This Sunday morning, the stereo is filled with exquisite air and a 1971 limited pressing called Seeds from cult British songwriter Alan James Eastwood.
Look, we absolutely love obscurities over here at Drift, but we honestly had no idea about this one - or Mr Eastwood - until the heads over at Be With reissued it last August. Seeds is an absolute gem; folk balladry and evocative strings wrapped around a singular voice. Although he wrote and recorded with The Brumbeats and later The Exception in the mid- to late-sixties, he never ‘hit the big time’ and commercial success eluded him. But a collection of his demos found its way to the cult musician Mike Cooper, who produced Seeds in a handful of quick sessions.
As part of the Be With release, Mike explains: “With the songs, the voice and such an exceptional talent, it was hard to go wrong. We had John Hawkins do the big string arrangements and Richard Hewson arrange the string quartet. We overdubbed the orchestrations on Alan's original session recordings, adding Chris Karan on tabla and various percussion. We considered re-recording the vocals but found that the magic on that original session was so exceptional overdubbing would not be as good as the atmospheric ‘live’ performance.”
Seeds above all else has a mood, sweetly melancholic, with flashes of ornate elegance and rustic funk strut across its tracks. She’s Getting Married in August has a gorgeous pastoral bounce, and some of the album's first swells of strings (think somewhere between Nick Drake and Gene Clark). The tropical marimba timbres on Crystal Blue are really wonderful, as are the eastern influences on Hymn for Today, both really giving Seeds an identity well outside of what you might expect from the singer-songwriter label. Eastwood is joined vocally on a few tracks by jazz singer Josephine Stahl and most impressively Marilyn Powell (Mike Cooper's partner), with the title track and Opal Blue Sunday (a proper Sunday jam!) both casting magical spells. The way he really pushes his own voice on Last Prayer is a treat, full of honesty and character. Comparisons to Bobby Charles, Rodriguez and Richie Havens all hold sway, but Alan James Eastwood really does sound like Alan James Eastwood … and that's what makes this one such a gorgeous listen.
It may have been largely lost to the sands of time until recent years, and why it never found its audience on releases is a mystery, but Seeds remains a total charmer and a pretty perfect first spin for your Sunday.