July - The Complete Recordings: 6CD Clamshell Box Set [CD]

<ul> <li><strong>Released by the Major Minor label in 1968, the self-titled July album has long been acknowledged by genre enthusiasts as one of the classic UK psychedelic one-shots, mixing the ambition and experimentation of &ldquo;Sgt. Pepper&rdquo; with a lo-fi charm and endearing garage band artlessness.</strong></li> </ul> <ul> <li><strong>It is also one of the most hotly-pursued artefacts of the British psychedelic era, with an original UK copy (only graded at VG++) recently selling on eBay for around &pound;3700. </strong></li> </ul> <ul> <li><strong>Our definitive 6-CD overview of the band&rsquo;s activities includes newly-remastered versions of the album in both mono and stereo formats (the latter only previously available on the original 1968 American release) as well as the various single issues, including a completely different recording of album nugget &lsquo;The Way&rsquo;.</strong></li> </ul> <ul> <li><strong>Disc Three contains &ldquo;The Second Of July&rdquo;, a collection of pre-album demos that appeared in the mid-Nineties to capitalise on the band&rsquo;s growing reputation as original copies of their LP began to sell for increasingly large sums of money. </strong></li> </ul> <ul> <li><strong>The remainder of the boxed set consists of more recent July recordings following their triumphant return to live work a few years ago. Disc Four is the aborted album &ldquo;Temporal Anomaly&rdquo;, which was recorded circa 2010 but which gains a first-ever release, while Disc 5 is the appropriately-titled &ldquo;Resurrection&rdquo;, which received a limited release in 2013.</strong></li> </ul> <ul> <li><strong>Disc Six comprises the latest July magnum opus, &ldquo;The Wight Album&rdquo;, which has been pieced together over the last few years by Tom Newman and Peter Cook at Tom's recording studio on the Isle of Wight. Now finally completed, &ldquo;The Wight Album&rdquo; - described by Tom as &ldquo;the greatest July album&rdquo; &ndash; brings the July story bang up to date.</strong></li> </ul> <ul> <li><strong>Housed in a clamshell box, and with a 40-page booklet containing a 7000 word essay on the band featuring new quotes and some priceless period photos, <em>The Complete Recordings</em> is an epic look at the studio activities of one of the biggest cults to emerge from the original British psychedelic scene. </strong></li> </ul>