Best Box Sets of 2019

A dubious category, if ever there was one: best box sets of 2019? Sounds like something made up as an excuse to shout about some musical peccadillo that doesn't fit into any other category, if you ask me?

You betcha, mate!

Now, without wishing to start a religious war or equivalent, I have to start by saying that, in general I am resistant to the idea of the box set.  It seems to me it's no different from buying books by the yard to populate a library in a house where none of the books is actually read. The less said about that, the better.

Box sets often suffer from two problems. For starters they often collect together everything by an artist, regardless of merit, and let's face it there is no artist, I would argue, that produced album after album of equal brilliance.  (No, not even those four blokes, so leave it out!) The other failing is that they are the musical "five yards of books", a sort of coffee table "look at this, I'm really cool, I have all their records" (what's a record, dad?) way of buying music.

What have box sets ever done for us? And that's another thing. In order to persuade fans to shell out for the damn things, so that they buy the same music in a different format for the 7th time (yeah, mate, I've got it on vinyl, cassette, 8-track, CD, re-mastered CD, Super Audio CD, 5.1 Mix, oh, yeah, and now as a box set (just wait for the high-res audio 24-bit/192Khz download)), there have to be some previously unreleased items.  Previously unreleased items range from demos that sound like they were recorded on a Fisher-Price cassette recorder, to outtakes from studio sessions and live recordings, previously unavailable except as bootlegs recorded via a microphone stuffed up someone's jumper.  

Having slagged them off comprehensively, there are box sets that have been compiled with a love of the music and with some genuinely worthwhile extras and rare tracks only ever issued as singles or b-sides. (What's a...)

In 2019, a couple of box sets stood out, both of which had been rumoured for some time and much anticipated, by fans, if no one else 😉

First out of the blocks was 'In Search of Hades' a 16-CD plus 2-Blu-ray Disc set covering Tangerine Dream's time at Virgin records, from 1973 to 1979.  It includes all the official album releases from that period, an entire unreleased album 'Oedipus Tyrannus' from 1974,  a host of live recordings, the original film sound track to the legendary Coventry Cathedral concert (as fans will know the original film of the gig, by Tony Palmer, used sound from other gigs, not necessarily matching the film footage) and, on one of the BDs, the film footage of the gig.  It also includes an excellent 70-page, large format book (for the coffee table!! Got ya, you bastard!) which contains a lot of photos, memorabilia and info on the genesis of the albums.

TD's output can be divided into (at least) three distinct phases: the 'pink years' albums from 1970-1973, including 'Atem' and 'Zeit', which are much more experimental and pushed the limits of the then current technology; the Virgin years, which this box set covers and marks both the commercial peak of the band and also the introduction of early sequencers and synthesizers when the new technology was emerging and developing; then the later years from 1980 to date, which includes a huge number of albums, but which divide opinion.

(I haven't listened to all the later albums by any means, but I've found none that light the spark, so far, and feel that even though Edgar Froese was in charge until his recent death, what I've heard just sounds like any other electronic band that make pretty noises, but signifying nothing. Nothing to relate to or connect to.  To be honest, even the later Virgin years albums like 'Cyclone' and 'Force Majeure' lose me, but I am going to give them another chance, at some point.)

What about the music on 'In Search of Hades'?  It's important to be prepared to 'digest' TD music of this era in meal size chunks: during the period covered by the box set, the majority of TD album tracks are over 10 minutes in length, often the equivalent of a side of a vinyl album - somewhere around the 17 to 20 minutes mark (and yes, I know there's at least one rock album where the artist (who was also producer and engineer) squeezed in almost 30 minutes per album side, but this was done at the sacrifice of volume/loudness and this is a story for another day (it's also one of the greatest albums recorded, IMO, but...))

OK, OK, so the tracks are long, but what's it sound like? Well, there are no vocals for starters (except on the album 'Cyclone'), so if that's a problem, skip forward to Gong immediately! The three players - TD were a trio at the time with Edgar Froese (founder of the band), Chris Franke and Peter Baumann (who left the band after 'Encore', the live double album) - pretty much play various keyboards, synthesizers and sequencers exclusively, except that Edgar Froese can and occasionally does play guitar and both he and Peter Baumann do play flute on 'Phaedra'.

At its best the music of TD in this era (the 'Pink Years' albums are another completely different bag of tomatoes) is really cinematic (unsurprisingly they've done a few soundtracks as well, including William Friedkin's excellent film 'The Sorcerer') and enveloping.  It often has a ghostly, ethereal quality and evokes feelings of dislocation and spiritual and existential unease, if not actual terror.

A favourite track from the album 'Rubycon' is 'Rubycon Part 2', which nicely illustrates the spookier, more ethereal elements of their sound - listening to Virgin-era TD alone in a remote cottage could be quite an experience.  Listen for yourself...

In contrast, here's a shorter track from the later album 'Stratosfear' from which the title of the box set is taken...

If that's not enough, and you've got Spotify, here's the entire box set - just don't eat it all at once...

If you like anything you've heard, but can't afford to/don't want to shell out for the box set and, let's face it, you'd have to have been seriously bitten by the TD bug to do that, then each of the original albums have been reissued individually, remastered and with extra tracks not on the original albums - each of them available for less than six quid! (I'd start with 'Rubycon' or maybe 'Encore')

[Useless trivia: Chris Franke left TD in 1987 and, amongst many other things, composed/played the music used in the Sci-Fi series 'Babylon 5'.]

'In Search of Hades' (great title and cover) comes in at number two (and yes, there are more than two box sets, though not many more...) but at number one and far and away the best and most anticipated - certainly by me - box set is 'Love from the Planet Gong'.

Gong's Virgin years (yep, that record label, AGAIN!) box set (covering the years 1973 to 1975) had been rumoured for several years and was to be put together by none other than Steve Hillage from the band and re-mastered by Simon Heyworth, the original engineer on the recordings. It's release was timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Gong, formed by Daevid Allen back in 1969, but was also important for legal and band reasons.

The core albums that form the 'Radio Gnome Invisible' trilogy have also been released by another record label, Charly.  Charly allegedly have a set of copies of the masters and re-released their own re-mastered version of the trilogy in 2015, but with a number of big differences, most notably that none of the money from the sales of the Charly versions go to the band. Gong have made it clear that the original master tapes are held by Virgin and they are the only master tapes and, most importantly, they are the source of this box set, as demonstrated by the fact that there are different versions of some of the songs from the sessions that produced the original albums.  The money from the sales of this box set go to the surviving members of Gong and their families, which seems only right and proper.

Enough of this bullshit history! Why is this the number one box set, if you really must have a category of best box sets, for the sake of fuck?

'Love from the Planet Gong': what more could anyone ask for? Twelve CDs and one DVD covering the four studio albums - the trilogy plus 'Shamal', sessions recorded for BBC Radio 1 and five complete live gigs, recorded, not from up someone's jumper, but from the mixing desk. Of course it also includes a book - in this case 60+ pages of photos, memorabilia and writing about the band and albums, and also facsimiles of the booklets that came with the original albums, namely 'A Pocket Introduction to the Planet Gong' (from 1971), the 'Angel's Egg' lyric and story book (known as 'The Blue Book') and the same for  'Flying Teapot' (known as 'The Green Book') and a few other things besides.

I have a confession to make. When I first heard Gong, as a spotty youth more interested in the heavy metal guitar sounds of bands like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath and so on (you get the picture), I was confused.  Gong didn't seem to take their music very seriously. It sounded like they were having too much fun. They played all sorts of instruments, not just "traditional" rock instruments. The songs weren't all based around guitar riffs. What on earth were they playing at?

Well, it turned out they were playing at making some wonderful, joyous, irreverent and bewitching songs.  Not only that but there's the whole playful 'Planet Gong' mythology - Pothead Pixies, Zero the Hero, Octave Doctors, Radio Gnome, Flying Teapots and all.

One of my favourite songs from the first album of the trilogy ('Radio Gnome Invisible') - I just cannot get enough of Gilli Smyth saying "Crazy"- is 'The Pothead Pixies'

There is much to enjoy within 'Radio Gnome Invisible' besides the PHPs and the title track, such as the rather cheeky 'Witches Song / I am Your Pussy'

I'm not going pick a track or two from every album, 'cos frankly that's just a drag, so a couple more personal favourites - not necessarily in sequence - as if you read further down there's a Spotify playlist of the entire box set. If you're interested enough lose yourself in it. Have another cup of tea!

'Oily Way' live in Paris...

...and 'Master Builder', which is dedicated to Bygmester Finnegan, of the stuttering hand, the original master builder...

As threatened earlier, here is the entire box set on Spot E. Fie

Give Gong a listen, they're worth it, and believe it or not, they're still going today - they released a new album 'The Universe Also Collapses' last year and have toured the album and supported (sort-of) original Gong member, Steve Hillage (and Miquette Giraudy). The current Gong line-up is really good, fronted by the seemingly omnipresent Kavus Torabi, and, though it contains no original members, several of them - including Kavus - have played with Daevid Allen and supposedly Daevid wanted them to carry on the band after his death.  I could write more about that, but someone got there first, thankfully, so if you're interested read this article on the Quietus, titled perhaps a little predictably, 'The Strange World Of... Gong'.

This may not be the last I'll write about Gong...