Various (Bob Stanley) - Tea & Symphony - The English Baroque Sound 1968-1974 Various (Bob Stanley)

The English baroque sound of the late 60s and early 70s shunned guitar solos for string quartets and woodwind, drenched in summer-into-autumn melancholy, as heard on this collection of the genre’s finest moments.

When psychedelia had run its course in Britain, the predominant trend was to get hairier, heavier and more long-winded. Some reverted to the pure blues boom of the mid-60s, with Fleetwood Mac leading the way; some toughened up, forging the first wave of heavy metal; some loosened up, bringing jazz and folk into the equation and creating what would become known as progressive rock; others found solace in the rural sloth of the Band. Many musicians, however, were still hung up on the trappings of psychedelia’s homegrown strain, having found a musical home in its mournful evocations of Victoriana, its village green gentility, its nods to the pleasures of suburbia and its church bells softly chiming.