And In the Beginning... The Complete Early Man 1968-69

The title of this two-CD set is on the grand side, considering it's basically a straight reissue of Man's first two albums, Revelation and 2 Ozs. of Plastic With a Hole in the Middle, with a few marginal extras. Those extras are a few mono single mixes of three Revelation tracks and, from the second album sessions, alternate versions of "My Name Is Jesus Smith" and "Spunk Box" (here retitled "Walkin' the Dogma"), as well as the previously unreleased "A Sad Song." Fans of the slightly more pop-aligned side of psychedelia will prefer the Revelation material on disc one, as Man try on several shades of psych for style with both imagination and awkwardness, uneasily flitting between heavy blues-rock, operatic backup vocals, West Coast-influenced moody organ-based passages, early space rock, and even an instrumental ("Erotica") that sounds like nothing less than the freaked-out soundtrack to a porn movie, complete with quite convincing wordless female moans. (For those who diligently track the rarest of variations, the mono single mix of "Erotica" is from a "non-U.K. issue" — presumably the version used in one, some, or all European territories in which the track was issued as a single.) On disc two, 2 Ozs. of Plastic With a Hole in the Middle finds the band moving toward a harder, more progressive style of rock with lengthy instrumental passages, sometimes with casual similarity to the astral sound of groups like Pink Floyd, though retaining a bent for lumpy bluesy rock. Of the bonuses here, "A Sad Song" is a modest instrumental ballad with blues slide guitar that sounds like a vocal-less backing track; the "early version" of "Spunk Box" isn't much different from the finished one; and the alternate of "My Name Is Jesus Smith" just combines a previously unissued extended instrumental version with a previously unissued extended vocal version. In all it's not enough to make a case for Man as a major psychedelic/progressive band, but it's certainly impressively packaged, and David Wells' excellent lengthy liner notes are quite entertaining.