the of mirror eye

* Joe Meek: The Entry Of The Globbots (5.0 mb) | The Valley Of Sarooes (4.5 mb) | Orbit Around The Moon (4.5 mb) | Magnetic Field (4.5 mb)
From The EP Collection : Castle Music : CMXBX1461

Those of you long, long, long time readers of this here blog know of my great love for anything Joe Meek related (look here, here and here). He was a true producing genius who stopped at nothing to unleash the sounds in his head. So, when I stumbled upon this mammoth EP collection (12 CDs in all) at my local record shop, I just had to have it. Mostly because it’s Joe Meek but partly because it’s packaged in a kind of ridiculous format, seemingly designed just for record geeks like me. I mean, they could’ve easily fit this on 2 CDs, but instead decided to package all the EPs in individual miniaturized replicas of the old sleeves. For many, the EP format was where Joe Meek could really shine.

It could be argued that Extended Plays - as evocative of an era as the producer himself - were the ideal format for Joe Meek. Sometimes he struggled to cram all of the ideas that were swirling around in his head into a two-and-a-half minute single; conversely, he often didn’t have enough strong material at his disposal to ensure that full-length albums were consistently entertaining. Over the course of four songs, however, Joe was in his element, able to combine expansive flights of fancy with his innate Pop genius - as can be gauged from this collection of a dozen key Meek EPs. (from the liner notes)

My previous posts didn’t get to touch on his weirder recordings, not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t have any to post. So I was super excited to see that this EP collection had not just the first EP of his space rock odyssey, I Hear A New World, but the unissued second EP as well.

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Before I forget, if you enjoyed this the fine folks at Comfort Stand have provided a full CD of Joe Meek demos (look here) for our enjoyment.