Any release of work by British jazz rock pioneers Nucleus is a major event. This is no exception, and musical anthropologists Hux Records have unearthed some genuine hidden treasures from the Palaeolithic era of fusion. The CD comprises two different European sessions, recorded barely a year apart. But from their very beginning, when the short-lived original line-up were playing live, they were unbeatable, as they were to prove both at the Montreux and Newport jazz festivals. There are four previously unreleased tracks, and the first "Cosa Nostra", is a lively opener in which Ian Carr displays some nifty trumpet work. "Single Line" is a short but elegant Jeff Clyne bass solo. "Twisted Track" here is a beautiful rendition of Spedding's tune as is "1916" but without Carr's dramatic voice-over on this version.

The first set concludes with the tricky and fast "Persephone's Jive", first heard on Carr's collaborative album with the late Neil Ardley, Greek Variations and the 1971 set kicks off (and now in stereo) with the ever-reliable Nucleus anthem "Song for the Bearded Lady" by which most people associate the band, despite it being later revived by Karl Jenkins when he joined Soft Machine along with John Marshall. This is followed by third previously unreleased track here is "Tangent", a collective improvisation structed around a descending bass figure and which transmutes in a jam over two chords.

All the musicians playing with Nucleus at this time were highly talented and had been already doing great things in other contexts (Rendell Carr Quintet, Tubby Hayes, Graham Collier), but it was the youngest member of the group, guitarist Chris Spedding, who undoubtedly endowed the first incarnation of Nucleus with a quite extraordinary sound, even 'live' in concert and without the aid of recording studio effects, as this CD attests

The tour de force of the two sessions is undoubtedly "Snakehips Dream" from the third Nucleus album Solar Plexus with typically inventive soloing, first by Carr and then Smith with hypnotic comping by Spedding and Jenkins. The album concludes with the slow 4/4, never-before-heard "Hemisphere" which gives Karl Jenkins the chance to play some wonderfully labyrinthine oboe, pre-dating his trademark extended solos on later Soft Machine albums. This is simply an essential album for any Nucleus fan.

Back to home page