REVISIO: John St Field – Control

Detailed review of the Guerssen reissue of “Control” (2023) in the “Revisio” section. The album is uneven but at its best one of the most unusual, twisted works the editors have come across in a long time: pop and prog with lysergic lyrics. Highlighted are “Soft Lowland Tongue” (about the Border Reivers, with place references to the border region where the magazine is based), the almost eleven-minute “The Problem”, the sound collage “Dune Voices” and “Raerona”; “Ruins”, “I'm Always A Prinlaws Boy” and the more commercial pieces fall short. The background story (recorded in 1971 in an LSD haze, pseudonym because of trouble with the police, delayed release in Spain, rearrangement by Leven in the 1990s, Guerssen in the original sequence) is retold. Tone: enthusiastic (“imperfect perfection”).