After parting company with Genesis shortly after the release of Trespass in 1970, Anthony Phillips went quiet for a fair few years. Although he overcame the illness and stage fright that led to his disappearance, he took a while to establish himself as a solo act.
But by the time he recorded this album-long session for Radio Clyde in 1978, he was balancing increasingly experimental urges with pressure from his label to pen something short and friendly, as punk relegated his sort to persona non grata.
This 10-track recording – beefed up from its 2003 incarnation with two extra tracks from a separate session – leans unashamedly into creative freedom territory, which makes it all the more appealing to fans of his guitar playing and early solo songcraft.
He tells listeners of his “forthcoming album of instrumentals and duets, which is dubiously titled Private Parts And Pieces,” from which Reaper opens the session, his guitar sounding bright and his playing nimble – unlike the frankly fumbling rendition from Pennine Radio the same year, one of the bonus tracks.
Phillips’ playing is fully on point on the 11-minute Flamingo, a classical guitar instrumental with a few agreeable echoes of early Genesis in the studio version, but a more passionate and adrenaline-fuelled affair here.
The Clyde session was intended to promote his second solo album, Wise After The Event. Its finest moment, the animal rights-themed Now What (Are They Doing To My Little Friends)?, isn’t quite as impressive in stripped-down form.
But that treatment has the opposite effect on debut album highlight Which Way The Wind Blows. Originally sung by guesting ex-bandmate Phil Collins, it’s just as effective in lo-fi dressing, by dint of the understated soul Phillips infuses his vocals with.
Meanwhile his introductions to these tracks are entertaining and not a little surreal. Is Flamingo really “a three-bagpipe and tuned rear mudguard version of an 18th-century Swedish cycling song”? Huge if true.
Radio Clyde 1978 (Expanded & Remastered Edition) is on sale now via Esoteric.
