Oldish Psych and Prog

A 'progressive' band formed in Brighton in 1968 by violinist and multi-instrumentalist Dave Arbus. Their novelty hit with the instrumental Jig A Jig was completely untypical of their usual musical style, progressive rock with lots of hard rock guitar and Dave Arbus' wild violin work.

The band were very popular in London's underground clubs. Their debut album came in an outstanding sleeve and was the best example of their Eastern-influenced rock. Guitarist/vocalist Nicholson left after this along with drummer Dufont and bassist York (who joined Manfred Mann's Chapter 3).

Snafu veered more towards jazz-rock but was their most successful album commercially getting into the Top 30. It was also a big success on the Continent as was their Ramadhan 45.

In 1970 they signed to Harvest but their first album for them was rather mundane having sacrificed their earlier Eastern influence for a country sound. New Leaf was slightly better and certainly the opening cut Bradshaw The Bison Hunter is worth a spin. After this Arbus quit though he later reappeared on Roger Daltrey's self-titled solo album. The band carried on replacing him with former Mushroom violinist Joe O'Donnell. This line-up recorded a couple of further albums which only appeared on the Continent before splitting up in 1978.

Geoff Britton later played with Wings, whilst Joe O'Donnell made several solo albums in the seventies and eighties, many of which feature guest appearances by Rory Gallagher.

01. Northern Hemisphere 5:04
02. Isadora 4:33
03. Waterways 6:50
04. Centaur Woman 7:12
05. Bathers 4:58
06. Communion 4:03
07. Moth 3:55
08. In The Stable Of The Sphynx 8:33
09. Waterways [demo] (*) 6:40
10. In The Stable Of The Sphynx [demo] (*) 11:12
11. Eight Miles High (*) 6:51

- Dave Arbus / electric violin, flute, bagpipe, recorders, two saxophones
- Ron Caines / Soprano & Alto saxophones (acoustic & amplified), organ, vocals (4)
- Dave Dufont / percussions
- Geoff Nicholson / guitars, Vocals
- Steve York / bass guitar, Harmonica, Indian thumb piano