Camel – “Moonmadness” (1976)

For quite a long period in my life I often thought about whether I should get some albums I had on vinyl also on CD, I thought it was so comfortable to listen to CDs. Far too often, I let the convenience guide me and I took a CD from the shelf instead of a LP. Thus, many of my vinyl records were unplayed for a long time. Nowadays it is the opposite. Moonmadness is an album that have followed the path from CD to vinyl. Firstly, I think this is Camel's best album (yes, better than The Snow Goose) and therefore deserves to exist in my collection in both formats. Secondly, I have, thanks to my stay in Quebec (where I currently live), found lots of records with the North American cover. This is fantastic for a European like me.

Above you therefore see the North American cover of Moonmadness, which is totally different than the European one. Some of you may wonder if it really makes sense to buy a record you already own just because it has a different cover, the music's the same. Of course it’s worth it, I answer, especially if you can find the record for five dollars. You should know that serious collectors often buy all the different covers that exist of a record, one record from each country where the record has been pressed, different pressings, and so on. So my purchases of records with North American covers is nothing.

Moonmadness is Camel's fourth album and was the album released after their breakthrough The Snow Goose (it’s strange that you can never write or talk about Camel without mentioning this album). This is also the last album with the original lineup of the band - Andrew Latimer (guitar, flute, vocals), Peter Bardens (keyboards, vocals), Doug Ferguson (bass, vocals) and Andy Ward (drums, percussion, vocals).

The record has a loose concept consisting of songs that personify the four band members. Air Born is about Latimer, Lunar Sea is about Ward, Chord Change about Bardens and Another Night about Ferguson. All songs are written by Latimer and Bardens except Another Night which all band members have been given credit for composing.

As mentioned above, this album is my favorite Camel album and also one of my favorite records all categories. Camel belongs to the progressive school, but always manages to stay on the right side of the border to too difficult and complex. Bands such as King Crimson sometimes becomes too great a challenge for me as their music often is too strange and neurotic. Camel is a challenge just big enough and Moonmadness finds the perfect balance between difficult and enjoyable. They give the listener challenges like long instrumental parts, time changes and odd time signatures, but all the time it’s easy to like what you hear. In contrast to The Snow Goose, Moonmadness has vocals in most songs. Because something always happens in the songs the listener's interest is kept alive at all times, no part nor song is too long, you never grow tired of the music. We are treated to everything from dreamy harmonies to 7/4 time signatures, often in one and the same song.

Many people compare Moonmadness with Pink Floyd's creations, personally I don’t think they belong in the same category. 70s Pink Floyd was more about epic albums with big soundscapes. Compared with PF Camel no doubt belongs to the more classic progressive music genre and I suspect that the members of Camel are more skilled as musicians (maybe Gilmour uncounted) but perhaps not as songwriters. This means the music of Camel is a bit more difficult (but not too difficult), more complex (but not too complex) and probably a bit more technically demanding for the musician. The sound is also "smaller" than PF's often larger soundscapes.

I highly recommend this album to everyone on planet Earth. I believe that even those who usually don’t like progressive music can appreciate this LP. Since it was purchased, it has been played a lot on my stereo and it will continue to do so. It is one of the few albums where all of the songs (almost) are fantastic. The two examples of the songs below from YouTube are two songs my then 1 ½-year-old son liked a lot. As a responsible father I thought the musical education must begin early. For a long time these two songs were his favorites along with a Lee Hazlewood song. I thought I had succeeded, but unfortunately he has a seven-year-old gone lost. Perhaps he can find his way back home again.

Finally, following the Moonmadness recording Mel Collins (saxophone, flute) became a new member of the band and Ferguson was replaced by Richard Sinclair (ex-Caravan).

Favorite Songs

Air Born

Lunar Sea

 

Tracklist

Side A

1. Aristillus 1:56

2. Song Within a Song 7:16

3. Chord Change 6:45

4. Spirit of the Water 2:07

Side B

1. Another Night 6:58

2. Air Born 5:02

3. Lunar Sea 9:11