GENTLE GIANT

Nov 29, 2019 31 minutes

Words: Dom Lawson

Illustration:

Mark Leary

Edited by Jo Kendall jo.kendall@futurenet.com

Never mind the contents, just feel the bloody weight of the thing! Gentle Giant have certainly taken their time in providing devout fans with a suitably comprehensive box set, but if you drop Unburied Treasure on your foot, it won’t just be the band’s music that lingers on in the memory. Those lucky enough to have obtained recent box sets for Steve Hillage and Family will know what to expect: an absolute, ankle-shattering motherlode, designed to satisfy even the fussiest completist. It’s a beautiful thing, too: 30 discs deep and augmented with a lavish 136-page coffee table book and a host of brilliant extras, all housed in a robust box and with the official blessing of all members of the band thrown in as a heart-warming bonus. All that’s missing is a small wheelbarrow in which to transport it.

The music is the biggest draw here, of course… and what music it is. Every one of Gentle Giant’s 11 studio albums has been remastered for the occasion, with a bonus Steven Wilson remix of their eponymous debut for some additional compare’n’contrast action. If there’s a better run of albums than the eight-strong splurge of creativity that the Portsmouth crew notched up between 1970 and 1976, somebody’s been keeping it quiet. From revered classics Acquiring The Taste and Octopus through to the underrated Interview, the sheer ingenuity and invention of these young musicians takes the breath away as much now as it must surely have done the first time around. Even much-maligned late-period fare like 1978’s Giant For A Day! bears strenuous revisiting: what a deeply peculiar and yet endlessly exhilarating band they were, even as punk rock and new wave snapped at their heels. For audio nerds, the Blu-ray boasting Steven Wilson’s high-res 7.1 surround mixes of Gentle Giant make the same point in sparkling, multiple dimensions.

The biggest treat for the diehards comes in the slightly overwhelming form of 15 albums of previously unreleased live material. Some of these recordings have circulated as bootlegs for many years, but everything has been newly remastered to wring the very best possible results from some frequently primitive snapshots. Many of the performances are taken from audience recordings, so the sound quality is variable and a little tough on the ears at times, but this is definitely a rabbit-hole that the most ardent fans will want to dive down. Seemingly incapable of performing their songs the same way twice, Gentle Giant mutated into something bigger and better in the flesh, as what were already fairly offbeat songs sprouted extra limbs and scuttled off in random directions. There are also several moments in every show when the sheer audacity of the Shulman brothers’ vocal interplay leaps from the speakers. Although songwriters at heart, it was an urge to hurl twigs into progressive rock’s spokes that continually set Gentle Giant apart from their contemporaries. That intuitive oddness didn’t help them to enjoy the level of commercial success their rich and ground-breaking sound arguably deserved, either, but as you listen to this wild, six-man band hurtling through something as wilfully perverse as early epic Nothing At All (found here in numerous, entirely distinct forms) it’s hard not to applaud their commitment or, at times, their ferocity. A disc of material recorded at rehearsals at Pinewood in January 1977 suggests that Gentle Giant went at it like madmen behind closed doors, too.

Unburied Treasure

MADFISH

“The urge to hurl twigs into prog’s spokes set the band apart.”

A show as main support to Black Sabbath at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl in 1972 is about as rough’n’ready as it got for all concerned, thanks in part to the partisan crowd’s initial indifference and then increasing hostility to the challenging, but by no means inaccessible, racket coming from the stage. In contrast, complete shows from Munich and Paris in ’76, both plundered for parts of Playing The Fool, are unmissable: the former, in particular, showcases a band at the peak of their live powers, not least on a truly magical excerpt from Octopus medley. Famously resistant to any and all notions of a reunion, Gentle Giant have at least provided us with countless hours of this stuff to pore over at our leisure.

Then, of course, there are the replica posters and booklets, the Giant For A Day! cardboard mask and Missing Piece jigsaw (with, you know, a missing piece) and a 96-page tour history book full of set lists, memorabilia and fresh commentary on this set’s revived live recordings. At the risk of stating the obvious, there is a lot of unburied treasure here, which is why this opulent, substantial extravaganza is limited to 2,000 copies worldwide and costs a small fortune.

As a large object with which to efficiently flatten disobedient household pets, Unburied Treasure is hard to fault. As a comprehensive monument to a legendary band, it’s pretty much unbeatable. Just mind those toes.