cometh" (Kissing Spell KSCD 9307) in 1993. Weaver was an ancillary member of Dark.

Dark: Teenage Angst (The Early Sessions)
Kissing Spell
Dark are a bygone band from a bygone but very beloved era. Their psych-rock is represented here by eleven songs—by two different lineups—that predate their 1972 album Teenage Angst. The only common element is guitarist-vocalist Steve Giles. The first five tracks were recorded in 1971 by the trio of Giles, bassist Carl Bush, and drummer C. Thornycroft. The last six tracks are from 1969, and probably sequenced this way due to the shabby quality of those recordings. The ’69 cuts were recorded by Giles and a different backup unit: organist Martin Moloney, bassist Bruce Duncan, and drummer Charlie Hiams.
Even for 1971, the first quintet of tracks sounds dark, gloomy, muddy. This characteristic makes the band sound a few years too late, but they were working on a style they’d no doubt embarked upon, years earlier. Cream, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, etc. You don’t have to dig too far to discern this band’s influences. Steve Giles’ voice even has that inoffensive, suspiciously Claptonesque ring to it, circa Eric’s Cream days. “In The Sky,” “Wasting Your Time,” and “Could Have Sworn” are built upon loose “jammy” structures, fuzz-drenched guitar, and leaden basslines—a very familiar formula. “Maypole” kicks things up a notch with a melodic bass lead, plodding cadence and a cool wah~fuzz guitar solo.
The next pair of tunes (from 1969) downplays the intensity of the first five, rooted by Martin Moloney’s velvety organ tone. “All Through The Night” immediately requires a slight volume raise, and—what is that that emanates from the right speaker? A single repeating hand clap, hard-panned and louder than the snare drum. Annoying, but it’s only a three-minute song. “I’m Not Sad” suddenly—laughably—grows louder around the 5:30 mark, as though somebody’s finger slipped up on the volume slider. An earlier, forgettable version of the first half’s best song, “Maypole,” appears here with a slacker, undermixed guitar solo, and an obnoxious fadeout at the middle, akin to experiencing a space-time warp. Bowl haircuts whip themselves into a collective frenzy with the unproduced acid rock jam, “Bad Taste,” (also anointed with a theremin-charged ending). “Grey Man” and “Cloud Of Unknowing” round out the set, and are barely listenable due to the lowest of production values, complete with dropouts, incomprehensible vocals,
teetering signal limits, and all that nonsense. This kind of rawness is testament to the fact that Dark is more interesting as a piece of nostalgia than as a reputable cult psychedelic band.
This British hard rock psychedelic trio may have created one mind-blowingly heavy record in the '70s, and this collection is a supplement to that album for hardcore enthusiasts who can't get enough. Teenage Angst is exactly that, lo-fi basement recordings of the group's formative years captured on tape in the raw. Hints at their later explosive sound bubble through the surface noise -- though primitive melancholia dominates the mood. Kissing Spell reissues a lot of great hidden treasures from the U.K. psychedelic underground -- many of which are magnificent. While this does have a charming intimate quality, it may be a bit too thorough to consider documenting. However, the fastidious collector of such music will be thrilled. ~ Skip Jansen
Tracks 1-5 are of good quality, recorded in 1971, when the band had refined their sound, the remaining material has been captured off 1/4 inch tape, recorded in 1969 and 1970 when the first line up were still at school, aged 15 to 16. The tracks display the melancholic nature of their later material, raw and unpolished in the extreme.

ANONYMOUS DAYS is the second studio album from Dark recorded 23 years after the first, the famous and highly collectable 'Round the Edges' LP. The band's line-up remains the same, Steve Giles, Ron Johnson, Martin Weaver and Clive Thorneycroft. Anonymous Days contains songs written between 1974 and 1995 and is the album we always wanted to make, combining the Dark progressive rock style with the latest recording techniques.
The first album was recorded in about 24 hours, this one took an awful lot longer: that's modern studios for you. The tracks are pure Dark combining complicated twin harmony guitar work with thought provoking lyrics and wide ranging musical structures.
We thoroughly enjoyed getting back together again to write and rehearse after all those years, we even played a live gig in our home town of Northampton. At the start of the project Ron's bass guitar was taken from the dust in his loft where it had lain undisturbed for over 20 years. After the album was finished he put it back in exactly the same place ready for the next one?
Martin Weaver,
Northampton, England. June 2001
Artists
Steve Giles: Guitars, Vocals, Acoustic Guitar
Ron Johnson Bass Guitar, Acoustic Guitar
Martin Weaver Guitars, Vocals
Clive Thorneycroft Drums, Percussion