Archives 1 - News From The 80ies

Unreleased material , written in the 70's and 80's , featuring "Grail" mastermind Chris Williams ! Sometime in the late 90’s, I received a demo tape from Chris Williams, then living in Birmingham. I was surprised because most of the songs, all of which had been written in the 70’s and 80’s, had long since been recorded by Abacus and Grail. But I had little interest in the tape because Abacus had musically moved away from Krautrock, having redefined and established themselves as a Progressive-Rock band. Chris and Paul Barret had recorded these songs very simply, using only one or two intruments, and in his accompanying letter, Chris asked me to complete them by adding keyboards, as well as other instruments and to do the arrangements as well. I can’t remember having listened to the tape, and it vanished for years, falling into a deep sleep at the bottom of some drawer at the Abacus Studios. After Chris’s death, it occurred to me that I had a musical reminiscence of him somewhere, and it was only after the Abacus Studios had been renovated, that I eventually found and listened to the tape. Chris and Paul had uniquely interpreted the Abacus and Grail songs and in addition to my surprise, I also felt guilty at not having done what Chris had asked me to do so many years before. I started working on the material in 2012, and it soon turned out to be somewhat of a nightmare because the demo tape had no sync-track. As a result, drums, keyboards, guitars, and brass had to be recorded live and then synchronized by hand. Additional voices, as well as a chorus, were also added to most of the songs. All of this was not only painstaking, it was time-consuming as well. And so I am now very pleased to present to our old, and maybe even new Abacus fans, this CD which contains half of the original demo tape material. I am certain a sequel will follow and I am honestly looking forward to working on the remaining material as well. Chris will like it. Hamm, November 2013 Jürgen Wimpelberg